Software firms attack ‘open standards’ rule

By Anna McLauchlin

Date: 24/02/05

European Commission guidelines for public authorities choosing 'e-government' services will exclude many technologies such as GSM mobile and networking systems, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) has warned.

The BSA, whose members include Microsoft and SAP, has written to the EU executive to complain that the definition of 'open standards' recommended for governments wanting to use electronic technology to help them communicate with citizens is too narrow. "Governments ought to be able to choose the type of software which best meets their needs on a case-by-case basis," said BSA's Benoit Mueller. Governments might confuse 'open standards' - or specifications for hardware and/or software that are publicly available - with open-source software, thereby setting a bias for public procurement policy towards the latter, he added.

An open standard is a technical specification with certain qualities and can be implemented either via open-source software or licensing-models. The Commission says that these standards should be publicly available, maintained by a not-for-profit organisation and issued on a royalty-free basis.

Its guidelines, published on 21 January, apply to EU-funded e-government projects.

The Business Software Alliance (BSA) warned that European Commission guidelines for public authorities choosing 'e-government' services would exclude many technologies such as GSM mobile and networking systems. The Alliance complained about the definition of 'open standards' recommended for governments wanting to use electronic technology to help them communicate with citizens saying it was to narrow. An open standard is a technical specification with certain qualities and can be implemented either via open-source software or licensing-models. The Commission said that these standards should be publicly available, maintained by a not-for-profit organisation and issued on a royalty-free basis.