Fraunhofer ISI and OpenForum Europe are conducting a study for the European Commission which shall investigate in detail the economic impact of Open Source Software (OSS) and Open Source Hardware (OSH) on the European economy. The study should identify strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and challenges of open source in relevant ICT policies.
A stakeholder survey was launched in September. The aim is to gather and analyse the views of a broad set of stakeholders on the topic of the impact of Open Source, hereby creating a robust empirical representation of the opinions and issues at stake.
With this survey, the study coordinators are interested in complementing the literature, database and case study driven approach to assess impact of OSS and OSH with input from the respondents of the stakeholder survey. All together, this body of evidence will be used to derive policy recommendations.