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Open Source, Open Standards Under Attack In Europe
Glyn Moody writes "A battle for the soul of European IT is taking place behind closed doors in Brussels. At stake is the key Digital Agenda for Europe, due to be unveiled in a month's time. David Hammerstein, ex-Member of European Parliament for the Greens, tweeted last week: 'SOS to everyone as sources confirm that Kroes is about to eliminate "open standards" policy from EU digital agenda; Kroes has been under intense lobbying pressure from Microsoft to get rid of interoperability and open source goals of EU.' This is confirmed by the French magazine PC Inpact (Google translation), which also managed to obtain a copy of the draft Digital Agenda (DOC). It's currently supportive of both open source and open standards — but for how much longer?"
With the global slump politicians are under pressure to spend money on software, not use open source.
Of course, the layman doesn't always understand that open source software is sold commercially as well.
Under freedom of information laws surely we're entitled to see information in a format anyone can read?
I dont[sic] know much about this and am curious why it is so important. Wont[sic] open source continue to be open source independent of what the EU decides?
First this is more about open standards than open source software. Some organizations certainly will use them regardless, but lacking a clear directive, the status quo rules, and that tends to be proprietary formats and protocols now dominating the industry and harming interoperability and reducing competition.
Or is this saying that the EU gov'ts will only use open source programs, and that is defined by this document?
Originally this document established a preference for more open formats that are more likely to be usable to later generations and which provide more choice of both IT vendors and clients going forward. This was a recognition of the importance of open and documented protocols and formats. Note, nothing in this was pro or con of any given vendor. Rather it was in favor of open standardization where all vendors could compete instead of just one vendor (read Microsoft). The idea was that it is important for say word processing in EU governments to standardize on a format where any company could create an interoperable solution so governments could take competitive bids on a level playing field.
Correct.
HTML = Widely used around the globe
Silverlight = Used at Microsoft HQ and a small number of prefailed web projects
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
I wonder if the ACTA plays into this?
Seems to me open standards would hinder a closed-sourced DRM scheme designed to limit communication.
"...which also managed to obtain a copy of the draft Digital Agenda (DOC). It's currently supportive of both open source and open standards — but for how much longer?"
Why am I even surprised that the agenda is in MS-Word's old binary file format? Maybe they're just supportive of open standards for other people, or for hypothetical people in a hypothetical world, perhaps.
coding is life
The leaked "Digital Agenda" doesn't appear to be so bad.. it mainly aims to promote cross-border interoperable electronic ID, health systems, and open standards in general. This will make it easier for European citizens to trade and physically relocate across borders (the existing systems are different in every country, and moving between countries is a PITA). The reason this kind of stuff is important is that the aims and details will be hammered out at a European level, then implemented as policy by the various counties of Europe. Once a few of the more powerful countries (Germany, France, UK) establish a common framework for digital ID or whatever, it will be required to interact with government online services in those countries, a software ecosystem will develop around these protocols, and the other countries will follow within a few years. The EU will provide funding for development of software platforms that implement these open standards. The potential risk here is that Microsoft and other companies will twist the definition of "open" to include proprietary patented protocols (which are "open" because you are free to license them at some cost), and then they can lobby countries and companies taking part in public sector procurements to choose closed standard solutions, which would obviously be a bad thing for cross-border interoperability. The relevant parts of the document are:
The Digital Agenda outlines a set of crucial policy actions, including legal measures and programmes that must be launched or upgraded to get the Union on track. The actions are clustered in six areas:
(1)Very fast internet access;
(2)A digital single market;
(3)A sustainable digital society;
(4)Trust and security;
(5)Research and innovation;
(6)Open standards and interoperability.
Use CIP support seamless cross-border public services, based on open and internationally recognised standards, and a European eID management infrastructure;
An "EU eHealth Passport" could give citizens secure online access to their personal health data. On such a platform, improved medical services can be developed raising efficiency and patient empowerment. The Commission will work with the competent authorities to equip 15% of Europeans with such passports by 2015. The eHealth Lead Market Initiative1 will promote standardisation and interoperability testing and certification.
Electronic identity (eID) technologies and services are key to trust in electronic transactions and in e-payment systems, including mobile payments. A European framework for eID and authentication, and internationally agreed standards and practices can help the cross-border recognition of eID and increase citizens' trust and confidence. A European eID and authentication framework by [.] is the headline target for this action area.
