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    <title>FSFE: Lack of Open Standards "gaping hole" in EC's Digital Agenda</title>
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    <h1>Lack of Open Standards "gaping hole" in EC's Digital Agenda</h1>
    
    <p>
	The European Commission has officially <a href="http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/newsroom/cf/itemlongdetail.cfm?item_id=5826">published its long-awaited
	Digital Agenda</a>, outlining its policy plans for the next five years.
	"While it includes some important building blocks for Free Software, the
	omission of <a href="/activities/os/os.html">Open Standards</a> rips a gaping hole in this agenda," says
	Karsten Gerloff, President of the Free Software Foundation Europe.
    </p>
    
    <p>
    	FSFE welcomes the Commision's plans to give standards a greater role
	in the public procurement of software, and to get dominant software
	vendors to license their interoperability information, opening up
	the software market for Free Software vendors.
    </p>
    
    <p>
	However, the Digital Agenda falls short of systematically promoting
	Free Software and Open Standards, missing the goals that the Member
	States have set for the Commission in the 
	<a href="http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/10/137">Granada</a>
	and <a href=" http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1738&amp;format=HTML&amp;aged=0&amp;language=EN&amp;guiLanguage=nl">Malmö</a>
	declarations. The Digital Agenda itself avoids any reference to Open
	Standards.  Instead, the Commission points to the European
	Interoperability Framework. This is a document which is currently
	being systematically hollowed out, as <a href="/activities/os/eifv2.html">FSFE's analysis shows</a>.
    </p>
    
    <p>
	"The EC needs to adopt a strict definition of Open Standards, along the
	lines of the first European Interoperability Framework," says Gerloff.
	He continues: "The Commission needs to put Open Standards at the heart
	of its strategy for the public sector's IT systems. Only with the
	competition that Open Standards enable will we tap the full potential of
	Free Software for European innovation."
    </p>
    
    <h3>Press contact</h3>
    <p>
	  Karsten Gerloff<br />
	  President, Free Software Foundation Europe<br />
	  Tel +49 176 9690 4298
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  <tags>
	<tag key="digitalagenda">Digital Agenda</tag>
	<tag key="europeancommission">European Commission</tag>
	<tag key="policy"/>
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