Constitutional affairs legal affairs

Workshop: Legal aspects of free and open source software 
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69
Aims 
This briefing paper aims at illustrating how Member States’ public administrations 
(hereinafter 'PAs') at different administrative levels have implemented government 
strategies and legislative texts to raise awareness, to level the playing field or even to 
establish positive discrimination for such permissively licensed software in procurement 
contexts. 
It also aims at comparing these initiatives so as to identify some lessons that can be drawn 
from the different experiences. 
 
KEY FINDINGS 

 
The different initiatives analysed are not at the same stage of development and are 
very diverse in terms of scope, scale, means and ambitions, which renders precise 
comparison difficult.  

 
All the policy makers behind the analysed strategies were aware of the potential and 
advantages of FOSS. Software reuse and costs reduction seem however to be the 
two main incentives that generally triggered the initiatives. 

 
The degree of success of the different initiatives is very variable. 

 
The current public procurement regulatory framework as such does not seem to 
constitute a hindrance to the adoption of FOSS by administrations. It provides ways 
to develop practices aimed at levelling the playing field or granting preference to the 
procurement of FOSS. 

 
Contracting authorities seem however to show different degrees of resistance, which 
is motivated by multiple factors that tend to be overlooked.
 
 
 
1. BACKGROUND 
Public services have become increasingly and irreversibly dependent upon information and 
communication technologies. Many if not all administrations, at any level, have more or 
less incorporated ICT into their operations. Whereas some of them mainly use simple 
mainstream systems such as word processors, spreadsheets applications, emails, Internet 
browsers, etc., other public services use complex – and usually highly if not totally 
customised – database systems and information systems. Software represents a 
qualitatively and quantitatively essential part of such systems. Accordingly, software 
procurement has become a key element in the general administration governance, which 
has a direct influence on the quality and effectiveness of its services. 
The law regulates public tendering in order to ensure that economic operators are equally 
treated and in order to safeguard the financial, economical and operational interests of the 
contracting authority, which can be associated with the public interest
104
. Directive 
2004/18/EC on the coordination of procedures for the award of public works contracts, 
public supply contracts and public service contracts
105
 provides only for a general legal 
framework establishing global principles such as transparency and non-discrimination. 
National and local lawmakers and public administrations therefore benefit from a significant 
leeway and may take important decisions as regards public ICT and software procurement 
policies. 
                                                 
104
 D.
 
D
E 
R
OY
, “L’irruption du logiciel libre dans le secteur public. A la découverte d’une actualité fort ancienne”, in 
Les logiciels libres face au droit, Bruxelles, Bruylant, 2005, p.200. 
105
 Directive 2004/18/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 31 March 2004 on the coordination of 
procedures for the award of public works contracts, public supply contracts and public service contracts, OJ L 134, 
30 April 2004, pp. 114–240. 

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Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs 
____________________________________________________________________________________________ 
 
70
Procurement practices have often been criticised for discriminating against FOSS or 
excluding it from competition. Such exclusion does not always happen voluntarily, but often 
results from misunderstanding or ignorance of the FOSS licences mechanisms and the 
associated business models. For instance, besides the all too common requirements of, or 
references to, proprietary trademarks or technologies, award criteria requiring the bidder to 
be the owner of the copyrights or referring to the “purchase” of software licences are 
equally detrimental to FOSS-based bids
106
.  
Understanding FOSS and the business models which have been developed around it is the 
first prerequisite to improve procurement practices. Traditional “proprietary software”
107
 
business models are usually based on the exclusive exploitation of intellectual property and 
the “sale” of licences limiting  the  scale  and  extent  of  software  usage.  FOSS  is,  on  the 
contrary, based upon a permissive licensing system coupled with an unrestricted access to 
the source code, which enables the licensee to use, reproduce, modify and re-distribute the 
software (and its modifications) at will
108
.  In addition to being very permissive, FOSS 
licences are royalty-free: licensors are not remunerated in exchange of the given 
authorisation.  
FOSS licensing uses intellectual property (normally copyright) in a versatile way, not to 
monopolise technology and reap royalties, but to foster creation on an open and 
collaborative basis. This very peculiar licensing scheme is sometimes described as a way to 
reconstruct virtual commons
109
, namely open to all and non-exclusive resources. Such 
peculiar licensing scheme has challenged the traditional business logic and has given birth 
to alternative models, which are generally more focussed on the provision of services 
(around the shared resources) than the selling of products (created on the basis of 
monopolistic rights on the resource).  
Like the European Union
110
, many Member States and administrations at national, regional 
or local level are receptive towards the potential and advantages of FOSS, which fit the 
general public procurement principles of transparency, flexibility, independence, 
interoperability, sustainability and cost-effectiveness
111
. Accordingly, some national and 
local governments have taken very diverse measures in order to promote the use of FOSS 
in the administrations and to better adapt their procurement policies so as to take into 
account FOSS specificities and to open the competition to FOSS-oriented bids. 
The Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament has decided to hold a workshop on 
the legal aspects of the use of FOSS, in which the legal aspects of procurement will also be 
outlined. In this context, the Committee requested an ad hoc briefing paper identifying and 
summarising relevant national experiences at different levels (national, regional or local) to 
illustrate the current trends regarding the procurement and use of FOSS by public 
administrations within the EU. 
                                                 
106
 “For instance, a call for tenders for the purchase of software licences "discriminates" against businesses that do 
not offer software as a product paid for at the time of purchase through licensing”. IDABC, Guideline on public 
procurement of Open Source Software, available at 
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/studies/OSS-
procurement-guideline-public-final-June2010-EUPL-FINAL.pdf
. 
107
 It is common to use the term “proprietary” software to refer to software that is not licensed under a FOSS 
licence but governed by restrictive terms, and the use of which requires the payment of royalties. 
108
 See “The Free Software Definition”, available on the FSF official website, 
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-
sw.html
 and “The Open Source Definition”, available on the OSI official website, 
http://opensource.org/docs/osd
. 
109
  P
H
.
 
L
AURENT
, “Free and Open Source Software Licensing: A reference for the reconstruction of “virtual 
commons?” to be published in the proceedings of the Conference for the 30
th
 Anniversary of the CRID, which took 
place in Namur from the 20
th
 to the 22
th
 of January 2010, available at  
http://www.crid.be/pdf/public/7133.pdf
. 
110
 In recent years, the European Union has paid increasing attention to the potential of free and open source 
software. Already in its 2002 Communication "eEurope 2005: An information society for all," [COM(2002) 263 
final, 28.5.2002], the European Commission stated that it intended to promote the use of open standards and of 
open source software. As from 2006, the IDABC and ISA programmes of the European Commission are actively 
promoting the use of FOSS. The European Commission even created and stewards the OSI certified European 
Union Public Licence (EUPL). Interest in free and open source software has again increased after the European 
Commission published, in September 2012, the Communication "Unleashing the potential of cloud computing in 
Europe"[COM(2012) 529 final, 27.9.2012]. 
111
 IDABC, “Guideline on public procurement of Open Source Software”, March 2010 (revised June 2010), available 
at 
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/studies/OSS-procurement-guideline-public-final-June2010-EUPL-
FINAL.pdf
. 

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