Constitutional affairs legal affairs

Workshop: Legal aspects of free and open source software 
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
 
Buying proprietary solutions in purchasing centres to provide solutions at lower 
costs and a support service; and 

 
Formalising work processes for the local government. 
IMIO provides its software and services to any municipality of the Walloon region, which 
can become member of the project. Currently, it is partly financed by subsidies of the 
Walloon region, and partly by the prices paid by the members for each “product”. These 
prices are linked to the number of inhabitants of the municipality. The solutions proposed 
by IMIO can be deployed on the infrastructures of their members or made available in 
"SaaS Software as a Service" from IMIO’s infrastructure. 
3.5.2 Results 
IMIO has currently more than 180 members, amongst which more than half of the Walloon 
municipalities (150 out of 262 – the 30 remaining members being other types of public 
services such as public social action centres). 
IMIO benefits from Walloon Region subsidies (1.2 Million Euro at its launch), but has 
already reached a turnover of about 1 Million Euro in 2012. It is expected to become fully 
sustainable within a few years. 
According to Joël Lambilotte (co-founder of CommunesPlone and employee of IMIO) “the 
IMIO initiative is successful and the results are better than what was predicted in the 
business plan. The success comes from the “official” status of the organisation as a publicly 
owned entity. A second success factor is certainly the experience gathered from the field 
with the CommunesPlone project, whose debut dates back to 2005. The partnership with 
many technological SME’s has also provided an undeniable advantage comparing to other 
solutions available on the Market. These elements bring a very hands-on and bottom-up 
approach to the global strategy”.   
3.5.3 Features 

 
ACTION:  
 
Policy (joint action of several local PA) 

 
DECISION LEVEL:   Local (Walloon region & municipalities) 

 
ACTION LEVEL:  
Local (Walloon municipalities) 

 
OBJECTIVE:   
To foster the mutualising of local administration software 

 
MEASURES 
TAKEN: Creation of a public company which 
procures, develops, maintains, supports and mutualises 
software for the local municipalities.  

 
LICENSING:   
Open source software (GPL is mainly involved) 

 
EFFECTIVENESS: 
The initiative seems successful and reaching its objectives. 
It is too early to assess its sustainability. 
3.6. France: Circular on the use of open source in the 
administration 
3.6.1 General 
presentation 
On 19 September 2012, the French Prime Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault addressed a circular 
to all the French ministers inviting them to implement the guidelines on the use of free 
software in the administration
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 prepared by the DISIC (Direction Interministérielle des 
Systèmes d’Information et de Communication). 
The guidelines start from the statement that “from now on, in order to meet business 
needs, Free Software must be considered on equal footing with other solutions”. After some 
introductory explanations on the basic features of FOSS and its licensing scheme, its model 
based on services and its advantages in different contexts, the guidelines broadly describe 
                                                 
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 “Usage du logiciel libre dans l’administration”, annexed to the circulaire 56/SG of 19 september 2012, available 
at 
http://circulaire.legifrance.gouv.fr/pdf/2012/09/cir_35837.pdf
. An english translation made by the APRIL is 
available at 
http://www.april.org/en/french-prime-minister-instructions-usage-free-software-french-
administration
. 

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Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs 
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eight inter-ministerial action lines aiming at facilitating the use of Free Software solutions in 
the administration's choices and at levelling the playing field, while at the same time 
achieving maximum economic efficiency and quality: 

 
Instituting an effective convergence on certain Free Software projects. A 
convergence framework is established, which aims at selecting and focussing some 
relevant FOSS that can be developed and reused in State information systems. Each 
ministry must participate in its updating and progressive reinforcing. 

 
Activating networks of experts, which gather specialists from the different ministries 
and aim at sharing expertises and competences. This includes the organisation of 
inter-ministerial workgroups and public workshops and conferences. 

 
Improving Free Software support in a controlled economic context. The objective is 
to centralise and to mutualise support and maintenance services amongst the 
ministries. 

 
Contributing in a coordinated way to chosen free software projects. The government 
plans to financially endorse Free Software development by systematically re-
injecting from 5 to 10 percent of the avoided licensing costs in the development 
process.  

 
Keeping in contact with the large communities. “Just as software editors maintain 
regular contact with all ministries, to update knowledge of their products, be able to 
anticipate their changes, and even assess needs, it is essential to have links to large 
communities such as the Mozilla Foundation or the Document Foundation. However, 
as these foundations do not have a commercial approach, the logic is reversed. It is 
the administration that must regularly contact them”, the document explains.  

 
Deploying credible and operational alternatives to the large software editors' 
solutions. The aim is to identify and focus on credible alternatives and foster their 
adoption.  

 
Mapping out use of FOSS and its impacts. Annual analyses on FOSS adoption should 
be carried out and published. 

 
Developing a culture of use of Free Software licenses in the development of public 
information systems. This last point acknowledges and aims at addressing the 
“complex management of code ownership”. It provides that “the State must 
safeguard its ability to release code in a manner that maximizes its own benefit, 
regardless of which provider did the development. The State must therefore make 
use, or prepare the use, of Free Software licenses, be they permissive or not, 
depending on the context. It must also ensure that this freedom prevails vis-à-vis its 
suppliers in every context that could lead to reuse, unless explicit additional costs 
are generated”.  
To achieve all these results, some concrete action lines are planed: 

 
a network of experts is established among lawyerss/purchasers involved 
in the drafting of specifications and administrative clauses; 

 
specific training courses are set up within ministries: fast-track ones for 
project managers and developers, more in-depth ones for lawyers and 
buyers; 

 
provider liability clauses and obligations must also be added when said 
providers use or develop Free Software code, and 

 
licence management must be one of the components of the explicit IT 
governance within each ministry.  
It is noticeable that, in order to add legitimacy to the guidelines, reference is made to the 
Council of State’s decision of 30 September 2011
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, which confirmed that a public 
                                                 
166
 Conseil d’Etat, Decision n°350431 of 30 September 2011, available at  
http://arianeinternet.conseil-
etat.fr/arianeinternet/getdoc.asp?id=192208&fonds=DCE&item=1
. 

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