T3CON with a Focus on the Public Sector and the GSB

Public Sector Day

The fact that TYPO3 has been the CMS of choice in the public sector for a long time has been given additional momentum by the decision of the federal government to develop the Government Site Builder (GSB) from version 11 onwards on the basis of TYPO3.

As part of this positive development, this year's TYPO3 conference ‘T3CON’ opened for the first time with the new ‘Public Sector Day’ - day one was thus dedicated to the use of CMS in the public sector, educational institutions (especially universities) and NGOs.

In addition to a status quo on the development of the GSB, there was an interesting session on the much-criticised EVB IT contracts, the area of cyber security and the increasingly relevant complex of accessibility. The day was rounded off with concrete application examples from two universities. In the following, I pick up on a few topics and insights from the day that were relevant to me - without any claim to completeness, of course ¯\_(ツ)_/¯. 

Government Site Builder: Status quo

Almost exactly one year ago, I already reported on the GSB here on the blog, and my colleague Jan also wrote an article entitled ‘First insights into the Government Site Builder 11’. So it was all the more exciting to now receive an updated status. This was provided by Luisa Faßbender and Frank Nägler from TYPO3 on the one hand and the project managers from the ITZ Bund on the other. In an entertaining panel discussion, Silke Spielkamp, Nikolai Jaklitsch, Katja Helfert and Claudia Pülicher had their say and a few ‘myths’ were dispelled and clarified.

The central question of whether the GSB is ready for use at all was clearly answered: The GSB product website itself (produkt.gsb.bund.de) has been online since summer 2024 and other websites such as innerersicherheitsfonds.de have now also been published on a GSB basis.

It is not news that the GSB code is open source and accessible at opencode.de. However, the federal government's accessible template is not publicly available. The reasons for this are easy to understand, because the federal CI is an integral part of the template and it doesn't take much imagination to visualise what developers with less good intentions could do if they could quickly create their ‘own’ authority with perfect federal CI on the web. The good news is that a basic template that is free of the federal CI is in the works, so that a solid foundation will soon be ready for widespread use.

Digital Sovereignty & Public Money, Public Code

The topic of ‘digital sovereignty’ is often only discussed in passing, but is an essential component of modern IT strategies - especially in view of the increasing attacks on IT systems and infrastructures. This topic plays a central role in the federal government's IT consolidation programme by relying on open source systems such as TYPO3 and the GSB to eliminate dependence on proprietary software providers. This not only strengthens security and control, but also enables more flexible customisation of public IT infrastructures.

Although public authorities and ministries are often perceived as being slow to embrace digital change, the strategy pursued here demonstrates the foresight required to drive digital independence from external players. Relying on open source solutions such as TYPO3 is not only a technical advantage, but also an economic one. The concept of ‘public money, public code’ becomes clear here: public funds flow into publicly accessible, free software instead of high licence fees paid to large corporations. Side fact: In 2023 alone, our federal government spent almost 200 million euros on Microsoft licences (heise.de)  - a clear incentive to rely on open source alternatives that are more cost-efficient in the long term and promote digital independence. 

Ac­cess­ib­il­ity

Accessibility was one of the key topics of the afternoon. As is well known, the topic has played a role in the public sector for a long time, but is also becoming increasingly important for the private sector, at the latest due to the Barrier-Free Strengthening Act .

This is where TYPO3 stands out: it supports accessibility not only in the front end for website visitors, but also in the back end for editors - a unique selling point that benefits considerably from the developments of the GSB project.

In a compact lightning session, the fact that accessibility can only be successfully implemented through a holistic, cross-disciplinary approach was emphasised very well. It's not just a technical, design, UX or editorial issue - all areas need to work together. This is an approach that we at F7 have been pursuing for a long time, but one that I see far too rarely in the ‘wild’. The figures and statistics shown on this topic confirm my impression that far too much potential still falls by the wayside. This is particularly frustrating because accessibility, which is taken into account from the outset, does not cause any relevant additional costs. It only becomes expensive when projects have to be subsequently adapted and ‘tweaked’. It remains incomprehensible why many agencies shy away from the topic, perceive it as a restriction and thus make it unnecessarily expensive and therefore unattractive. 

This is all the more true as well-implemented accessibility significantly improves the user experience for all users.

Best Practice Examples

The Public Sector Day was rounded off with ‘real-world examples’ from Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf and Carl von Ossitzky University Oldenburg. The representatives of both universities reported on their experiences and best-practice solutions in dealing with TYPO3 and the requirements of the higher education sector.

I found this session particularly exciting, as I believe that CMS backends should be as simple as possible and only as technical as necessary. In particular, the backend should be tailored to the situational requirements of the editors. It was very interesting to get new ideas and impulses for backend optimisation on the one hand and to feel confirmed in how well my team and F7 are already set up here on the other - from optimised backends and good documentation to little helpers (e.g. Ext:F7 Preview), training and support from our team.

Summary

The Public Sector Day at this year's T3CON impressively demonstrated how well TYPO3 as a CMS and the public sector can fit together and benefit from each other. The GSB is certainly the most prominent, but also just one of many fantastic examples of the mutual synergies.

The ecosystem consisting of the TYPO3 Association, TYPO3 GmbH, freelancers, agencies and users shows how the open source idea is successfully lived in an active community, resulting in a versatile CMS solution (for the public sector) that is scalable to numerous application scenarios.

Services

• TYPO3 in the public sector
• UX and UI, AX: Accessibility