European Open Source Society?
Published June 19th, 2007 in Software, Software developmentI thought about open source and had lots of discussion in the past few years about open source in general, business models, different and superiour licenses, pragmatic open source and stuff. As I’ve been also developing open source software for the last twenty years, I’m interested in the state of the open source developers.
Some studies have shown, that half or two thirds of open source developers come from Europe (with South America and Asia growing strong). Compare that with the image that open source is a North American phenomenon[*]. In the mind of Europeans and especially European politicians open source has not the importance it should have based on the influence Europe has on open source through it’s developers. What about founding an European Open Source Society? For exchanging ideas, moving open source to the future and lobbying politicians to pay more attention to open source, the economic impact, the social impact and the chances there are for Europe to play an important role in open source. Sounds good to me.
What about founding one?
[*] Perhaps because more loud open source advocate live or move to the US and more companies in the US monetize open source projects
I’m interested. Please, keep me posted.
I’ll do. Thanks for the interest.
Hi Stephan! Hi Tom!
I believe there is a need for an European-level open source professional organization, focussed on software developers (ISV).
See for instance what we started 7 years ago with the (now defunct) Eurolinux Alliance:
http://web.archive.org/web/20000815093038/http://www.eurolinux.org/
“The EuroLinux Alliance for a Free Information Infrastructure is an open coalition of commercial companies and non-profit associations united to promote and protect a vigourous European Software Culture based on Open Standards, Open Competition and Open Source Software such as Linux. Corporate members or sponsors of EuroLinux develop or sell software under free, semi-free and non-free licenses for operating systems such as GNU/Linux, MacOS or Windows.”
(Of course, now the focus should be more on open source and open standards, and less on Linux).
See also this page:
http://web.archive.org/web/20040830121253/www.eurolinux.org/members/index.en.html
for national open source organization that were part of the alliance at the time:
French Speaking Association of Users of Linux and Free Software,
Association Pour la Recherche en Informatique Libre,
Associazione Software Libero,
Europe-Shareware.org,
Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure,
German Unix User Group,
Asociación de Usuarios Españoles de GNU/Linux,
Ενωση Χρηστων και Φιλων Λινοuξ Ελλαδας,
ANSOL.org,
Electronic Frontier Finland,
Association pour les Libertés Électroniques,
Linux-Verband,
SSLUG.dk,
Verein zur Förderung Freier Software,
Vereniging Open Source Nederland,
LiLux — Linux User Group of Luxembourg.
Cheers,
S.
It’s an interesting idea indeed. There are some (mostly embryonic) structures in France, but the European dimension is missing and is the key to a viable solution.
Like Tom said, keep us posted.
@Stefane: I think the focus should stay on the developer and open source :-)
I’ll keep you posted here.