Information Society Watch

2007, The European Commission

This report commissioned by the EU Commission addresses the question of what would be the potential impact on the development of the information society if public organisations were to release software fully owned by them under a Open Source license. It argues that publishing software fully owned by public bodies as Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) could facilitate re-use, adaptation and modification of the software by other public organisations, as well as other actors. The free availability of public sector software could possibly result in a "multiplier effect", which if significant, could have an accelerating effect on the development and take-up of information society technologies. There however exist challenges to realising this potential, some of which include the need for building the capacities of personnel who will use FOSS, expertise to decide how to distribute the source code especially when combining software from pieces distributed under different licenses.

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