The OSOR Newsletter keeps you updated on Europe's public sector's use of free and open source software solutions.
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Fund IT security, acquire self-reliance
Governments that invest in open source create future benefits and generate a virtuous loop between the public and private sector.
In the same way that citizens and companies helped solve the financial stress for the GnuPG cryptographic software suite, public administrations could, for example, sponsor improvements to OpenBSD, or organise monetary support for LibreSSL. In April, IT security experts recommended that the European Union should finance initiatives that increase security and privacy of open source solutions.
A first step has already been made. Last year, the European Parliament allocated EUR 1 million to do a security audit of the free and open source solutions in use at the European institutes.
It makes business sense to improve the security of the IT solutions. And Europe's public administrations ought to share such improvements publicly, making their IT investments pay forward and winning technological self-reliance into the bargain.
Latest News | View all news articles
EP study: “EU should finance key open source tools” |
German Greens want increased support for open source |
| The European Union should finance initiatives that increase security and privacy of open source solutions, and set up certification schemes for essential open source tools, IT security experts recommend in two studies written for the European Parliament. | The Greens in the German parliament want the government to shore up support for open source. The group is figuring out the most convincing arguments and how to increase pressure on the federal government. |
| Read More | Read More |
Solutions of the month | View earlier 'solutions of the month'
MOA ZS |
EU Survey |
| MOA-ZS (Module für Online Applications - Electronic Delivery) is the official open source module in Austria for certified electronic mail. | EUSurvey, the new version of IPM, is a multilingual online survey management system built for the creation and publication of surveys and public consultations. |
| Read More | Read More |
Latest software | View all interoperability solutions
| MOCCA 1.3.18 | Re3gistry 1.0 |
| This version has a warning for OnlineBKU users with Chrome because of this browser Java applets are no longer supported. Furthermore encrypted Infoboxes are supported on eCard G4 cards now. | Software for management of lists that provide unique identifiers for data that is shared between organisations. |
| TLMANAGER | OCS |
| Tool to make available information on list of trusted certification service providers. | OCS supports an initiative and its organizers to manage its operations, streamlining data collection and verification by the National Authorities. |
Latest Studies | View all studies
eProcurement: Belgium deploys a two-system platform for e-signature |
e-Prior: electronic procurement system for public administrations |
| The Belgian government has deployed a digital procurement service that allows Belgian and foreigner companies to submit offers to tenders and sign documents electronically. | e-Prior is an e-procurement system that facilitates standardised e-procurement document exchanges between a public administration and suppliers across Europe. |
| Read more | Read more |
Upcoming Events | View all events
Croatian Linux User Conference 2015 |
Libre Software Meeting (RMLL) |
| DORS/CLUC is one of the biggest free and open source conferences in Croatia, bringing together national and international IT experts. | Libre Software Meeting / Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre (RMLL) is a series of friendly and non-commercial lectures, workshops, and round tables on Libre Software and its uses |
| 18 - 20 May 2015, Zagreb, Croatia | 04 - 10 July 2015, Beauvais, France |
| Read more | Read more |
| 11th International Conference on Open Source Systems | 16 May Firenze, Italy |
| Open Source Conference | 07 July, London, United Kingdom |
| Mindtrek Openmind 2015 | 22 - 24 September, Tampere, Finland |
| Flink Forward 2015 | 12 - 13 October, Berlin, Germany |
| PostgreSQL Conference Europe 2015 | 27 - 30 October, Vienna, Austria |
Joinup platform statistics
| Number of visitors in April: | 187,762 |
| Number of projects downloaded in April: | 1624 |
| Total number of Software Projects on Joinup: | 356 |
| Total Number of Federated Software Projects: | 909 |
| New users that registered in April | 482 |
| Total number of users: | 27360 |
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The Open Source Observatory and Repository (OSOR) is part of the Joinup collaborative platform. Joinup is created by the European Commission and funded by the European Union via the Interoperability Solutions for Public Administrations (ISA) Programme. OSOR and Joinup help e-Government professionals share their experience with interoperability solutions and support them to find, choose, re-use, develop, and implement open source software and semantic interoperability assets.
Feel free to forward this newsletter to any other interested persons, and to send us your comments and suggestions. We welcome your contributions and we invite you to send in news items, announcements for events and other stories related to free and open source software and of interest to public administrations to the email address mentioned below. Moreover, if you belong to a public authority or a public sector organisation and would be interested in being the subject of a case study for best practices regarding open source software, please contact us here.
© 2015 by European Union
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The views expressed are not an official position of the European Union.