FOSS activities and initiatives in the European Union institutions (other than DG INFSO)
The impact of FOSS reaches far beyond research and development activities. This page is trying to give an idea of other activities of European Union in this area.
A good staring point to explain EU activities in FOSS is the e-Europe 2005 action plan, which calls for the consideration of open source software solutions in many areas, in particular in the field of public administrations (http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/eeurope/2005/all_about/action_plan/index_en.htm).
IDABC
In parallel the IDABC programme on interchange of data between European administrations studied the pooling of open source software resources and production between European administrations. IDABC program will come to an end on 31/12/2009, and will be followed by the new program "Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations - ISA", which is expected to continue its work for the widespread acceptance of FOSS in the public administration. For more information see http://ec.europa.eu/idabc
Policy actions and non-research programmes are active in promoting use of open source software. IDABC programme has first conducted a study on open source software for administrations, and has created the Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR). More information can be found on http://www.osor.eu/
Another important source of information is the ePractice eGovernment and eInclusion factsheets, providing an overall picture of the situation and progress of eGovernment and eInclusion, with a strong focus on Open Source. For more information, see http://www.epractice.eu/en/home/
A consultation meeting (ftp://ftp.cordis.europa.eu/pub/ist/docs/ka4/tesss-oss-report.pdf) on European perspectives for open source software provided the initial input on the main opportunities for open source software in Europe in the coming years.
An important accomplishment of IDABC is the creation of a FOSS license specifically adapted for European law (EUPL) and compatible with some other FOSS licenses. Its purpose is to encourage public administrations to embrace the FOSS model in a framework of legal certainty. More information is available on http://www.osor.eu/eupl
IDABC and ISA are managed by Directorate-General DIGIT of the European Commission (http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/informatics/index_en.htm)
Other DGs
Several Directorate-Generals of the European Commission are strongly involved in ICT policies.
Directorate-General Enterprise and Industry (ENTR) is interested in the competitiveness of the ICT sector, as well in e-business legal aspects and ICT standardization activities.
More information can be found on http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/index_en.htm#policy
An important report from DG Enterprise on economic impact of FOSS is available on http://ec.europa.eu/enterprise/ict/policy/ict/2006-11-20-flossimpact.pdf
DG Competition (COMP) activity in ICT industry has particularly focused on anti-competitive behavior and state aid monitoring. DG Competition accepts state aid "that is beneficial to consumers, by providing new research grants and encouraging the development of new products, such as open source".
More information can be found on http://ec.europa.eu/competition/sectors/ICT/overview_en.html
DG Informatics (DIGIT) provides most ICT systems used internally in European Commissions and other European Institutions. It is not involved in policy making, but it uses and deploys open source components for internal use when this is possible. More info on: http://ec.europa.eu/dgs/informatics/about/index_en.htm
DG Internal Market and Services (MARKT) is involved in public procurement and e-commerce policies, as well as in patenting; all these aspect have direct or indirect connections with FOSS. More info can be found on http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/publicprocurement/index_en.htm and http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/e-commerce/index_en.htm.
Joint Research Centre (JRC)
The Joint Research Centre of the European Commission has a number of free / open source software projects; one very significant example is the OPTIMA - Open Source Text Information Mining and Analysis (http://ipsc.jrc.ec.europa.eu/showaction.php?id=18 and http://emm.jrc.it/overview.html).
European Parliament
The Parliament, for its institutional role, has been several times debating policy issues related to software licenses. A sample of this activity can be found on "Top Stories from the European Parliament 2004-2009" (http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/thematic_note_page/008-46723-019-01-04-901-20090120TMN46722-19-01-2009-2009/default_p001c005_en.htm)
This page is maintained by: Sabine Posdziech