Constitutional affairs legal affairs

Workshop: Legal aspects of free and open source software 
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Selection criteria for financial sustainability (minimum turnover, capital) should be in 
proportion to the scope of the tender
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. The main justification for financial sustainability 
criteria for software is to ensure that the supplier will be able to provide support as long as 
the software is being used.  
With open source, the availability of the source code assures interoperability, and there is 
no dependence on the original supplier. If the original supplier goes out of business, the 
software can still be maintained by others; if others are not maintaining the software, the 
public agency can hire a third party maintainer. This increased sustainability of open source 
is justification for lowering the financial sustainability requirements, or lowering their 
weight in the selection process for tenders for open source software. 
5.2.1 
Community interaction and contribution 
One of open source software's main strengths is that the development process, at its best, 
involves a community of several firms, individuals and other contributors. Contribution is 
not limited to actual writing of lines of code, and extends to, for instance, providing detailed 
reports of requirements and issues.  
Thus, it may be useful to include the level of interaction and contribution the tenderer has 
within the appropriate community as an award criterion in tenders or as an element 
demonstrating process quality during the execution of the contract. 
5.3 Tender 
selection 
Bids responding to the call for tenders must be evaluated, and the best offer chosen by the 
lowest price, or the best value for money as determined by the weighted award criteria. 
In case of a preferential policy regarding open source - such as with the Dutch 
government's "preference for open-source software in the case of equal suitability" - if bids 
have the same price (in case of a lowest price tender) or the same value-for-money, the 
open source bid is selected. Note that any such preferences must be justified in terms of 
the functional, technical specifications and must not create obstacles to the “opening up of 
public procurement to competition”
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. As open source requirements are put in place in 
order to meet the needs of the procurement body and do not favour specific vendors, in 
contrast to procurement procedures requiring specific named brands of software, in general 
they add to the opening up of procurement to competition. 
Any such preferential policy related to open source does not really affect the tender process 
described in this section, as the likelihood of exactly the same evaluation of two bids is 
probably not high. Moreover, the inclusion of open source requirements as part of the 
tender requirements is independent of any policy regarding open source in procurement; it 
requires no preferential policies and works within any procurement procedures. 
 
 
 
 
                                                 
102 Directive 2004/18/EC, Article 44(2). 
103 Directive 2004/18/EC Article 23(8) 

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Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs 
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Legal aspects of free and open source software in 
procurement: national case studies 
Philippe Laurent, University of Namur 
 
 
ABSTRACT 
Member States’ public authorities are increasingly interested in the advantages of procuring 
free and open source software. Some of them have already adopted different strategies to 
raise awareness, to level the playing field or even to establish positive discrimination for 
such permissively licensed software. This briefing paper aims at illustrating the current 
political and legislative trends by observing cases from the Netherlands, Italy, Spain, the 
United Kingdom, Belgium and France
 
 
CONTENT 
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 
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1.
 
BACKGROUND 69
 
2.
 
METHODOLOGY 71
 
3.
 
EXPERIENCES 71
 
4.
 
OBSERVATIONS 85
 
ANNEX: COMPARISON TABLE 
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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY 
Background 
Free and open source software (hereinafter referred to as “FOSS”) is software licensed 
under permissive terms, which enable the licensee to use, reproduce, modify and re-
distribute the software and its modifications at will.  
This peculiar licensing scheme harmoniously fits the general public procurement principles 
of transparency, flexibility, independence, interoperability, sustainability and cost-
effectiveness. Nonetheless, it has been observed that public procurement practices often 
tend to disadvantage the adoption of FOSS. Some policy makers have therefore elaborated 
diverse strategies to fix the problem, such as: 
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the Dutch government with its NOIV action plan, 
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the Piedmont Regional Council with its Act on software pluralism in the 
administration, 
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the Spanish lawmaker with its National Interoperability Framework, 
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the UK government with its ICT Government Strategy, 
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Walloon municipalities with the creation of an IT public company called IMIO, and 
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the French Prime Minister with his Circular on the use of FOSS in administrations. 

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