Join us on 23 May for an OSOR community event focusing on the procurement of open source software in the public sector

The use of open source software (OSS) in the public sector has served as an alternative tool to proprietary software in support of the digitalisation of the government, helping avoid high costs and vendor lock-in. However, public administrations face challenges in defining criteria and evaluating and acquiring OSS.

OSOR is collaborating on an update of the Guidelines for Public administrations on Procurement and Open Source Software with legal experts and OSS procurement practitioners. The webinar will be a good opportunity for the OSOR community to share insights and good practices on the purchase of OSS by public administrations, which will contribute to the update.

We will summarise the Guidelines and the preliminary research outcomes, which will be followed by 3 presentations. Johan Linåker will talk about on the benefits of using OSS and the challenges public administrations face in the public procurement cycle. Rasmus Frey will focus on the practical examples of how municipalities procure solutions in Denmark. Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz will guide us through the most important clauses to consider when procuring OSS and the most common and permissive licenses selected by public administrations who wish to modify, use and redistribute open source software.

Johan Linåker is a researcher at Lund University, Sweden, who focuses on how to enable the public sector to share and collaborate on open source software and open data. Johan holds a passion for the health and sustainability of open source software projects, researching challenges experienced by maintainers, their impact, and how they may be addressed.

Rasmus Frey is the Head of Secretariat at OS2, an open source community that develops and governs ICT solutions for municipalities in Denmark. He is passionate about openness and knowledge-sharing, values he tries to reflect in his current work.

Patrice-Emmanuel Schmitz is a lawyer, ICT practitioner and legal expert cooperating with the European Commission on many open source projects. Patrice-Emmanuel specialises in licensing, having coordinated the creation and translation of the European Union Public License (EUPL).

The webinar will take place on Monday, 23 May 2022 from 10:00 to 12:00 CEST.

To register, click on the banner below, fill in the registration form, and you will receive the connection details shortly after.

Have some questions? Contact us at EU-OSOR@ec.europa.eu.