European Parliament and Commission launch the Free an Open Source Software for European Public Services (FOSSEPS) Pilot Project

As the use of open source across European institutions and European public services increases, so does the need to manage and protect open source and treat it as a collective, shared and valuable European asset. 

Not only does open source underpin the implementation of European Digital Strategy, it has a critical role to play in helping Europe achieve technical sovereignty.

From a number of perspectives, it makes sense for European institutions and European Public Services to pool their resources and efforts in this regard. This can mean pooling of ideas, financial and other resources, developing and cataloguing business applications, conducting security audits and a whole lot more. Such cooperation could lead to a significant reduction in costs, a stronger European open source ecosystem.

Building on the success of multiple earlier projects such as OSOR, ISA2 and the EU-FOSSA initiative, the European Parliament has commissioned and has asked the European Commission to execute the FOSSEPS Pilot Project, to catalyse and establish this cooperation.

FOSSEPS stands for Free and Open Source Solutions for European Public Services, which refers to the 2021 initiative entitled “Europe-wide solutions for free and open source software use by public services in the EU” financed under budget line PP 01 21 04.

The FOSSEPS Pilot Project will achieve the following specific objectives.

1. Build a European Applications Catalogue: Build a European open source Applications Catalogue (with data drawn from national catalogues) and release on the web for public search and use.

2. Inventory of Critical Open Source Software: Create an inventory of Europe’s most critical open source software used by European Public Services.

3. Create a framework for European Cooperation on Open Source: Encourage and establish a framework e.g. via a European Public Services Open Source User Group (EPS-OS-UG), for sharing of knowledge, experiences and initiatives on open source at a European level.