Workshop: Legal aspects of free and open source software
____________________________________________________________________________________________
81
The Strategy also includes the establishment of an Open Source Implementation Group, a
System Integrator Forum
151
and an Open Source Advisory Panel
152
to assist with the
deployment of agile
153
solutions using open source technology and to educate, promote and
facilitate the technical and cultural change needed to increase the use of open source
across the government. It also envisages the creation of a ‘virtual’ centre of excellence
across the government and the private sector which can enable fast start-up and
mobilisation for such agile projects.
3.4.2 Results
Open source advocates such as the Open Forum Europe welcomed the UK Government’s
“determination to move the public sector in the UK away from being locked in to large scale
single supplier proprietary software solutions”
154
. Criticising the reluctance that
governments showed until then to consider open alternatives, the Open Forum Europe
expressed its yearning to observe concrete results: “it is in procurement that the Strategy
will either come alive or wither.”
In its report
155
of May 2012, the government sets out the progresses achieved over one
year of implementation. As far as open source is concerned, the report only refers to the
publication of the procurement toolkit and confirms the establishment of the Open Source
Advisory Panel. An e-petition site, which has been built in 8 weeks on open source software
and using open standards, is reported as a success story. No other figure or example is
provided.
In its assessment of June 2012, the Institute for Government (an independent charity
helping to improve government effectiveness) does not report much more on concrete
results in open source adoption
156
. On the contrary, it stresses the ICT leaders’ view that
the focus should be on enabling the government to perform more effectively and not on
implementing the ICT strategy “in a tick box fashion”.
The press reported that the Strategy is largely lobbied against
157
, and that during a round
table event organised by the Cabinet Office, open standards opponents easily dominated a
meeting motion against the government’s open standards policy
158
. The definition of the
“open standard” concept is the crux of the tension. Reporting on the event, a
representative of the government observed that “the consensus was that the definition and
proposed policy would be detrimental to competition and innovation”
159
.
This battle around open standards questions the sustainability of the Strategy in general
and seems therefore to also have a detrimental effect on open source adoption.
3.4.3 Features
ACTION:
Policy (Governmental Strategy)
DECISION LEVEL: National
ACTION LEVEL:
National
151
See
http://www.computerweekly.com/blogs/public-sector/2011/02/24/open-source-si-forum.pdf
.
152
A list of the membres of the Open Source Avisory Panel has been communicated in the framework of a
parliamentary question, available at
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm201011/cmselect/cmpubadm/writev/goodgovit/it65.htm.
153
Agile software development is a software development method where requirements and solutions evolve
flexibly through collaboration between self-organizing, cross-functional teams.
154
See the OFE’s press release of 30 March 2011,
http://www.openforumeurope.org/press-room/press-
releases/openforum-europe-welcomes-the-publication-of-the-uk-governments-ict-strategy
.
155
“One year on : Implementing the Government ICT Strategy”, May 2012, available at
https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/61950/One-Year-On-ICT-
Strategy-Progress.pdf
.
156
“System upgrade? The first year of the Government’s ICT strategy Features”, June 2012, available at
http://www.instituteforgovernment.org.uk/sites/default/files/publications/System%20Upgrade.pdf.
157
G.
M
OODY
, « UK Government Open Standards : the great betrayal of 2012 », Computer World UK, 22 December
2011, available at
http://blogs.computerworlduk.com/open-enterprise/2011/12/uk-government-open-standards-
the-great-betrayal-of-2012/index.htm
.
158
“Proprietary lobby triumphs in first open standards showdown”, Computer Weekly, 13 April 2012, available at
http://www.computerweekly.com/cgi-bin/mt-
search.cgi?blog_id=102&tag=BCS%20Open%20Source%20Speclialist%20Group&limit=20.
159
“Are open standards a closed barrier?”, op. cit.
Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs
____________________________________________________________________________________________
82
OBJECTIVES:
To foster the reuse of software across the administration.
To level the playing field for open source solutions.
MEASURES TAKEN: Publication of a toolkit (set of guides)
Setting up expert panels and forums
Maintaining an asset register and an applications store
Operating a ‘virtual’ centre of excellence across government
LICENSING:
Not specified (“open source” is the term used).
EFFECTIVENESS:
There does not seem to be any important achievement so far,
but it seems also too early to draw conclusions.
Lobbies are actively opposing the adopted open standard
strategy, and the government seems open to reconsidering its
position. This situation also negatively impacts FOSS adoption.
3.5.
Belgium: IMIO (inter-municipal company)
3.5.1 General
presentation
IMIO (Intercommunale de Mutualisation Informatique et Organisationnelle)
is a
government owned inter-municipal company that has been incorporated on 28 November
2011 (under the form of a limited liability cooperative company) by a partnership of ten
Walloon municipalities with the blessing and support of the Walloon Region
160
, which is the
supervisory and approving authority
161
of the Walloon municipalities.
IMIO has not been created from scratch, as it is based on the previous “CommunesPlone”
project
162
, a collaborative “bottom up” approach which gathered many Walloon
municipalities aiming at gaining independence from IT services providers by developing,
essentially by themselves and in a cooperative manner, applications and websites for their
own use as well as for their citizens. The CommunesPlone community was composed to a
large extent of IT workers employed by the municipalities involved or by the SME’s
providing the services to the latter and to the public company. IMIO has taken over the
CommunesPlone project and pushed it further by providing an official, logistical and
incorporated structure.
The statute of the company provides that its statutory objectives are to promote and foster
the mutualising of organisational solutions and of IT products and services for the local
authorities of Wallonia. To do so, IMIO must either act as a central procurement agency
which will procure software via public tenders, or develop internally software applications
which are mutualised and distributed under a free licence. In the latter case, IMIO is
expected to manage a free software patrimony which must be coherent and robust and
which belongs to the public administrations. IMIO must ensure that it has internally the
technical control of the software, and that the latter will evolve, remain sustainable and be
distributed in compliance with the applicable free licence. The statutes further specify that
the company produces and mutualises, amongst others, Plone-based open source software
(Plone being a Content Management System licensed under the GPLv2).
The three main activities of IMIO are
163
:
Producing (procuring, developing or procuring the development of) open source
software to meet the needs of local authorities (IMIO works also with a network of
open source SMEs)
164
;
160
In its Regional Policy Declaration of 2009-2014, the Walloon government has set as one of its objective to
promote the use of free software. See “Projet de Déclaration de politique communautaire 2009-2014”, available at
http://www.awt.be/contenu/tel/awt/declaration_politique_regionale_2009_2014.pdf
.
161
“Autorité de tutelle”.
162
See the IDABC study «
Networks effects
: Plone for Belgium and Beyond
», available at
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/elibrary/case/networks-effects-plone-belgium-and-beyond-0
.
163
More information is available at
http://www.imio.be/presentation
.
164
See the Joinup news “Walloon communities sharing software as an alternative to procurement” available at
http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/walloon-communities-sharing-software-alternative-procurement
.
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