Submitted by “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, the company announced. 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.”
I then wonder why they are trying to allow software patents via the EPLA…
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/79377
It’s german only, sorry.
Sadly, European Commission != European Parliament.
I just don’t get how one can let those jerks in the parliament decide about software patents. I’m not sure whether half of them really know about the subject. We’re not speaking about speed limits of highways here.
The parliament clearly rejected the previous vote on software patents with something like a 700 to 50 votes, so don’t spread this misinformation, they know about the subject. But, frankly, I was positively surprised myself back when I heard the result of the vote.
And also, the parliament is the most democratic part of the EU. The members are elected directly by the people in the countries, contrary to the Council (the ministers of each country) and Commission (elected by the parliament, but chosen by the national governments).
Edited 2006-10-12 19:45
I think they were 101 and 1/2 % dedicated to MSFT in last years
By the time they get through messing around, computers will not be needed.
EU needs to give it up and go away.
…how long it will be before Microsoft manages to worm its way into this process and wreck it, like it tries to do with every other open-source initiative?
Microsoft may be a moneymaker as an American tax payer, it is much less to European countries. Some clever people in the EU elite have seen that open source is an opportunity for European software makers. Mandriva, Suse, for example, started out as European firms.
Europe wants to be a little more competitive in hi-tech and as it’s hard to beat the giant in its own proprietary field, it now stimulates the public sector to use open source, hoping it will stimulate innovation in the European software/IT sector in turn. A sort of software Keynesianism so to speak.
Unfortunately, the quality of (esp. ‘beta’) education, and the investments in it, in Europe leave much to be desired.
One notable exception is Finland. Guess which OSS figure comes from there.