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The European Parliament's own-inititative report on [[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A8-2015-0371+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN|"Towards the Digital Single Market Act"]] adopted in January 2016 which reflects the Parliament's non-binding position on the legislative and political changes proposed by the European Commission in the light of latter's "Digital Single Market Strategy" included several positive references about the increased use of Free Software in public administrations and educational establishments. The report also highlights the security advantages of Free Software. The European Parliament's own-inititative report on [[http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPORT+A8-2015-0371+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN|"Towards the Digital Single Market Act"]] adopted in January 2016 which reflects the Parliament's non-binding position on the legislative and political changes proposed by the European Commission in the light of latter's "Digital Single Market Strategy" calls upon the Commission to increase the use of Free Software in public administrations and educational establishments. The report also highlights the security advantages of Free Software.

Introduction

Many countries in Europe have laws and recommendations referring to Free Software and Open Standards. The picture is certainly complex, and can be confusing at times.

On this wiki page, we attempt to provide an overview of the laws and policies that exist throughout Europe. If you are working for Free Software in your country, it is useful for you to know what your government says about the topic. Comparisons between different countries can also be instructive.

This page is still a draft. Please help us improve it and complete the picture ! Do you know about a policy we're missing ? Have we overlooked an aspect of a policy in your country ?

If yes, please include a link to the relevant government publication whenever possible, ideally along with a (rough) translation of the relevant passages.

This is a work in progress. Please help us make this overview the best it can be!

European Union

In 2004 the European Interoperability Framework v.1 was published, where, for the first time on the pan-European level, Free Software and proprietary software were treated equally. The EC encouraged the use of Open Standards in e-government services to effectively implement software interoperability both on national and international levels.

The term “Open Standards” is not in use in the European Interoperability Strategy and the EIF v.2, published in 2010. Instead, the EC introduced the term “open specifications” and proposed that“when establishing European public services, public administrations should prefer open specifications, taking due account of the coverage of functional needs, maturity and market support”.

The EC actively promotes public procurement of Free Software: in 2008 and 2010 special guidelines for public administrations on how and why publicly acquire Free Software were published.

Among other important EU documents on Free Software and Open Standards, EU Digital Agenda explicitly states that public procurement of software and ICT should promote efficiency and reduce lock-in.

The European Parliament's own-inititative report on "Towards the Digital Single Market Act" adopted in January 2016 which reflects the Parliament's non-binding position on the legislative and political changes proposed by the European Commission in the light of latter's "Digital Single Market Strategy" calls upon the Commission to increase the use of Free Software in public administrations and educational establishments. The report also highlights the security advantages of Free Software.

European Union's Member States

Austria

National policy on public procurement of Free Software could not be found. Though in 2010 Austria announced its plan to create interoperable e-government systems based on Open Standards and Free Software.

Belgium

Since 2004, federally commissioned software must be delivered with the source code. Federal authorities are recommended to acquire Free Software,but final decisions should be based on total costs.

Starting 2008, Belgian federal government services are obliged to use the Open Document Format when exchanging documents.

Bulgaria

Open Standards and Free Software appear to play no significant role in Bulgaria's eGovernment strategies. In 2008 the Bulgarian government announced that it will consider Free Software while reviewing its national IT strategy.

Since 2015, Free Software is the preferred development form for eGovernment projects and listed as a requirement in the 'Preliminary criteria for the eligibility of eGovernment projects'. The policy is said to be backed up with the relevant legislation in future.

Croatia

In 2006, the Croatian government adopted the "Open Source Software Policy" and issued guidelines for developing and using open source software in the government institutions. The policy encourages to prioritise Free Software in public institutions, to support open standards for protocols and file formats, to support the use of Free Software and open standards outside of its institutions, and to the use of Free Software solutions in educational institutions. However, the Croatian government was not so eager to implement the strategy in practice since its adoption, and by 2010 there was no significant presence of Free Software in Croattian public sector.

In May 2015, Croatian political party Sustainable Development of Croatia (ORaH) published a new policy that encourages the government to pursue Free Software solutions, addresses the dangers of vendor lock-in, and insists on open document standards.

By 2015, the Ministry of Environment and Nature Protection has become one of the country’s major users of Free Software solutions. The software is making possible two geospatial service platforms on biodiversity and environmental protection built for the State Institute for Nature Protection. The biodiversity portal is publicly accessible and can be reused in other systems. The other portal is meant for internal use by the Croatian government. The GIS system provides access to all institutions, helping them to maintain and update their data and making it easy to share and exchange information.

Cyprus

There appear to be no Free Software policies.

Czech Republic

Free Software policies could not be found.

The Czech Republic's Environmental Information Agency, is relying on a broad variety of Free Software solutions, including the relational database management system Postgres and its spatial databases extension PostGIS for management of its spatial data. It combines this with Mapserver and Geoserver, for building geospatial web applications. These services are built on open standards.

Denmark

Free Software procurement policy could not be found.

