Phipps argues that to gain influence on the development of open source software, public administrations should maintain close ties to the communities involved. Joining all groups that work on specific tools used by the public administration may be too much, but they could at least join well-connected associations such as OSI, said Phipps.

 

He was one of the speakers at a workshop on public administrations and open source communities, organised by the European Commission's ISA program (Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations), during the Open Source World Conference in Granada, Spain,  on 12 January.

 

The OSI director recommends that public administrations that are using OpenOffice or LibreOffice or one of the other free and open source suites of office tools, at least join the groups involved in developing them. "Or make very sure that your supplier of LibreOffice is really engaged in this community. Otherwise, the software will not progress."

 

Phipps specifically invited the European Commission's ISA program to affiliate with organisations such as OSI or The Document Foundation. It will allow the EC to pioneer news ways of engagement, commission certain features, contact communities and specify software freedoms: "Please joinup."

 

 

 

More information: Open Source World Conference