Sustainable digitalisation through different dimensions of openness: how can lock-in, interoperability, and long-term maintenance of IT systems be addressed?

Lock-in, interoperability, and long-term maintenance are three fundamental challenges that need to be addressed by any organisation involved in development, use and procurement of IT systems. This paper clarifies fundamental concepts and key dimensions of openness and provides examples of work-practices and recommendations for achieving sustainable digitalisation through addressing the fundamental challenges. Specifically, there are three main contributions. First, the concepts open standard, open source software, and open content are clarified and elaborated. Second, the associated three dimensions standard, software, and content are elaborated through examples of how different combinations along the dimensions can enable and inhibit sustainable digitalisation when IT-systems are developed and procured. Third, work-practices used by public sector organisations in specific projects for development and procurement of IT-systems are elaborated with the view to discuss how the three fundamental challenges are being addressed and provide guidance for how organisations can achieve a sustainable digitalisation.