Re:Open source is illegal?
by clyfe on Wednesday August 31, 2011 @06:46AM
(#2945037)
On page 64 of the 'Specifications', in a paragraph
highlighted in yellow, the ministry writes:
"All versions of software that are part of the offer
may not be published under a 'free software license'
- GPL or similar."
When you licence your solution to the government, you do so under a commercial licence. The 'Specifications' were asking you not to have any parts of your software under a free license (to/from third parties).
This limits the little guys that try to cut costs by using open software as building blocks for the solution, so only the giants vendoring expensive "enterprise" solutions can participate. And rest assured, open solutions are many times of better quality.
Of course this move is to limit competitiveness since EU explicitly favors open software: http://www.osor.eu/eupl/introduction-to-the-eupl-project
This limits the little guys that try to cut costs by using open software as building blocks for the solution, so only the giants vendoring expensive "enterprise" solutions can participate. And rest assured, open solutions are many times of better quality.