Input on anticompetitive characteristic of public code

[Fabio Pietrosanti (naif) - lists]

On 21/06/2018 14:33, Erik Albers wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> currently we are working on a brochure for our Public Money? Public Code!
> campaign, that we like to use as a help for politicians and decision-takers.
> The brochure shall help to clarify common misunderstandings about Free
> Software, show positive use-cases and of course the multiple benefits of using
> Free Software. Aim is that the reader gets a broad picture and positive
> understanding as well as valid arguments why to prefer using Free Software in
> public administrations. Size will be around 16 to 24 pages.

[...]

>
> * Are there more examples in Europe in that - like in Switzerland - national
> courts decided in favor of publishing publicly financed software as Free Software?

In Italy the new Article 69 comma 2 of CAD (Digital Administration Code) 
along with the Software Selection and Software Reuse Guidelines (that 
has been under public consultation all May, we've participated as Hermes 
Center) officially released by Team for Digital Transformation / Agid 
(Agency for Digitalization) do require each public agency to:

- Follow strict selection procedures with favor on opensource
- Follow strict selection procedures that require to use "officially in 
re-use software"
- Follow strict procedures to contribute to third party opensource 
software when making a tender for sw development based on OSS

Guidelines are italian on 
http://lg-acquisizione-e-riuso-software-per-la-pa.readthedocs.io/it/latest/ 
with google translate does a decent translation job.

There's no direct sanctioning systems for violations of those rules, but 
watchdogs (like us, italian linux society or others NGOs) can goes to 
the "court of accounts" that investigate damages to public accounts in 
case there was a public software project that didn't followed those 
guidelines causing a loss of money for the public treasury.

I think that a brochure should explicitly underline the French, Swiss 
and Italian legal frameworks, i don't know of anyone else, with a list 
of claims of virtuous legislation and practices by big European 
countries on those topic, because the "by example" approach works very 
well with policy makers and managers.


Fabio Pietrosanti