Software Reuse in Local Public Bodies: Lessons Learned in Tuscany

In the last years, in Italy, software reuse has become an e-government hot topic. In this context, reuse is intended as the large scale adoption of software applications developed by local and independent initiatives. Due to the large autonomy of Italian local public administrations, reuse is preferred to centralized development of applications. The paper presents the experience of a three years regional project to manage and enforce reuse in Tuscany. The main result of the project is a model for reuse that emphasizes freedom to develop and freedom to adopt. The implementation of the model is based on a reusable application repository that lists and certifies software products that are available for reuse.