Kroes v óór Open Source bij overheid & zakenleven

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

En dreigt zelfs met rechtsmaatregelen als software niet gebruik maakt
van Open Interfaces?

Alhoewel de voorlopige definitie 'While there is a correlation between
openness and interoperability, it is also true that interoperability can
be obtained without openness, for example via homogeneity of the ICT
systems, which implies that all partners use, or agree to use, the same
solution to implement a European Public Service' héél véél te wensen
over laat.
Zie o.a. EU Wants to Re-define “Closed” as “Nearly Open”
op
http://www.computerworlduk.com/community/blogs/index.cfm?blogid=14&entryid=2620

Groet / Cees

EU Commissioner Warns IT Buyers Against Vendor Lock-in
http://www.cio.com/article/print/596586
– Peter Sayer, IDG News Service

June 11, 2010
European Commissioner Neelie Kroes warned governments and businesses to
avoid vendors that try to lock them in with proprietary technology.

"Choosing open standards is a very smart business decision," she said
Thursday at a conference in Brussels organized by Open Forum Europe.

"Public and private procurers of technology should be smart and build
their systems as much as possible on standards that everybody can use
and implement without constraints," she said, adding that this is good
for the bottom line because it promotes competition between suppliers
and prevents vendor lock-in.

She asked vendors to act now to make their products interoperable with
those of their competitors, and not to wait for a court to force them.

Now European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda, in her previous role
as Competition Commissioner Kroes won a long antitrust battle against
Microsoft (MSFT) over its failure to help competitors develop software
that could interoperate with its Windows server products.

"I had to fight hard and for several years until Microsoft began to
license missing interoperability information," she said. That case, and
one over its abuse of its monopoly position in the desktop operating
system market to influence the market for media players, eventually cost
Microsoft hundreds of millions of euros in fines.

However, Kroes said, "Complex antitrust investigations followed by court
proceedings are perhaps not the only way to increase interoperability."

Instead, the Commission is looking for other ways of making it more
profitable for companies to license the information their competitors
need to make interoperable systems, and less profitable to withhold that
information.

"Any such initiative would probably be limited to certain types of IT
products. And it would likely involve some form of pricing constraints,"
she said.

Kroes has other plans afoot to influence European Union IT buyers to
favor interoperable systems.

The European Interoperability Framework V.2 is one of those. It builds
on an earlier set of rules and guidelines for cost-effective public
sector procurement of IT systems. The new document is still under
discussion -- "The drafting process has not been easy," said Kroes.
However, she hopes that it will help public authorities avoid the
dangers of long-term lock-in. "It would also ensure competition between
suppliers for follow-up contracts and for services. Governments should
still be able to choose closed, proprietary products, she said, "but on
the basis of a clear justification, rather than because it was the easy
option."

Open Forum Europe Chief Executive Graham Taylor said there are signs
that Kroes wants further changes made to the draft of EIF V2.

"She clearly is very aware of the controversy around the latest leaked
version," he said. "What we have seen is a very bad document."

Recent drafts of the EIF have failed to make any mention of "open
standards," so Taylor was pleased to hear Kroes use the term so
frequently on Thursday.

Indeed, Kroes did repeat the term, but warned that listing keywords is
no substitute for policy. "What matters is the substance. I would urge
all stakeholders to focus on the content of the package rather than the
wrapping," she said.

Another of Kroes' plans is to make it easier for government buyers to
specify open standards when they call for tenders. E.U. legislation
currently limits government buyers' scope to require manufacturers to
comply with open standards: The buyers can only require standards
developed by recognized standards bodies, such as the European
Telecommunications Standards Institute (ETSI), the International
Organization for Standardization (ISO) or national standards bodies;
industry standards developed by consortia such as OASIS, ECMA or the W3C
don't count.

Kroes said she wants to put relevant standards from such consortia on an
equal footing with European and International standards, as long as they
meet certain criteria for "openness, consensus, balance and transparency."

If that had been the case in 2008, there might not have been such a
battle to get ISO to adopt ECMA Standard 376, otherwise known as
Microsoft's Office Open Extensible Markup Language (OOXML) file format.
ISO had earlier recognized the OASIS-sponsored standard Open Document
Format (ODF) as an international standard.

By making it easier for industry groups to have their standards
recognized, she said, "We want to make standard-setting more efficient,
not more burdensome. We don't want uniform rules everywhere: we want
smart rules that are adapted to their respective fields."

Kroes also promised to help government IT buyers identify their real
needs, so that they can specify products without reference to particular
brands or suppliers.

"The skills of public authorities vary greatly when it comes to this
aspect of procurement," she said. "Many authorities have found
themselves unintentionally locked into proprietary technology for
decades. [...] This is a waste of public money that most public bodies
can no longer afford."

That waste can also directly affect businesses and citizens when public
authorities' decisions force them to buy specific products to access a
public service, rather than any product compliant with an applicable
standard, she said. Examples include schools insisting on the use of a
specific word processing system, or tax departments' online forms
requiring a specific Web browser.

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