The European Parliament and the European Commission have launched the FOSSEPS project. The Free and Open Source Solutions for European Public Services project is a Pilot Project initiated by MEP Marcel Kolaja. The pilot project encourages European public services to treat open source as a valuable asset, and to act collectively for maximum effectiveness.
MEP Kolaja was designated as Project Sponsor, and Mr. Thomas Gageik, Director, DIGIT B as Project Owner at the first Project Steering Committee held on 27 January 2022. The steering committee also approved the Project Charter and reviewed plans for the project initiatives.
The project comprises three innovative initiatives on open source in European Public Services. The first is to create Europe’s first open source software Applications Catalogue by combining national catalogues from three member states. This will help public administrations across Europe to identify and reuse previously built applications, thereby saving valuable time and money.
The second initiative will build an inventory of critical open source software used by European public services. This will allow European public services to ensure the software they use the most is healthy and continues to exist.
The third initiative will use a Commission workshop to explore how European public services can work together to tackle common issues relating to the usage, security and sustainability of open source.
The meeting ended with discussions on key actions including communication activities.
MEP Kolaja said, “This is a very important project for open source, for European public services, and for me as an MEP". Director Gageik responded, “We recognise the ground breaking nature of this project and the huge positive impact it can have on open source and Europe,” he added, “The Commission, through its open source strategy is completely aligned with the project’s objectives”.