European administrations should share software on an open source licensing basis, to cut soaring eGoverment information technology costs (set to rise by 28% to ¬ 6.6 billion this year), says an independent study published by the European Commission. The "Pooling Open Source Software" study, financed by the Commission's Interchange of Data between Administrations (IDA) programme, recommends creating 
a clearing house to which administrations could "donate" software for 
re-use. This facility, which would concentrate on applications 
specific to the needs of the public sector, could encourage the 
replication of good practice in eGovernment services. 

Commenting on the potential benefits of greater re-use of public 
sector software, Enterprise and Information Society Commissioner 
Erkki Liikanen stated "Good practice is built on proven solutions 
that work. Software and concrete applications that work in practice 
are an important element of these. They could be usefully used as 
source of inspiration for Member States to develop good and 
interactive public services in the future to the benefit of Europe's 
citizens." 

Although software would probably need to be customised to local 
linguistic and legal requirements, sharing these eGovernment tools 
could lead to across-the-board improvements in efficiency of the 
European public sector. According to another report published in the 
European Information Technology Observatory, EU public sector 
expenditures on eGovernment are set to rise by 28% to ¬ 6.6 billion 
this year. 

The study suggests that software developed for and owned by public 
administrations should be issued under an open source licence. It 
also recommends that a software pooling facility should provide 
quality guarantees and help resolve questions of liability that 
currently often inhibit the sharing of developments. A step-wise 
implementation of the facility is however recommended, since sharing 
competence and good practices is more urgent than sharing software. 
More than simply providing software, the pooling facility should thus 
make available expertise and help create a community of developers, 
users and policy makers, providing opportunities for increased 
cooperation, notably in software development and testing. 

The study recommendations were broadly welcomed at a specialist 
hearing held in Brussels at the start of June. 

The findings of the "Pooling Open Source Software" study are 
available from the IDA website at 
http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/jsps/index.jsp?fuseAction=showDocument&parent=news&documentID=550 

European administrations should share software resources, a report 
published by IDA says 

IDA has released the results of an independent study on promoting the 
re-use of software owned by public administrations. The study 
recommends the creation of a software clearing house to which 
administrations can "donate" software. This facility, which would 
concentrate on applications specific for the needs of the public 
sector, could encourage the replication of good practice in 
eGovernment services. 

Although customisation to local linguistic and legal requirements 
would probaly be required, sharing software developed for 
administrations could lead to across-the-board improvements in 
efficiency of the European public sector. According to a report 
published in the European Information Technology Observatory, EU 
public sector expenditures on eGovernment are set to rise by 28% to ¬ 
6.6 billion this year. 

The recommendations of the study were broadly welcomed at a 
specialist hearing held in Brussels at the beginning of June. The 
study suggests that software developed for and owned by public 
administrations should be issued under an open source license. It 
also recommends that a software pooling facility should provide 
quality guarantees and help resolve questions of liability that 
currently often inhibit the sharing of developments. More than simply 
providing software, the pooling facility should make available 
expertise and help create a community of developers, users and policy 
makers. 

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also 

http://europa.eu.int/ISPO/ida/jsps/index.jsp?fuseAction=showDocument&parent=highlights&documentID=333