The presentation of the EUPL at the IDABC event was the first to a wider public and marked the start of a broader consultation process. More than 70 participants from across Europe attended. The purpose of the license is to provide legal certainty in the European legislative context by protecting the interests and rights of the owner and users of software.
Join the debate
The proposed EUPL provoked a lively debate on merits and draw-backs of a licence for the European public sector. To open this to a broader group, IDABC has started an online discussion forum under the eGovernment Observatory. IDABC welcomes your comments – critical or supportive – on the principle of a European licence and on the specific wording of the draft text.
A “Government Forge” for Europe?
The second focus of IDABC’s event during the LinuxTag was on the G(overnment)-Forges initiative, named after SourceForges, a well-known distribution site for open source software (OSS). G-Forges explores the possibilities of implementing a Europe-wide networking of facilities for pooling public sector software. It follows work done by the Open Source Observatory to make an inventory of public sector software. The purpose of the initiative is not only to look into ways of making software available but also to look at how to provide organisational support to their development communities. How should these be supported was one of the threads of the discussions during the workshop which would also need to be addressed in an IDABC feasibility study to be started at the end of the year.
More information on the IDABC event at the LinuxTag, including presentations and summary can be found here. The LinuxTag in Karlsruhe is Europe’s biggest Linux- and open source software-focused event. As in 2004, the IDABC workshop took place with the support of the German Federal Ministry of the Interior and the LinuxTag organisers.
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