Relevant link of today: Open Source and Open Standards under Threat in Europe

Earlier this week Glyn Moody posted an article shedding some light on what is apparently currently going on behind closed doors about the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) and about the Digital Agenda under preparation by Commissioner Kroes and DG Information Society. Extensive lobbying seems to be done in order to change the basic direction of openness which the Commission has taken for years and which has given leadership to Europe and to the Commission in an age of transition to new, open ways of working and innovating.

I am still optimistic that the Commission will be resistant against any backwards-oriented lobbying and retain its clear and fresh view on information and communication technologies (ICT), standardisation, interoperability and openness:

1. Openness is the key paradigm of the time, it has produced new and highly productive ways of working and it is vital for fostering innovation; 
2. Market players of all kind are in a process of change to a new equilibrium of proprietary and openness adapting to the new paradigm for being successful and maintaining leadership on the global marketplace;
3. The European Commission and public authorities in Europe play a key role in driving this transformation and leveraging openness in all areas for the benefit of the European marketplace and the citizens of Europe.

Glyn Moody gives some important alert. Read his full article at computerworlduk online.

Document Freedom Day - let's celebrate and ask for more

Never was document freedom easier to get than today with the open document format (ODF) available for some years. It was originally developed as an open standard in OASIS where it is also continuously maintained in the respective technical committee. And it was submitted and approved as an ISO standard.

Tomorrow, March 31, is again "Document Freedom Day". It is clearly a day to celebrate. Document freedom is an idea, a concept that has got momentum. The open document format is essential for efficient automatic data processing since the data format is openly laid down; it supports competitiveness and choice since everyone can implement the standard and offer innovative competitive technologies on the level of the implementation; it thus prevents single vendor lock-in and prevents that people and citizens need to buy one specific software from a single vendor for reading, editing or crafting documents.

Document freedom is what is needed. Public authorities started to take this up. This is the right way to go forward and should be supported by all of us.

So join in and celebrate Document Freedom Day on March 13 and make this day a starting point for yet another successful year for open document formats and document freedom, promoting more take up of the ODF and progress on openness in this very relevant area.

Relevant link of today: Digital Commissioner Kroes proposes EU policy of open standards

In his blog post the member of the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) organisation, David Hammerstein, allows some glimpses on a Commission draft document coming from DG Digital (Information Society) on the "Digital Agenda for Europe":

AN IMPORTANT POLICY PAPER, A Digital Agenda for Europe –
A policy for smart growth and innovation in a digital society, HAS BEEN LEAKED OF WHICH AN EXCERPT IS BELOW.  DIGITAL AGENDA COMMISSIONER KROES HAS PROPOSED A SERIOUS MOVE OF THE EU TOWARD OPEN STANDARDS AND INTEROPERABILITY.  THESE PROPOSALS ARE ALREADY BEING ATTACKED BY HER COLLEAGUES IN THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION WHO REPRESENT ENTERPRISE, COMMERCE AND INTERNAL MARKET.  NEVERTHELESS, THESE PROPOSALS DESERVE CONSUMER AND CITIZEN SUPPORT.

Read the full article with some more details on the document and direct quotes from it on David's page.

Eintracht beats Bayern

When your team wins against Bayern it is always worth mentioning. To begin with, I am not one of those notorious "haters" of Bayern. They are a great and astonishing team and, let's be honest, the only German team that is really capable of coping with the great teams in Europe. But they just don't need to win all the time...

So last Saturday they came to Frankfurt - the only true team in Germany !! - after being unbeaten for 19 matches. And they led until close to the end when Frankfurt managed to beat Bayern with two wonderful goals 2:1.

For Frankfurt it should be a very motivating win after loosing three matches in a row. Let's see. But winning against Bayern is worth a blog post. See also the article in the FAZ online about Eintracht's match-winners.

Reactions on the EXPRESS report

As you can imagine, having been a member of the EXPRESS panel I received quite some reactions since the publication of the the final EXPRESS report. This is, for sure, very interesting for me to see how the report is being received and what people think about it. I had posted my initial ramblings on the final report in my blog post right after the report was published.

The reactions I am getting range from valued support of the report to strong rejection. And it is pretty easy to locate the different feedback, too:

Those who like the report are organisations or people who predominantly work in the formal standardisation structures. They are happy that the report takes a rather conservative stance on the European Standardisation System (ESS) and does, in fact not propose a big overhaul but hardly any legal changes at all.

Those who reject the report largely come from the ICT world - and the more they are used to working in the standardisation structures which the IT world and in particular the software and internet world have created, the more do people think that the EXPRESS report is of almost no relevance for the ICT sector.

In between those extremes there are the people who, on the one hand, value the current ESS structures, but who, on the other hand, see a strong and urgen need for changes to accommodate the specifics of the ICT sector. They support a fast revision of Council Decision 87/95 with a focus on the implementation of (available, global open) standards and on fostering interoperability. And they see that Directive 98/34 in contrast has got a different focus, namely on the development of standards in support of regulation and of a harmonised European internal market. For this Directive they don't see a strong need for changes and would be happy if the legal processes were decoupled with a fast revision of the Council Decision based on the Commission proposals as laid down in the ICT White Paper.

Pesonally, I think that this middle way is pretty sensitive. There is an urgent need for ICT to get the legal changes as outlined in the ICT White Paper. Moreover, these changes provide Europe with an effective mechanism for dealing with one of the major future challenges: globalisation and how to make open standards that are well established and implemented on the global marketplace available for Europe and for use in EU policies and public procurement.