1. Procurement of Open Source
… which implements open standards
Bitr. Professor Björn Lundell (Ph.D.)
Software Systems Research Group
Informatics Research Centre
University of Skövde, Sweden
@ Track: Legal and licensing aspects of Open Source
Open World Forum 2014
31 October 2014
11:40 – 12:20
Paris, France
bjorn.lundell@his.se

2. Who?
Björn Lundell, Ph.D. (docent & Bitr. Professor) ...
➢researcher @ University of Skövde
➢member of the Swedish national advisory council for IT-standardisation ("IT-standardiseringsrådet", edelegationen.se) for the Swedish Government
➢lead the Swedish activities and co-lead a work package in the EU FP6 CALIBRE project (2004-2006).
➢technical manager in the industrial ITEA-project COSI (2006-2009), covering analysis of organisational adoption of Open Source practices
➢project leader for “Nordic OSS Researchers Network”, a research network funded by NordForsk (2009-2012)
➢leader for several research projects in the area, including ORIOS (2012-2015) “Open Source Reference Implementations for Open Standards”, a research project funded by the Knowledge Foundation
➢a founding member of the IFIP Working Group 2.13 on Open Source Software and the organiser of the 5th Int. Conf. on Open Source Systems (OSS 2009) & program co-chair of the 8th & 12th Int. Conf. on Open Source Systems (OSS 2012 & OSS 2016).
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Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

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The “definition of open standards and open source software as defined by the European Interoperability Framework version one has served us well so far. The use of open standards and open source solutions decreases the public sector’s reliance on specific vendors and platforms and it increases European competitiveness as well as the transparency”
Mats Odell (Swedish minister), “European Public Sector Award”, Maastricht, 5 Nov. 2009 http://www.regeringen.se/sb/d/11678/a/134858
Swedish policy context ...
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

4. ➢Organisations use a variety of different applications and file formats
➢Organisations often need to preserve and modify their software systems and digital assets for more than 30 years, sometimes even more than 70 years
➢Maintenance and support contracts for proprietary licensed software are provided for (up to) 10 years
➢Digital assets (files) outlive proprietary software in any maintenance scenario (from this it follows that we need Open Source software!)
➢Software used for the initial creation of digital assets will not be available during the complete life-cycle for many systems (for companies and public sector organisations)
Several fundamental challenges(addressed by software) relate to standards ...
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Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

5. ➢It is only a minority of purchasers who are taking concrete steps to avoid lock-in effects
”Upphandling av IT - inlåsningseffekter och möjligheter”, Konkurrensverket, Uppdragsforskningsrapport 2013:2
➢“A need for long-term accessibility of information, both for use and reuse, implies that an organisation needs to ensure that maintenance of the information can be guaranteed independently of the system which was used to generate the information.”
Lundell, B. (2012) Why do we need Open Standards?, In Orviska, M. and Jakobs, K. (Eds.) Proc. 17th EURAS Annual Standardisation Conference 'Standards and Innovation', The EURAS Board Series, Aachen, ISBN: 978-3-86130-337-4, pp. 227-240
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Lock-in effects ...
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

6. Procurement of Open Source which implements open standards minimise risks for ...
➢... standard lock-in
➢... file format lock-in
➢... competence lock-in
➢... cognitive lock-in
➢... educational lock-in
➢... history lock-in
➢... vendor lock-in
➢... compatibility lock-in
➢... transform lock-in
➢... tool lock-in
➢... system lock-in
➢... cloud lock-in
➢... etc.
Can you please unlock?
Different lock-in scenarios ...
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

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Open standards(SOU 2009:86 & EIF v1.0)
➢“The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.
➢The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for- profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.).
➢The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty-free basis.
➢There are no constraints on the re-use of the standard.”
Strategi för myndigheternas arbete med e-förvaltning (SOU 2009:86) & cited in a study “Programvaror och tjänster 2013” conducted by Statens inköpscentral vid Kammarkollegiet, (published 5 Feb. 2014)
Open Standards (SOU 2009:86) can be implemented in OSS
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

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Open & Formal standards …
Formal standards are not necessarily open.
Open standards can be implemented in Open Source.
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

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➢Vendors (often claim to) support and implement specific software standards in software systems they provide
➢Claimed support ≠ Actual support in (almost) all cases
➢“If a standard is covered by a patent or is in a FRAND system potentially covered by a patent, an open source developer risks his/her economic survival by implementing it because the patent owner can always go back and ask for past royalties.”
Daniel Dardailler, Phil Archer, Rigo Wenning, “W3C Response to UK Cabinet OfficeOpen Standards Consultation”, 25 May 2012
On implementation of standards in (proprietary and) Open Source software ...
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

10. Our study of OSS projects implementing PDF shows that:
➢there can be a number of different problematic issues related to clarity and detail in the specification of standards;
➢implementations of a specification of a standard may deviate from the specification;
➢licensing and patent issues are perceived as a concern by contributors to open source projects implementing a specification of a standard;
➢there are influences between the specification of a standard and its implementations in software systems
➢The study also shows the potential benefit and innovative ways of using Open Source licensed implementations of a standard as a means for an improved standardisation process
Gamalielsson, J. & Lundell,B. (2013) Experiences from implementing PDF in open source: challenges and opportunities for standardisation processes, In 8th IEEE Conf. on Standardisation and Innovation in InformationTechnology
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden
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Example: Implementation of standards ...

