Where is Germany’s strategic IT reserve?

German agencies and ministries like to use Microsoft Office. But it is 2026, and we also know that at any time

• Prices could get jacked up
• Foreign software might violate European Union law
• A foreign government might decide to switch off access to its software

Is this a problem solved by open-source software? Most commercial open-source software has a single vendor who at any time

• Might jack up prices
• Might make using the free and open source software harder
• Might simply stop providing open source updates (the so-called “rug pull”)

If any of this happens, whether it is closed proprietary or commercial open-source software, the software users will crash into a wall [1].

In many cases, the consequences could be severe.

Germany has a strategic energy reserve, a food reserve, a water reserve. Singapore has a sand reserve (whatever seems strategic).

Where is Germany’s strategic IT reserve? Where are the contingency plans if critical software becomes unavailable?

As we discuss digital sovereignty, we need not just to look at independence, which I think is not achievable even in the mid-term. We also need to set up contingency plans. This will cost money, but I find it irresponsible, if critical functions have no fail-safe switchover, should access to software get turned off.

I’ve been mulling over IT contingency planing for digital sovereignty for a while. It is a great research question but I could not find any work on best practices or economic models.

As an example, if you are an agency providing critical services and running Microsoft Office, contingency planning could involve also running LibreOffice in a small part of the organization, so that if Microsoft Office goes away, switching over could be done more quickly than without.

I’m at FOSDEM 2026, so I floated this research idea, and it turns out, because there is money in it, some companies have already been picking up this idea. Univention’s Nubus IAM solution, for one, can be had at 20% of the regular license price to run along side Active Directory as a hot standby so that users can switch over at any time, without any loss.

Turns out, this is also a great sales strategy.

So I want to encourage commercial open source vendors (and anyone, really), to find ways to make their product available in such a way that it can serve as a standby at whatever temperature seems possible. I’m well aware of how much professional services may be needed to get some software up and running, but not all software needs to be commissioned as a hot standby.

These are not the times to skimp on backups, contingency planning, and strategic IT reserves.

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[1] It should be noted that it is much harder to stop someone from using open-source software than it is to stop them from using closed-source software. However, even if agencies use open-source software, it is still typically provided by a vendor, and a vendor will always want to increase lock-in. Still, open source is better than closed source wrt softening a crash if the vendor pulls out.