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E-government: European administrations should share software resources

An independent report of June 2002 published by IDA, the Commission programme on the interchange of data between administrations, suggests that software developed for and owned by public administrations should be issued under an open source license. The study also recommends the creation of a software clearing house to which administrations can "donate" software. The software pooling facility should provide quality guarantees and help resolve questions of liability that currently often inhibit the sharing of developments. More than simply providing software, the pooling facility should make available expertise and help create a community of developers, users and policy makers. This facility could thus encourage the replication of good practice in eGovernment services.
Although customisation to local linguistic and legal requirements would probably be required, sharing software developed for administrations could lead to across-the-board improvements in efficiency of the European public sector.
Background
EGovernment is one of the 10 priority areas of the EU’s eEurope programme. Under the eEurope 2002 Action plan, Member States agreed to provide all basic services online by end 2002. According to a report published in the European Information Technology Observatory, EU public sector expenditures on eGovernment are set to rise by 28% to € 6.6 billion this year.
Much has been achieved in this area since, but lacking interoperability still poses problems. The eEurope 2005 Action Plan foresees that, by end 2003, the Commission will issue an agreed interoperability framework to support the delivery of pan European e-government services to citizens and enterprises which will address information content and recommend technical policies and specifications for joining up public administration information systems across the EU. This framework will be based on open standards and encourage the use of open source software.

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