In 2003 the Danish government adopted a Software Strategy emphasizing value for money, competition, freedom of choice, and interoperability. The policy expresses no preference for Free Software.

In 2007-2008 Danish government ran a pilot program , where government institutions were required to carry Open Document Format and Microsoft’s Office Open XML format on all computers. They were obliged to accept ODF created by the public, businesses, and other governmental units. Since 2011, ODF must be used by all state authorities.

In 2014, Aarhus decided on long-term IT strategy that requires the use of open IT standards for all of its future IT projects.

Estonia

Estonia is creating e-government services mainly by using Free Software: including the systems for health care, police, business portals, document exchange, the software for e-Justice, a citizen portal and software for e-Procurement and e-Invoicing. The country also by default makes all of its software solutions available using the European Public Licence, EUPL.

The capital of Estonia, Tallinn, are piloting a program to gradually move to PC workstations running on Free Software. Students, teachers, school administration and kindergartens’ staff members are using LibreOffice, Ubuntu-Linux and other Free Software tools, and the program is expected to be expanded to other cities in the country.

Finland

Finnish government has recommended government agencies to consider Free Software since 2003.

In 2009 JUHTA, the public administration of information, has released the recommendation on the use of Free Software in public administrations. This policy document is intended to guide public institutions in the procurement of Free Software. Nevertheless, until now Open Standards and Free Software are not yet among the top priorities of the Finnish national IT policy.

In 2015, the city administration of Helsinki adopted IT strategy that emphasises a preference for Free Software, especially when developing or commissioning the development of software solutions.

France

The French government was among the first in Europe to consider setting up a national Free Software policy. The first proposals are dated 1999. Since then, several ministries, including Ministries of Defence, Culture, Economy, moved to Free Software operating systems.

In 2007 a guide of using Free Software in public administrations was published. Open Standards are used in e-government systems at the national, regional and local level.

Also, France has a public procurement law which includes the definition of Open Standards but does not provide them with mandatory or preferable status.

On September 19 2012, the newly appointed French government published a circular on Free Software in public administration. The document aims at giving guidelines and recommendations to public bodies related to their use of Free Software, it . It highlights the advantages of Free Software in term of competition, technological sovereignty and cost control. It also stresses the importance of sharing knowledge and skills in the digital society. The document promotes public contribution to Free Software project and regular contact with Free Software communities. The policy created several working groups -on desktop applications, data bases, server OS and virtualisation systems- and a "kernel team" to favour interoperability, promote good practices and manage public contribution to Free Software projects.

On June 25 2013, a law concerning the “Policy and planning for the rebuilding of the school of the Republic ” was voted by the French Parliament. Its article 10 concerning e-learning states that procurement for e-learning services has to “consider Free Software and open format offers, if any”.

On July 9 2013 the prioritisation of Free Software was voted by the French parliament for the first time. It concerns learning resources used by French Higher Education public service. Article L. 123-4-1 states that

  • "The Public Service for Higher Education provides digital services and educational resources to its users." "Free software is used on a priority basis."

Germany

The German government actively recommends and promotes usage and procurement of Free Software by public administrations. As an example, in 2007 the Foreign office moved to the ODF.

Under Germany's Standards and Architectures for eGovernment Applications 4.0 (SAGA 4.0, 2008), ODF recommended for editable text documents. Since 2007, all communications with the federal courts may be transmitted in the ODF format.

Greece

Free Software policies or major initiatives could not be found.

Hungary

Free Software policies could not be found.

Ireland

Free Software policies or major initiatives could not be found.

However, public sector is increasingly turning to Free Software solutions while organising its daily work. In 2013, the country's Local Government Management Agency publicly announced its so-called Sandbox, a standalone network infrastructure offering a safe, controlled environment. Already in place for a while now, the sandbox helped convince local administrations to implement customer relation management tool SugarCRM and content management system Drupal. Previously in 2011, the South Dublin County Council started piloting the use of FixMyStreet, a Free Software, online service developed to allow citizens to report potholes, broken sidewalks, graffiti, non-functioning lamp posts and other problems around their neighbourhood.

Ireland National Library is using Free Software in all parts of its digital library infrastructure. Linux systems are used for web services, for middleware systems and for managing digital assets.

Italy

The Italian government encourages the use of Free Software by the public administrations and calls for its extensive use where possible.

The 2004 Italian Directive for public procurement of software stated that in the acquisition of software, the public administration must consider Free Software and judge software according to transferability, interoperability, dependency on supplier, and the availability of the source code for inspection.

In 2007 Italy launched its own repository of Free software for public administrations (Ambiente di Sviluppo Cooperativo).

Latvia

Free Software policies or major initiatives could not be found.

Lithuania

Free Software policies could not be found.

Luxemburg

Free Software policies or major initiatives could not be found.

