[ossig] EC boosts open source

[Ditesh Kumar]

From
http://www.kablenet.com/kd.nsf/Frontpage/564F36716FD8AE2E8025720400373D36?OpenDocument

EC boosts open source
11 October 2006

The European Commission has taken steps to promote the use of open
source systems and software in the public sector

It has selected a consortium led by Unisys Belgium to create and manage
the Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR), the company announced
on 11 October 2006. 

Other members of the consortium are the Maastricht Economic Research
Institute on Innovation and Technology, consultancy GOPA Cartermill and
the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos of Madrid.

They will provide an internet service and portal enabling European
administrations to centrally store and share the software code of their
open source applications and exchange open source knowledge. It is aimed
at helping them to improve the return on their IT investments and make
their applications more interoperable.

OSOR will be a common repository where, in addition to the source and
object code, information will be available regarding the use of
applications, different software versions, open source licences and
contract material. On the OSOR web portal, member states'
administrations will also be able to share know-how about their
different open source applications.

The European Commission hopes it will encourage European administrations
to use each other's software and develop common projects. This could be
in areas such as public e-procurement, interoperability between
government applications and mutual recognition of the various e-ID card
formats. 

Sharing and reusing applications would provide significant savings in
investment costs.

"Public administrations' interest in open source is not so much about
open source replacing proprietary products," said Karel De Vriendt, head
of the EU's European eGovernment Services Unit. 

"More and more it is about developing custom applications based on open
source software, on collaboration during development and on using open
source licences to share the results of such developments. The new OSOR
should become the preferred cooperation tool to speed up software
pooling amongst member states."

Unisys and its partners will consult with stakeholders to determine the
format of OSOR this year, and is planning to make the service
operational in late 2007. It will also look for interesting open source
applications to add to OSOR and support collaboration between different
European open source projects.


Source: Kable's Government Computing
Publication date: 11/10/2006 11:03:23