Governmental open source directives in Italy

The following are the key points, painfully translated by your editor:

Comparative analysis of solutions: The "Stanca Open Source Directive" [Lucio Stanca is the minister responsible for all this] requires that public administrations must acquire software based on comparative technical and economic evaluation of the various solutions available in the market, taking into account the administration's needs, but also taking into account the possibility of developing specific programs in-house (or under contract) and the reuse of special-purpose programs developed in other agencies.

The evaluation must consider also the total cost of ownership and the cost of exit from each solution, but it must also consider the possible interests of other agencies in reusing the chosen solution. In cases where proprietary software is to be licensed, the administration must obtain a contractual guarantee that, if the vendor becomes unable to support the software, the source code and relevant documentation will be made available.

Technical criteria: public agencies, when acquiring software, must favor solutions which:

• Assure interoperability and cooperation between the various computing systems of the public administration, with the exception of situations requiring particular security or secrecy.
• Render information systems independent of a single vendor or a single proprietary technology.
• Guarantee the availability of source code for inspection and traceability by the public administration.
• Export data and documents in multiple formats, of which at least one is an open format.

Ownership of software: In the case of programs developed for a specific purpose, the commissioning agency will acquire the ownership of the software given that it has contributed out of its own resources to the identification of the requirements, the functional analysis, the control, and testing of the software implemented by the vendor.

Transferability of software licenses: Public administrations will obtain contractual assurance of their ability to transfer software licenses in case that agency replaces the program with another performing the same function.

Reuse: In order to encourage reuse of software owned by the administration, the project goals and specifications must allow for portability to other platforms. Contracts for software developed at public expense must include clauses that commit the vendor to making available services to enable the reuse of the software.

Interestingly, this "open source directive" says almost nothing about open source licensing; it is more focused on specific goals: software reuse, ability to inspect the code, ability to switch to a different solution. This is a good thing, of course; wiring specific licenses into the law is probably not the right way to go. The directive also says nothing about open source licensing for software developed for the government; as long as the software can be reused within the government, the rules will be satisfied.

There is little consensus on how strongly governmental bodies should be encouraged - or forced - to use free software. But it is hard to argue against criteria that call for interoperability, software reuse, and the ability to avoid being bound to a single vendor. It will be interesting to see what sort of software mix the Italian government ends up with after these rules have been in force for a few years.