(Event note: Meet OSOR on 2 December in Brussels to discuss the Interoperable Europe Act. Register by 27 November. Information here.)
We are very excited about this week's major announcement about the European Commission’s publication of its Interoperable Europe Act. This landmark piece of regulation is set to reinforce European cooperation on interoperability by introducing a new set of governance structures between Member States and the European Commission (the co-owners of the governance structures). The Commission’s text will now be sent to the Parliament and Council for approval or amendments and the Open Source community will have a role to play.
We’d like to highlight articles 4 and 8 of the Interoperable Europe Act text and some of the supporting documents.
Article 4
This article, on sharing and reuse of solutions, will definitely draw attention from the Open Source community. Article 4.1 begins:
“A public sector body or an institution, body or agency of the Union shall make available to any other such entity that requests it, interoperability solutions that support the public services that it delivers or manages electronically. The shared content shall include the technical documentation and, where applicable, the documented source code.”
There then follows exceptions where this doesn’t apply (art 4.1a to 4.1c), and some practical matters (4.2 & 4.3). And then an interesting part:
Article 4.4: “A public sector body, an institution, body or agency of the Union or a third party using an interoperability solution may adapt it to its own needs. If the interoperability solution was made public as set out in paragraph 3, the adapted interoperability solution shall be made public in the same way”
Veterans of free software / open source will notice similarities with the Free Software Foundation’s Free Software Definition and their copyleft mechanism.
Article 4 also seems to be supported by recital 12, which begins:
“Public sector bodies or institutions, bodies or agencies of the Union that search for interoperability solutions should be able to request from other public sector bodies or institutions, bodies or agencies of the Union the software code those organisations use, together with the related documentation.”
Article 8
This article discusses the work which will be done on the Interoperable Europe portal. This combines with article 4.3, which encourages administrations to use the Interoperable Europe portal when sharing solutions. The hope is that this portal will turn into a catalogue of solutions. Article 8.2c says that solutions “shall … use a licence that allows at least for the reuse by other public sector bodies or institutions, bodies or agencies of the Union or be issued as open source”. 8.2c also defines “open source”.
Also of interest is 8.3: “When a public sector body or an institution, body or agency of the Union provides a portal, catalogue or repository with similar functions, it shall take the necessary measures to ensure interoperability with the Interoperable Europe portal. Where such portals collect open source solutions, they shall allow for the use of the European Union Public Licence.” Regarding the scope, article 2(4) clarifies that “public sector body” is any body governed by public law. This would thus to apply to national and local government bodies.
Open Source in the supporting documents
The Commission’s press release also notes that solutions would be “ideally open source” and lists open-source software as one of the “shared digital solutions” that the new cooperation framework will help find agreement on.
It also acknowledges that the Interoperable Europe Board will be supported by the “Interoperable Europe Community” which will bring together various groups, including the “Open Source community”.
The Commission’s communication has a section 4.3 whose 2nd paragraph starts with: “By default, EU interoperability assets are available as open specifications or open source software”. The section then discusses use of Open Source by the Commission.
Further reading
The above are obviously not the only important aspects for open source. Issues of open data and availability of data can be just as important.
Documents from the European Commission:
Supporting documents:
- Recommendations from the Expert Group on the Interoperability of European Public Services
- The Impact assessment report
- The European Interoperability Framework for Smart Cities and Communities (EIF4SCC)
- The Evaluation of the EIF
We'd love to hear your thoughts on the text. Do you agree with our choice of what to highlight? All comments below will be read by OSOR Team Members.