[plug] Bonzer! eEurope2005 plan riddled with Open Source! (-:

[Leon Brooks]

Reeeeead all about it!

    http://www.open-mag.com/9753483279.htm

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>From that arguably ambiguous call for "open platforms" by the EU Council, the 
EU Commission jumped directly into support for the use of Open Source 
software by EU governments. The action plan dubbed eEurope 2005: An 
Information Society for All and presented at the Seville EU Council meeting 
consistently referenced a call for "Open Source software."

One of the key issues of the plan is to introduce a framework for the delivery 
of pan-European e-government services to citizens and enterprises. Here, the 
very aggressive schedule calls for having in place an agreed interoperability 
framework to support such services by the end of 2003. This framework witl 
recommend technical policies and specifications for joining up public 
administration information systems across the EU. And more specifically the 
action plan calls for the framework to be "based on open standards and 
encourage the use of Open Source software." 

At this point, you could easily be expecting a FUD campaign from Microsoft 
with accusations of fuzzy Utopian thinking flying about. The eEurope 2005 
action plan, however, leaves precious little room for such an attack. The 
objective of the plan is quite explicitly to provide a favorable environment 
for private investment and for the creation of new jobs, to boost 
productivity, throughout the EU economy. What's more, the plan explicitly 
states that, "developing content, services and applications is predominantly 
up to the market." As a result, the eEurope 2005 action plan limits its scope 
to areas of public policy that contribute to creating a positive environment 
for private investment.

 Remarkably, the introduction of the action plan was followed up with the 
release this week of a detailed feasibility study for "Pooling Open Source 
Software" (POSS) from the IDA (Interchange of Data between Administrations). 
The IDA is a European Commission strategic initiative that is charged with 
supporting rapid electronic exchange of information among the administrations 
of EU member states. The objective of the IDA is to improve Community 
decision-making, accelerate policy implementation, and facilitate the 
operation of internal markets. The IDA commissioned Unisys [of all people! - 
Leon] to write this study.
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Cheers; Leon