Public administrations across Europe are investing unprecedented resources in digital transformation through public programs and funds such as FESR 2014 – 2020 and FESR 2021 – 2027. Too often, however, these investments result in fragmented proprietary solutions with limited reuse and long-term dependency risks.
The Goffice 2.0 – Tax project demonstrates a concrete and scalable alternative: how public money can generate public code, while at the same time fostering a healthy and competitive open-source market.
Developed within the architecture Goffice 2.0 of the Consorzio dei Comuni della Provincia di Bolzano, Goffice 2.0 – Tax is a shared, cloud-based system for the digital management of municipal taxes and fees, designed to be used by all 116 municipalities of South Tyrol. The solution covers the entire lifecycle of local taxation processes, from citizen and contract management to calculation engines, electronic invoicing, digital notifications and payments, fully integrated with national enabling platforms such as ANPR, SPID, CIE, PagoPA, FatturaPA and the National Digital Notifications Platform.
The application has been developed by Sidera ICTEase as a Java full-stack solution, based on a microservices architecture orchestrated with Kubernetes, ensuring scalability, resilience and long-term maintainability. The user interface is entirely built using the Vaadin framework, enabling the delivery of modern, high-performance web applications tightly integrated with backend services.
A key aspect of the project is its open source by design approach, aligned with the public money – public code principle: the software is developed once, financed with public funds, and is reusable over time by other public administrations. This enables economies of scale, procedural standardization and long-term sustainability, while reducing vendor lock-in.
From an economic and market perspective, the project highlights the complementary roles of two companies within an open-source ecosystem:
• Vaadin, an Apache 2.0–licensed framework, serves as a strategic pillar for digital sovereignty. By seamlessly integrating modern web standards into the Java ecosystem and automating communication between browser and server, Vaadin allows developers to build sophisticated full-stack applications without complex frontend stacks. Its open-source model provides public authorities with full control over their software stack and data, supporting independence from proprietary silos.
• Sidera ICTEase, an Italian company specialized in digital solutions for the public sector, has designed and implemented Goffice 2.0 – Tax leveraging open technologies and open-source components. Its business model is centered on value-added services—architecture design, development, customization, system integration, training and long-term support—demonstrating how open source shifts the market from license-based revenues to expertise and service quality.
The talk will share architectural choices, governance aspects and economic implications of the project, highlighting best practices and lessons learned for public administrations and companies aiming to build sustainable open-source solutions together. Goffice 2.0 – Tax shows that open source, when combined with clear governance and service-oriented business models, can deliver innovation, efficiency and long-term public value.
