Monday, June 08 2015 @ 01:20 AM CDT
Contributed by: Andy Updegrove
Last July, the UK Cabinet Office adopted a rule requiring government purchasers to limit their technology acquisitions to products that implement an established list of “open standards.” Last week, Sweden took another step down the same road as it further refined a list of information and communications technology (ICT) standards. That list currently comprises sixteen standards. A posting at the European Commission EU Joinup Web site reports that other standards are to be added this year.
The process in Sweden is different, but to the same effect as the UK process. In each case, the question revolves around which standards at minimum meet the definition of an “open standard” as contained in the European Interoperability Framework (EIF). However, the current version of that document is somewhat contradictory. While it retains language favoring open source software, it backed off draft text that would have established a higher bar for open standards. EU countries, however, are free to set the bar wherever they wish at, or above, the baseline established in the finally-approved version 2.0 of the EIF.
In Sweden, the task of deciding which standards meet the open standards test is being tackled in the first instance by Statens inköpscentral, a Swedish procurement agency, with the assistance of standardization specialists at the University of Skövde. According to the article at the EU Joinup site:
Statens inköpscentral recently published its framework agreements for software and ICT services (Kontorsstöd, Grundläggande it and Systemutveckling). All of these frameworks make it much easier for Sweden’s public administrations to procure software solutions and find ICT support. The frameworks have prepared the fundamental requirements and pre-approved service providers, and the preparations include authorising open ICT standards.