The Guideline on public procurement of Open Source Software, was revised in June 2010. The latest version includes references to recent procurement policies developed by Spain and Malta and to this year's approval by Italy's constitutional court on the country's Piedmont regional administration procurement law.
Both Spain and Malta this year adopted policies that specify that when their public organisations distribute open source applications, they will by default use the European Union Public Licence (EUPL).
In Italy, the Constitutional Court earlier this year denied the central government's request to strike down the Piedmont region's free software law. The court ruled that the Piedmont regional administration's preference for open source software is legitimate.
Software publishers
According to the authors of the Guideline, the update should also be useful to public administrations considering to release software using an open source licence. "This should be of interest to all government organisations that aim to have software developed, when they plan to make the resulting application available as open source."
Organisations in this case for instance should make the contracted developers aware of this intention and of the licensing terms. "Failing to prevent licence conflicts beforehand, could hinder the distribution of a project as open source."
The open source procurement report is commissioned by the European Commission as part of its 'Dissemination of good practice in Open Source Software (Gposs)' measure from the IDABC programme. It is meant for all public administrations that consider using open source software and that seek advise on how and why public agencies can acquire such software.
The first version of the Guideline was made public in October 2008. It was updated in March 2010.
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