Constitutional affairs legal affairs

Workshop: Legal aspects of free and open source software 
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According to Simone Aliprandi and Carlo Piana, “The decision was made in a dire situation 
of the national economy and inspired by practical reasons (spending review) rather than 
idealistic ones. It seems however a new direction that can hardly be changed. Only it can 
be made less compelling by a slack implementation, if not outright non compliance. 
Vigilance is therefore required”
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. 
3.2.3 Features 
of 
the 
Piedmont Region’s Act 

 
ACTION:  
 
Legislation 

 
DECISION LEVEL:   Local (Piedmont region) 

 
ACTION LEVEL:  
Local (Piedmont region) 

 
OBJECTIVE:   
Favouring the procurement, sharing and re-use of FOSS by the 
administrations 

 
MEASURES TAKEN:  Adoption of a law establishing procurement rules 

 
LICENSING:   
Not specified (reference to free software) 

 
EFFECTIVENESS: 
The initiative has been successful and survived a challenge 
before the Constitutional Court. 
A couple of years after the Constitutional Court’s decision, at 
national level, the Code for the Digital Administration has been 
modified to favour FOSS and promote sharing and re-use of 
software. How the amended code will be concretely applied 
remains uncertain. 
3.3. 
Spain: National Interoperability Framework 
3.3.1 General 
presentation 
The Spanish Citizens Electronic Access to Public Services Act (eGov Law 11/2007)
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 grants 
citizens the right to interact with the public administration by electronic means. The law 
regulates the basic aspects of IT use, but also the cooperation between administrations and 
the reuse and transfer of applications amongst them (articles 45 and 46).  
In application of article 42 of the Law, the Royal Decree 4/2010
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 implements the Spanish 
National Interoperability Framework, and contains several provisions (articles 16 and 17) 
aiming at fostering the use of FOSS in the public sector. 
Article 45 of the Law provides that when public administrations are owners of IP rights on 
their applications, they may
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 make them available to any other public administration 
without compensation and without the need of an agreement. These applications can be 
declared “open source” when this allows a better transparency in the functioning of the 
public administration or when this fosters the incorporation of the citizens in the 
information society. 
Article 16 of the Royal Decree does not oblige public administrations to redistribute their 
applications to other administrations and citizens, but if they do, they must take into 
account that the aim is to allow the use and the reuse of the software, as well as the 
protection against its exclusive appropriation by a third party. The transferor must however 
protect itself from liability, support and warranty obligations. The provision details the 
licensing conditions, which must ensure that 

 
the software can be executed for any purpose, 

 
the source code is available, 
                                                 
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 Idem. 
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 Ley 11/2007, de 22 de junio, de acceso electrónico de los ciudadanos a los Servicios Públicos, available at 
https://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-2007-12352
. 
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 Real Decreto 4/2010, de 8 de enero, por el que se regula el Esquema Nacional de Interoperabilidad en el 
ámbito de la Administración Electrónica, available at 
http://www.boe.es/buscar/doc.php?id=BOE-A-2010-1331
. 
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 The provision reads as follows: “Las administraciones titulares de los derechos de propiedad intelectual de 
aplicaciones, desarrolladas por sus servicios o cuyo desarrollo haya sido objeto de contratación, podrán ponerlas a 
disposición de cualquier Administración sin contraprestación y sin necesidad de convenio”. 

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Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs 
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
 
the software can be modified or improved, and 

 
the software can be redistributed to other users with or without changes, on the 
condition that the derived work keeps these four “guarantees”. 
The last condition entails the use of a copyleft licence, namely a licence which provides a 
specific clause that, generally speaking, obliges anyone who redistributes the software, 
with or without changes, to redistribute it under the same licence
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. 
Outstandingly, the last paragraph of article 16 provides that 
“To this end, the application of the European Union Public Licence will be sought, 
without prejudice of other licences that can guarantee the same  rights  stated  in  the 
[previous] paragraphs […]”
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.  
The EUPL is therefore set by law as the licence “by default”
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 to be required in 
procurements, and which has been pre-validated by the lawmaker as being compliant with 
the 4 conditions set forth above. If the public administration wants to use another licence, 
it has to check whether the contemplated licence meets the same conditions. 
Article 46 of the Law provides that public administrations must keep updated registries of 
applications for free reuse, in cooperation with a Technology Transfer Centre that is set up 
and run by the General State Administration, and conforming to the principles provided by 
the National Interoperability Framework. Article 17 of the Royal Decree further provides 
that public administrations have to take into account the solutions freely reusable available 
in those registries and which could meet (totally or partially) the requirements of the new 
systems and services, and consider the improvement and update of the solutions already 
implemented. In order to optimise the sharing and collaborative process, the ongoing 
development should be published in the registries at an early stage, without waiting for the 
code to be finalised. 
“Reuse” is therefore the catchword in Spain as regards ICT public procurement, and FOSS 
seems to be perceived as a key element for achieving this goal. However, the Royal Decree 
does not establish any preference for the acquisition of software products based on FOSS. 
3.3.2 Results 
The Technology Transfer Centre has been created
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. It keeps and maintains the repository 
of reusable software, which is connected to several forges
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 operated by autonomous 
communities (Andalusia, Catalonia and Extramadura) and to the European JOINUP platform 
(operated by the ISA programme)
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.  
The Centre is functioning hands in hands with the CENATIC (Centro Nacional de Referencia 
de Aplicación de las TIC basadas en fuentes abiertas), which is a very active centre created 
by the Spanish Government and which raises awareness on and promotes the usage of 
FOSS in any sector, with a special focus on, amongst others, the public administrations. 
CENATIC organises a national observatory of free software
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, which has released the 
                                                 
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 The GPL is the most famous copyleft licence. There are however many types of “copyleft effects” which cannot 
be further described in the present briefing paper. See for instance P
H
.
 
L
AURENT
, “Free and Open Source Software 
Licensing: A reference for the reconstruction of “virtual commons?”, op. cit. 
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 The provision reads as follows: “Para este fin se procurará la aplicación de la Licencia Pública de la Unión 
Europea, sin perjuicio de otras licencias que garanticen los mismos derechos expuestos en los apartados 1 y 2”. 
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 See P.E.
 
S
CHMITZ
, « Impact of the Spanish Royal Decree 4/2010 of 8 January 2010 », available at 
http://joinup.ec.europa.eu/community/eupl/news/impact-spanish-royal-decree-4/2010-8-january-2010
. 
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 Information on the Technology Transfer Center is available at 
http://administracionelectronica.gob.es/?_nfpb=true&_pageLabel=P803124061272300995675&langPae=es
. 
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 A forge is a software repository allowing the collaborative development of software over the Internet. 
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 Dirección General para el Impulso de la Administración Electrónica del Ministerio de Hacienda y Administración 
Pública,  Reutilización de activos y aplicaciones en la Administración, August 2012, available at 
http://www.cenatic.es/publicaciones/divulgativas?download=135%3Areutilizacion-de-activos-y-aplicaciones-en-la-
administracion. 
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 More information available at 
http://observatorio.cenatic.es
. 

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