The publication of the results of an IDA study on promoting the re-use of software owned by public administrations was widely reported in the specialist media, and the study's reports were downloaded close to 15000 times in July alone. Many individuals wrote to IDA indicating their interest in any follow-up to the study.
To recap, the study recommended the creation of a software clearing house to which administrations could "donate" software under an open source licence and which would then distribute the software to other public administrations. The facility would concentrate on applications specific to the needs of the public sector and could encourage the replication of good practice in e-government services.
While the benefits of greater re-use of software are generally recognised, creating a pooling facility would require long-term commitment and substantial budgetary resources. A group of experts from seven Member States, Norway and the IDA unit have, therefore, decided to work out a proposal for a step-wise implementation of a support structure for software re-use, parts of which could already be constructed in 2003. The experts from Denmark, Germany, France, Italy, The Netherlands, Norway, Austria and the United Kingdom met for the first time in November 2002 and intend to establish a proposal for IDA action by early 2003.
The recently intensifying government interest in open source software has shown that public administrations need to come to well-informed decisions regarding the choice of software available to them. In several Member States studies on the benefits and constraints of open source software (OSS) are being carried out, sometimes with overlapping problem statements.
Participants at the November meeting were quick to agree on what they considered the overriding priority for IDA action, namely to increase public administrations' knowledge and understanding of open source software, especially its application to government. There is, they stated, a clear requirement in Europe to provide an observatory function that could be referenced for up-to-date and comprehensive information on government studies on OSS, on the use of OSS and on related policy actions. The objective would not to be to favour one software over another but to inform the debate by consolidating the knowledge that is currently dispersed over many public administrations in Europe and difficult to access.
A number of participants at the November meeting reported on moves to implement national software competence centres. The intended scope of these will span from carrying out exploratory software assessment to providing technical advice and even certification services. The experts considered how IDA can support these actions. While first level technical advice was not required from a European service, the ability to provide neutral advice through independent studies was considered important, especially on questions of interoperability.
The group will submit its proposals to the TAC WHAM, IDA's working group for horizontal actions and measures, and is likely to suggest a number of measures to be included in IDA's 2003 work programme. A final decision will be taken with the Telematics between Administrations Committee (TAC), which is scheduled to adopt the work programme towards March 2003.
More information:
idabc@ec.europa.eu
Article published in the IDA Report 16 - December 2002
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