EU further demonstrates support for open source
EU further demonstrates support for open source
Inadvertent though it may be, the European Union is sticking it to Microsoft again through the funding of a 1.5 million euro (AU$2.6 million) open source software research project.
Earlier this year, the EU imposed a record fine for a competition case in Europe of 497.2 million euros (AU$811.6 million) over what it claimed were anti-competitive business practices by the software giant.
Now it is backing a two year project by the name of CALIBRE, which aims to improve the way open source projects work by fostering closer collaboration with industry and having a more structured research platform.
Open source software continues to gain momentum as a credible alternative to Microsoft's proprietary software and is increasingly being examined as an option by corporate customers, rather than automatically renewing Microsoft licenses, as has been the case in the past.
The project is set to be launched at University College Cork, in Ireland, this coming Friday (10th). It will also seek to address the anomaly that the leadership of a great number of open source projects are US-dominated, despite the fact that the majority of open source contributions emanate from Europe.
It also wants to help improve the likelihood of open source being taken up by industry by enabling detailed analysis to be carried out so that potential users can better determine whether a move to open source would be economically viable.
The group behind the project acknowledge that formalisation of the open source development community needs to take place, as the development model is poorly understood. By compiling a database of open source success stories and publishing best practices, the project aims to address this problem.
It also hopes to deal with the issue of software patents, which open source developers fear may be used to stifle development in the open source space.
Related Article: