Constitutional affairs legal affairs

Workshop: Legal aspects of free and open source software 
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trademarks or specific technologies that should be, as a general rule, banned). 
The NOIV’s examples of award criteria are a good source of inspiration, as they make use 
of terms, concepts and objectives that are as neutral as possible. In contrast, it is 
interesting to note that the explicit reference to the EUPL by the Spanish interoperability 
framework has been source of discomfort for FOSS-based IT providers, given that a vast 
majority of open source applications are available under other licences (mainly of the GPL 
family) that do not allow relicensing under EUPL. Fortunately, the law explicitly allows the 
use of other licences, and one must hope that Spanish administrations carefully and wisely 
assess the necessity to specifically require the EUPL
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. 
The current public procurement regulatory framework seems therefore not to constitute, as 
such, a hindrance to the adoption of FOSS by administrations. It provides ways to develop 
practices that aim at levelling the playing field or preferring the procurement of FOSS, if 
there is a will to go in that direction. The analysed cases illustrate that this last condition is 
probably the one that requires the most attention: whereas the policy shapers are aware of 
the advantages of FOSS, policy takers show different degrees of resistance, which is 
motivated by multiple factors that must be duly analysed and taken into consideration, and 
that are sometimes overlooked. 
Passing laws could be contemplated as a means to override the resistance effect thanks to 
the compulsory nature of the instrument used. The Spanish and Italian experiences 
illustrate, however, that such exercise is complex, as the adopted law is likely to interfere 
with copyright, competition or procurement laws and principles. The law must therefore be 
cautiously drafted and should not damage competition nor result in a technological 
stagnation. 
The Spanish law is quite astonishing as it is drafted in a way that it allows administrations 
to share software using FOSS licences. Besides the symbolic aspect of this explicit 
authorisation, one would tend to wonder what concrete change is brought by such law to 
the general regulatory framework: would such FOSS licensing practice not have been legal 
anyway without such positive statement? Furthermore, a devil’s advocate would even argue 
that the Spanish law restricts FOSS licensing practices in administrations as it seems to 
impose the use of copyleft licences. On the one hand, such requirement restricts the 
spectrum of possible scenarios (as copyleft can generate compatibility problems in 
heterogeneously licensed developments)
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, whereas on the other hand, it implies the use 
of licences that must be handled with more care (as copyleft usually entails more 
obligations to comply with). In contrast, the Italian law considers FOSS as a self-justifying 
criterion (whereas the choice of proprietary solution must be specifically explained) but it 
does not further require a specific type of FOSS licence. 
 
 
                                                 
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 On this regards, see the ISA programme’s “Standard “sharing and re-using” clauses for contracts”,   
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/sites/default/files/ISA_Share_Reuse_D_2%201%20Standard%20Sharing%20and%20
re-using%20clauses%20for%20contracts_final%20version.pdf
. 
174
  P
H
.
 
L
AURENT
, “Free and Open Source Software Licensing: A reference for the reconstruction of “virtual 
commons?”, op. cit. 

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Policy Department C: Citizens' Rights and Constitutional Affairs 
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ANNEX: COMPARISON TABLE 
 
 
 
Dutch 
NOIV 
Piedmont 
Region’s Act 
Spanish  
NIF 
UK 
Government 
ICT 
Strategy 
Walloon 
IMIO 
French 
Ayrault 
Circular 
Action 
 
Policy 
 
Legislation Legislation Policy 
Policy 
Policy 
Decision 
level 
National Local 
National National Local 
National 
Action level 
 
Any level 
Local 
Any level 
National 
Local 
National 
 
Objectives 
 
Awareness 
 
Level playing 
field 
 
Preference 
 
Preference 
 
Reuse of 
software 
 
Reuse of 
software 
 
Level playing 
field 
 
Software 
mutualisation  
 
Use and 
mutualisation 
of FOSS 
 
Level playing 
field 
 
 
Measures 
Taken 
 
Promotion 
 
Support office 
 
Guidance & 
Support 
 
Guidelines on 
award criteria 
 
Law 
establishing 
procurement 
rules 
 
Authorisation 
to use FOSS 
licences 
 
Obligation to 
reuse 
 
Technology 
transfer 
centre 
 
 
Toolkit 
(guidelines) 
 
Expert panels 
 
Asset 
registers & 
app. store 
 
Centre of 
excellence 
 
 
Creation of 
an inter-
municipal 
public 
company  
 
Selection of 
credible free 
software 
alternatives 
 
Expert 
networks 
 
Free software 
monitoring 
 
Contribution 
to FOSS 
development 
 
“Culture” of 
FOSS use 
 
 
Licensing 
 
Open Source 
 
EUPL 
considered 
 
Free Software 
 
EUPL (default 
licence) 
 
Other 
copyleft 
licences 
 
 
Open Source 
 
Open Source 
 
GPL mainly 
involved 
 
Free Software 
 
Effectiveness 
 
Objectives 
not reached 
 
Law in 
application 
 
Court 
validation 
 
 
 
Awareness 
 
Reuse 
 
Some 
positive 
discrimination 
 
The strategy 
is lobbied 
against 
 
Too early to 
draw 
conclusions 
 
Objectives 
reached  
so far 
 
 
 
Too early to 
draw 
conclusions 
 
Philippe Laurent is Senior Researcher at the CRIDS (Research Centre - Information, Law and 
Society of the University of Namur) and Lawyer at the Brussels Bar (Marx Van Ranst Vermeersh & 
Partners). As a researcher, Philippe mainly studies intellectual property licensing, data and software 
protection, copyright limitations, open source and open content schemes, cloud computing and the 
governance of the Internet. He wrote several reports and articles on open source licensing and is 
currently working on the development of a local FOSS expertise centre.  Philippe’s work as attorney-
at-law focuses on intellectual property & IT law, data protection, trade practices, distribution 
agreements, advertising, as well as on broader commercial law matters. Philippe is also appointed by 
the CEPANI as Third-Party Decider for ".be" domain name disputes and is alternate member of the 
copyrights and neighboring rights section of the Intellectual Property Council of the Belgian Ministry of 
Economy. 

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