EPFSUG

Wenn es einen Preis für komische Abkürzungen gibt, dann geht der bestimmt an die EPFSUG (European Parliament Free Software User Group).

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European Union lost open source decision C(2006) 7108

Recently I stumbled upon a footnote in an old IDABC presentation, then had a look at the Commission registers with the reference and found a document from the Commission that was not made public yet.

C(2006)7108/1 22/12/2006 Enterprise and Industry Draft Commission Decision concerning the use of an open source software licence related to sofware developed under the IDA or IDABC programmes

A final version of the decision is not found in the register. In Europe you can file a request for public document access under the  regulation EC/1049/2001 and usually get what you ask for. IDABC is now superceded by a new EU programme for interoperability, ISA. Apparently the Commission decision was later updated when the 1.1 version of the European Union Public License was approved. The EUPL is a wise choice for software from the public sector and enterprises as it is the legally best reviewed license for European market jurisdictions, available in all EU languages, it does not contain a political agenda and is compatible to most common licenses such as the GPL.

View this document on Scribd

Any further questions?

• Was C(2006) 7108 ever formally adopted or “top killed”? Does “The European Commission approved the EUPL v.1.0 on 9 January 2007” refer to C(2006) 7108?
  It seems the document was adopted.
• Why is a final decision not found in the register?
  Because the Commission decided so on purpose! Very fishy.

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Reding: Open source window of opportunity

Some people found what EU-Commissioner Reding had to say about the European Software Strategy:

believe that these are the necessary preconditions for the European
software industry to ride the rising wave of on-line software. But, the essential
point is that this shift to on-line software will change the way the software
business is done. It will place a new emphasis on open and interoperable
systems that can be upgraded and joined together in networks with other
systems. And, although there will always be a role for proprietary systems, I
believe that the on-line world will see a shift towards open standards and
indeed open source software in order to respond to this new paradigm.

These advantages are ones that give Europe its window of opportunity to
develop a leadership position in software. But this window is small and it will
soon be closed if we don’t act. I can illustrate this already. Even if 70% of
open source developers are European, 90% of the economic benefits are
being won by US companies.

My view is: If we have the brains, we should also get the gains!
That is why we need a European Strategy for Software and we need it now.

And this was November 19, 2007. I wonder if the windows is still open.

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