The European Union, Open Source and INSPIRE

Disclaimer: This is no more than a brain dump.


There are some obvious issues with Open Source in the EU and INSPIRE that have been troubling me for some while. For some reason no one inside the commission who I have talked to seems to get this which makes me wonder whether it is me who got it all wrong. So bear with me for a moment and feel free to share your thoughts.


As I understand the INSPIRE process, it should be influenced by three distinct parties: The public administration, private companies with a business interest and the public at large. From all that I can tell this latter group includes grass-roots Open Source projects and those sustained by small businesses. I am not talking about the big funded (and sometimes somewhat bloated) projects, those are another story.


The active participation in the INSPIRE process involves quite a bit of monetary and temporal investment. In most cases this investment will only be done only by two of the three parties. One is the public administration, they are obliged to take part as best as they can and it should be in their best interest. But – we are talking hierarchy and top down processes in legal frameworks – not bottom up processes that would actually work. The second active party are companies with a sizable enough budget to fund up-front investment. They only move if they can expect a return on their investment. This is perfectly in order in our current economic system. But it also means that real input to the INSPIRE process is restricted to two of the three parties. Those who have a motivation to make a profit and the public administration.


Larger profit driven companies are known to miss the point by not listening to their users or going astray with queer technology and building vendor-lock-in. Not much innovation to expect here. The public administration, government institutions are routinely understaffed and – no offense taken – typically undereducated. This is the result of years of privatizing institutions, a process we all support when we vote for governments (but that is another story).


The third group - the public at large - is only theoretically considered but cannot get involved in any noticeable way due to restrictions in time and money. In my typically skewed perspective this is also where innovative Open Source could but does not come into play.


This flaw is a lot more blatantly visible in all EU funded projects - which again makes me wonder why it is not more prominently recognized or discussed. Let me explain, it is a really simple logic: Work packages in EU funded projects typically require private investment of 50%. The return on this investment is supposed to come from selling "something". In the software domain common understanding still seems to generate revenue by charging usage fees for proprietary licenses. This obviously does not work for Open Source because once the work is done, there is no more incentive to pay for it.


Funny enough lately Open Source has become a buzz word in EU grant applications. But no more than that. The result of EU funded projects consequently are so many software hacks in a wild state of incompleteness and lack of real world usage. Again – no offense meant – it is the system that makes us do it this way. The main reason why most "Open Source" projects fail is that they spell "Open Source" in quotes. They fail to follow the Open-Source-way-of-doing-things right from the start (read up on http://producingoss.org to get the gist). Instead in many cases it feels more like a random license has been stuck on top of the project at the last moment before submitting the final report. This is not just a waste of resources but it also damages the reputation of those who implement quality software under an Open Source license.


As already stated at the outset this is nothing but a brain dump and not meant to put anyone off. My guess is that most of these issues simply result from a deep misunderstanding and thorough ignorance as to what makes Open Source projects function successfully. But who on earth will pay someone like me to educate folks before submitting a grant application or talk to the commission in a way "it" understands? Some already do, and there is OSOR for a start, but it is still a long ways to go. Meanwhile INSPIRE goes – well, where exactly? I'll go ask some Borg when I am back in orbit, they should know, they know how to communicate.


Have fun.