The program serves as the main strategy for modernizing government processes and states as goals both the efficiency and effectivity of government and increased transparency, with structural reforms, new forms of collaboration and cooperation, as well as more horizontal and vertical collaboration throughout government departments as the way to do it. Twenty separate courses of actions are described and planned in more detail. The program is available as PDF for download.

The German Open Data Network posted a short review on its blog of the 79 pages long program, looking at if and how PSI reuse and open data are part of the effort.

On page 27 the program notices how the USA, UK and other countries are actively pursuing open data and open government initiatives, and not just 'discussing it', and opening up data resources to everyone. This is placed in the context of 'international competition' the German government finds itself in. On the website accompanying the program 'Innovative Governance' this is also mentioned on the front page, where the very first sentence mentions how governance systems determine attractiveness of a country as a place for doing business.

The program mentions publishing PSI and open data as a way forward, but does call for 'a simple and unified' system for reusers to pay for data. The program does not answer the question if the German government intends to publish public data under an open license on the internet in the future, but in stead points to both the German geoportal and statistics office as pilots for publishing data. Both those examples are not working towards opening up raw data.

The timeline for the program is roughly as follows:

• End of 2010 : Concept ready for Open Government in the federal government
• End of 2010: Start of open government pilot inside the Germany ministry for the interior
• 2011: Development, discussion and coordination of a federal open government strategy, taking into account the plans of individual German states, and those of the EU concerning electronic citizen participation.
• 2012: Discussion and coordination of a common strategy for open government with the German states.
• 2012: Roll-out of the common open government strategy for transparent governance.

The German Open Data Network concludes, that while this plan certainly is promising it is also somewhat cautious and bureaucratic still. The German Open Data Network would like to see a more clear cut statement on the political level about making PSI reuse possible for everyone.