Malta

In 2010 Malta Information Technology Agency has launched a series of policies with the aim to inform and guide government organizations in the procurement process of ICT solutions. Among them, the Open Source Software Policy, Open Source Software Directive, Open Standards policy, Open Standards Directive were published. It states there that government should actively consider acquisition of Free Software taking into account all direct and indirect costs when calculating the cost-effectiveness of Free Software. All prospective ICT investments, procured and / or developed internally within the public sector, shall adopt Open Standards. Open Standards-based solutions and applications should be preferred.

Netherlands

Netherlands appear to have one of the most Free Software-oriented e-government and procurement policies in EU.

From December 2007 the Dutch parliament has been using exclusively Open Standards. The OSOSS ("open source as a part of the software strategy") Program was created to help stimulate the use of Open Standards by public administrations and provide information on Free Software.

In the Action plan published in 2007 the Dutch Cabinet intends to encourage the use of Free Software and Open Standards within the public and semi-public sectors. The key focus here is: “use Open Standards, or come up with a very good reason why this is not possible”. All institutions that still insist on the use of proprietary software must provide reasons for maintaining it until a later date.

Poland

The Polish government recommends the use of Open Standards to public agencies. According to the results of the survey carried out in 2010 90 percent of the Polish public administrations are using Free Software, though most of it is installed on servers.

Portugal

Portugal government recommends use of Free Software in the public administration, but these recommendations are not legally-binding.

Romania

Free Software policies or major initiatives could not be found.

Slovakia

Free Software policies or major initiatives could not be found.

Slovenia

Since 2003 Free Software and proprietary software are given equal consideration in public procurement.

Today only Slovenian courts adopted Open Office as a standard for office usage, but the Slovenian government has recently decided that by 2015 80 percent of the government's offices should be using Free software on their desktops.

Spain

The Spanish authorities promote the Free Software and encourage its usage by public agencies. In 2010 the Spanish government adopted the National Interoperability Framework where it is forbidden for the public administrations to use exclusively non-open standards without offering an Open-Standard alternative, unless such alternatives do not exist.

Sweden

Swedish government recommends public institutions to judge Free Software and proprietary software on an even basis in the public procurement processes.

Contracting authorities in Sweden may require ICT standards as mandatory if these meet the requirement of an "Open Standard" as defined in the European Union’s Interoperability Framework (EIF v 1.0). Other technical specifications can only be used as ‘evaluation criteria’. Currently the list of "Open IT-Standards" includes 46 standards that meet the criteria listed in EIF v. 1.0. To make it to the list, IT standards must be developed openly and publicly. The standard must not constrain reuse of the standard, and intellectual property (patents) should be made freely available.

UK

In 2010 the UK government reviewed its Free Software strategy but remained pro-active user of Free Software. It states that the UK government will actively and fairly consider Free Software solutions alongside proprietary ones in making procurement decisions. Procurement decisions will be made on the basis on the best value for money solution to the business requirement, taking account of total lifetime cost of ownership of the solution, including exit and transition costs, after ensuring that solutions fulfill minimum and essential capability, security, scalability, transferability, support and manageability requirements. However, Free Software is given a preference, where there is no significant overall cost difference between free and non-free software products.

The UK Government will require suppliers to provide evidence of consideration of Free Software solutions during procurement exercises – if this evidence is not provided, bidders are likely to be disqualified from the procurement. The UK Government will expect software developers to consider where necessary a suitable mix of Free Software and proprietary products to ensure that the best possible overall solution can be found.

The Government adopts Open Standards and uses these to communicate with the citizens and businesses that have adopted Free Software solutions.

In a procurement policy note 2011 the UK Cabinet recommends government departments wherever possible to deploy Open Standards in their procurement specifications.

In Government ICT Strategy, published on 30.03.2011, the UK Government impose compulsory Open Standards for the Government ICT infrastructure for interoperability and security reasons. It expressly states that government agencies should procure Free Software solutions, where appropriate - to help with this, a special toolkit for procurers on the use of Free Software will be published within next 6 months. Also, the UK Cabinet will promote more active participation of small and medium-size enterprises as well as voluntary and social sector, social enterprise organizations in bidding for government ICT contracts.

Non-EU European Economic Area Member States

Iceland

In 2007, Icelandic government published the "Policy on Free and Open-source Software" that is promoting the equal treatment of proprietary and Free Software in public procurement; encourages to prioritise Free Software and open standards to avoid vendor lock-in and to promote the reusability of software that is supposed to be the goal of publicly funded custom-build software.

Liechtenstein

To be completed.

Norway

In 2009, a regulation, "Forskrift om IT-standarder i offentlig forvaltning" (approximate translation: "Regulation of IT standards in the public sector") introduced requirements for HTML, PDF, ODF and certain media formats in published documents (FOR-2009-09-25-1222). In 2013, this regulation was revised (FOR-2013-04-05-959) to include the Microsoft-developed Office Open XML format, despite objections (for example, EFN/FriBit, Fri programvare i skolen) in the consultation process and controversy around OOXML's endorsement as an ISO standard.

Activities/EU_Policies_overview_FS (last edited 2019-12-05 12:25:58 by bonnie)