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Development of standards benefit from Open Source implementations, and vice versa
➢Transparent interpretations of issues improve clarity in standards and implementations, with mutual benefits
Development and evolution of a technical specification of a standard benefits from multiple Open Source projects
➢Open collaborations and reciprocal action between standardisation and implementation contribute to resolve issues
Development of Open Source software (which implements technical specifications of standards) improves development and evolution of standards
➢implementations promote quality in standards
Results from the ORIOS project
Improved development of specifications and implementations of standards ...
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

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Important to understand and respect community values ...
➢“It is important to thoroughly understand how each community works and act according to its ‘informal rules’. From a corporate perspective, it is clear that the big challenge is to properly understand this and handle the difficult balance between the shorter-term corporate goal and the longer-term goal of establishing a mutualistic relationship with Open Source communities.”
Lundell et al. (2010) Open Source in Swedish companies: where are we?, Information Systems Journal, Vol. 20(6)
➢“Open Source communities can outlive Open Source software projects.”
Gamalielsson, J. & Lundell,B. (2013) Sustainability of Open Source software communities beyond a fork: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved, Journal of Systems and Software, Vol. 84, Available at: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2013.11.1077
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

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Procurement of IT in public sector organisations should always refer to standards with technical specifications which are ...
➢published and completely specified – Can be implemented?
➢available under transparent conditions without dependencies on brand names, trademarks, patents, and (closed) industry consortia – Promotes competition
➢available under royalty-free (RF) conditions – RF allows implementation under different proprietary and different Open Source licenses (“FRAND licenses create barriers for Open Source projects”, EC SWD(2013) 224 final)
➢implemented in (several) long-term sustainable projects, including copyleft licensed Open Source projects
➢implemented (or at least can be implemented) in healthy Open Source projects under GPLv3 – Minimises legal risks and promotes long-term maintenance and sustainability
Procurement of IT which refers to standards ...
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

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Contact: bjorn.lundell@his.se
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden
Acknowledgements: The ORIOS project …
➢a three years collaborative research project (2012-2015)
➢financially supported by the Knowledge Foundation
ORIOS: Overarching goal:
What are the necessary and desirable features of an Open Standard, and how can Open Standards and their implementations be utilised by small companies in different usage contexts?

15. ➢“Open Source software communities can outlive Open Source software projects.”
Gamalielsson, J. & Lundell, B. (2013) Sustainability of Open Source software communities beyond a fork: How and why has the LibreOffice project evolved?, The Journal of Systems and Software, Vol. 89, pp. 128-145, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jss.2013.11.1077
➢Community commitment & choice of Open Source licenses may significantly affect long-term maintenance of digital artefacts
Lundell & Gamalielsson (2011) Towards a Sustainable Swedish e-Government Practice: Observations from unlocking digital assets. In Janssen, M. (Eds.) Electronic Government and Electronic Participation. Trauner Druck: Linz, pp. 203-211.
➢OSS projects with healthy ecosystems can be an appropriate way to address risks related to lock-in and long-term maintenance of commodity software
van der Linden et al. (2009) Commodification of Industrial Software: A Case for Open Source. IEEE Software, Vol. 26(4), pp. 77-83
Some references (1/2) ...
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden

16. ➢“A need for long-term accessibility of information, both for use and reuse, implies that an organisation needs to ensure that maintenance of the information can be guaranteed independently of the system which was used to generate the information.”
Lundell, B. (2012) Why do we need Open Standards?, In Orviska, M. and Jakobs, K. (Eds.) Proceedings 17th EURAS Annual Standardisation Conference ‘Standards and Innovation’, The EURAS Board Series, Aachen, ISBN: 978-3-86130-337-4, pp. 227-240.
➢Company commitment and choice of software licenses affect longevity of tool support for different file formats
Lundell, B., Gamalielsson, J. & Mattsson, A. (2011). Exploring Tool Support for Long-term Maintenance of Digital Assets: a Case Study, In Proc. 16th EURAS Annual Standardization Conference, European Academy of Standardisation, The EURAS Board, pp. 207-217.
➢An interesting exemplar of an institutionalised continuous process for developing and maintaining standards in an open and transparent way
Lundell, B., Gamalielsson, J., Grahn, A., Feist, J., Gustavsson, T. & Strindberg, H. (2014) On influences between software standards and their implementations in open source projects: Experiences from RDFa and its implementation in Drupal, In OpenSym2014, ACM, http://dx.doi.org/10.1145/2641580.2641587
Contact: bjorn.lundell@his.se
Some references (2/2) ...
Björn Lundell, University of Skövde, Sweden