Promoting more open standards
The headline target for this action area is to reform the EU standardisation regime by 2015 to reflect the rise and growing importance of ICT standards developed by various fora and consortia, in particular as regards the internet.
Another challenge is to ensure that public authorities – including the EU institutions – can make the best use of the full range of existing open standards when procuring hardware, software and IT services, for example to adhere to technology neutrality and to avoid technological lock-in to legacy ICT.
Transparent disclosure rules for intellectual property rights (IPR) and licensing conditions in the context of standard-setting can contribute to lower royalty demands for the use of standards and thus to lower market entry costs for SMEs. This can be achieved without a negative impact on the owners of IPRs. Therefore rules for ex-ante disclosure of essential IPR and licensing terms and conditions will be promoted.
Key actions
Reform the governance system for ICT standards in Europe to recognise ICT fora and consortia standards;
Issue a Recommendation to streamline the use of open standards in p
Who cares if they are?
This is not some commie no money ideology. This about me not having to pay rent to MS to interact with my government.
It is terribly exciting and worrisome at the same time. Microsoft has dominated the world with Windows and by leveraging the OS, they are dominating is many other areas as well. They are unquestionably an abusive monopoly. With software patents and other intellectual property types creating road blocks and toll roads to innovation and less expensive solutions.
Open standards is one way to make sure things are fair to ensure that competition is alive and well. Microsoft cannot compete with others using open standards and expect to win every time. (I would have no problem if they conformed to open standards and actually offered a better product.) But instead of competing on the basis of quality, they lobby for laws and policies to change in their favor.
Microsoft is a corrupt company catering to corrupt politicians. I hope many EU leaders start to take offence to Microsoft's tactics and push back hard.
I don't know WTF you're on about. Open. Do you understand what that means? Big companies (or individuals) are free to make pay, gratis, or open source software that works with the standard, and we can use whatever we'd like. It's a win for consumers all around.
The alternative is a proprietary standard is implemented, the owner definitely profits. If you want to implement a alternative program, it's a pain in the ass to reverse engineer compatibility, and generally lags the proprietary version. Less choice for the consumer, not something I'd want enacted in law.
Sent from my PDP-11
Not just any woman.
Rember that Microsoft got fined hundreds of millions ?
Heard about the windows7 browser selection tool ?
That was all her work, actually.Until last year she was the European Competition Commissioner.
Living is a horizontal fall
The fact that proprietary solutions will be considered is not a threat to OSS, nor a guarantee that Microsoft will be chosen. Finally, proprietary solutions often use OSS projects if it is beneficial (not GPL, but that's not the issue here).
What does any of this have to do with open standards, which represent the topic of this discussion?
Open standards allow us to ignore these kinds of argument completely, because they essentially guarantee that, no matter what kind of software you choose, I can continue using the software of my choice, provided that the two of us can agree on the standard to be implemented.
I choose my favourite software for my own reasons; you choose yours. Everyone's happy.
Now, if someone were to refuse to follow open standards and instead chose to say, "My way or the highway!" when it came to technical implementation of certain document formats and communications protocols... well, I might be a little miffed. I might even say that this is not fair and that it's ultimately dangerous because it causes public data to be locked into proprietary formats.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
I'm sure Alabama feels the same way? They're having dictated social, educational, health, economic etc politics from DC.
While it is rather difficult to leave the EU, it's not impossible, whereas secession is apparently against the constitution of the US.
"I'm a PC and the Windows 7 Browser Selection Tool was my idea!"
Because they want to make money just like the corporations who will sell the software based on those open standards?
Apparently by competing with said corporations in the halls of the bureaucrats, rather than in the open market.
Shame on you, Microsoft. You used to say 'I'm sorry that we have to have a Washington presence. We thrived during our first 16 years without any of this.' Now you're buying governments just like Larry Ellison does.
Well the EU antitrust office did declare Microsoft to be an abusive monopoly in 2004.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=860&dat=20040323&id=BAAgAAAAIBAJ&sjid=8BUFAAAAIBAJ&pg=1269,2934192
You can't be ahead of the curve, if you're stuck in a loop.