Constitutional affairs legal affairs

Workshop: Legal aspects of free and open source software 
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
 
the involvement of the bidder in a FOSS development community (the criterion is 
the number of developers who are members of the community); 

 
the participation of the bidder in the development of the provided software (the 
criterion is the percentage of code that has been sent by the bidder as 
contribution(s) to the project); 

 
the adoption by the bidder of a procedure ensuring the origin of the source code 
that he provides; 

 
the bidder’s experience with W3C
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 web content guidelines; 

 
the adherence of the bidder to a “open providers manifest” (issued by NOIV); 

 
the database independence of the software; 

 
the platform independence of a user interface; 

 
whether there is a large number of maintenance service providers available; 

 
the granting of rights (by way of a licence) to modify, to further develop and to 
redistribute at will the source code of the software; 

 
the existence of an independent and freely accessible community of developers who 
are involved in the development of the software (and of future versions thereof); 

 
whether the applications can be deployed on a diversity of different hardware and 
operating systems; and 

 
the priority given to open standards. 
As regards custom made code, the guideline explains that, instead of requiring the transfer 
of IP, the call could provide that the code is delivered under the EUPL or another OSI 
certified licence. 
3.1.2 Results 
The NOIV office has yearly monitored the progress in open standards and FOSS adoption, 
and released interesting and very detailed reports
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. In general, open standards adoption 
seems a higher priority than FOSS adoption. 
Conforming to what was expected from them in the action lines, all the ministries reported 
having adopted a procurement strategy. NOIV noticed, however, that the ministries did not 
seem  to  discriminate  in  favour  of  open  source  but  neutrally  aimed  at  “procuring  the  best 
software”. It further noticed that awareness seemed to have been raised, but that the 
procurement practices could nonetheless be improved
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.  
Mathieu Paapst (ex-member of the NOIV office) is even more pessimistic about the results 
of the programme after a survey conducted on 80 Dutch calls for tender published between 
January and June 2010. To the question whether a policy like the action plan NOIV 
influences behaviour regarding the practice of public tenders, he answers that “despite the 
desired affirmative action for Free/Libre and Open Source Software, in almost half (47.5%) 
of the tenders there is [according to the way the terms are drafted] a preference for closed 
source vendors or products. Because of this preference vendors of FLOSS products are not 
given a fair chance to win the bid. There is no level playing field in the software market and 
government buyers arguably do not act according to the EU treaty principles of equal 
treatment, non-discrimination and transparency”
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. Mathieu Paapst noticed that 22 
tenders out of 80 mentioned a preference for FOSS, out of which 15 only provided that 
such preference would actually result in a reward of extra points under the weightings 
applied to the award criteria. 
                                                 
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 The W3C is the main international standards organization for the World Wide Web. 
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 The more recent monitoring report that we found is the “Monitor NOIV 2010” of January/February 2011, which 
is available at 
http://www.ictu.nl/archief/noiv.nl/files/2011/06/NOiVmonitor2011.pdf
. 
118
 “De stand van zaken van het open source software beleid van de Rijksoverheid”, op. cit. 
119
 M. P
AAPST
, “Affirmative action in procurement for open standards and FLOSS”, IFOSSLR, 2010, vol.2, issue 2, 
available at  
http://www.ifosslr.org/ifosslr/article/view/41/76
. 

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Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs 
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3.1.3 Features 

 
NATURE:  
 
Policy (official programme of the government) 

 
DECISION LEVEL:   National (Dutch government) 

 
ACTION LEVEL:  
Any level (central government, provinces, local authorities)   
Any governmental institution (education, healthcare, social 
security) 

 
OBJECTIVES:   
Raising awareness of FOSS 
Promoting a level playing field  
Giving preference to open source software, if equally suitable 

 
MEASURES TAKEN:  Promotion of FOSS 
Creation of a support office (which issued many guidelines) 
Guidance and support 
Guidelines on award criteria 

 
LICENSING:   
Procured software should be under an open source licence as 
defined by the OSI 
The EUPL is considered when an administration contemplates 
to license its own software 

 
EFFECTIVENESS: Awareness 
has 
increased. 
As regards the objective to level the playing field, practices do 
not seem to have been satisfactorily improved. 
Positive discrimination has in general not been adopted.  
A minority of administrations has, however, adopted FOSS 
oriented awarding criteria. 
3.2 
Italy: Piedmont Region’s Act of 2009 and beyond 
3.2.1 General 
presentation 
Italy  is  an  unitary  state,  organised  in  such  a  way  that  many  matters  are  reserved  to  the 
State, but regions can nonetheless adopt specific laws on their own internal functioning. In 
2009, the main national law that governed software procurement was neutral as regards 
the nature of the procured software, FOSS being an option amongst others
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.  
As regions have the power to adopt more detailed rules with regard to public procurement, 
the Piedmont Regional Council passed, on 26 March 2009, an Act establishing “rules on 
software pluralism, on the adoption and the diffusion of free software and on the portability 
of digital documents in the public administration”
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.  
The aim of the region was to give priority to FOSS.  
This is clearly reflected in the far reaching provisions of the adopted law, which provides, 
amongst others, the following: 

 
The region uses software applications whose source code is available and which it 
can freely modify to adapt them to its needs. 

 
Except for software already in use, the region must preferentially procure Free 
Software and software whose source code is verifiable by end users. 

 
When procuring software, the region must carry out a technical and economic 
comparative assessment among the different solutions available on the market. In 
                                                 
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 C. P
IANA
, “Italian Constitutional Court gives way to Free-Software friendly laws”, IFOSSLR, 2010, vol.2, issue 
1, available at 
http://www.ifosslr.org/ifosslr/article/view/38
. 
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 Legge regionale n. 9 del 26 marzo 2009, Norme in materia di pluralismo informatico, sull'adozione e la 
diffusione del software libero e sulla portabilità dei documenti informatici nella pubblica amministrazione, (B.U. 02 
Aprile 2009, n. 13), available  at 
http://arianna.consiglioregionale.piemonte.it/ariaint/TESTO%3FLAYOUT=PRESENTAZIONE&TIPODOC=LEGGI&LEG
GE=9&LEGGEANNO=2009
 

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