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EC announces Open Standards Definition
The "Open Standards and Libre Software in Government" conference held in coordination with the Dutch Presidency of the European Union in The Hague concluded successfully yesterday. Keynote speakers on behalf of the Dutch prime minister and the office of the Irish prime minister urged governments to consider open source software in spirit of inter-agency collaboration. The European Commission launched its definition of Open Standards, and several representatives of EU ministries announced major national open source and free software efforts.
Open standards and Free/Libre/Open Source software is of critical importance to governments across Europe, which was reflected by the keynote speakers. Frans Nauta, Secretary of the Innovation Platform chaired by the Dutch Prime Minister, emphasised the need for collaboration between governments and citizens and lauded the open source movement as a model for open cooperation. Colm Butler, director of information society policy for the department of the Irish Prime Minister urged the open source community to make technical matters easier to understand for decision-makers.
In the session on interoperability and open standards, Barbara Held from the European Commission's IDA (Interchange of Data between Administrations) Unit announced their definition of Open Standards, which require the royalty-free licensing of any applicable patents, and prohibit any restrictions on re-use of open standards. While a representative from COMPTIA in the audience heavily criticised this new definition, speakers Doug Heintzmann from IBM and Phil Zamani from Novell said their organisations were in support of the new definition of open standards.
Source: Newsforge
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