[WOS] (Fwd) EU fordert Quellenoffenheit

[Volker Grassmuck]

------- Forwarded Message Follows -------
Date:          Wed, 6 Oct 1999 12:36:39 +0200 (CEST)
From:          PILCH Hartmut <phm@a2e.de>
To:            FFII-Nachrichten <ffii@a2e.de>
Subject:       EU fordert Quellenoffenheit

Am 15. Oktober sprechen wir in einer multinationalen Delegation in
Bruessel mit 2 EU-Kommissaren ueber das Problem der Softwarepatente, s.
auch

	http://swpat.ffii.org

insb. Thema "Arbeitsgruppe" und "Foerderer".

Wir brauchen noch Leute, die ein wenig Zeit fuer die Sache einzuplanen
bereit sind.  Derzeit ist die Arbeitsgruppe personell schlecht und
finanziell gut ausgestattet.

Die Erfolgschancen sind auch nicht schlecht, denn zeitlich sehr gut
passend hat sich jetzt das Generaldirektorat 13 fuer Bevorzugung
quellenoffener Software bei Ausschreibungen ausgesprochen:

------------------------------------------------------------
Computergram 05 Oct 1999
+ EC Issues Challenges Microsoft Over Windows Open Source

By Kevin Murphy in Berlin

The European Commission yesterday threw down the gauntlet to
Microsoft Corp, saying that public IT projects could start to
favor tenders from alternative operating systems, unless the
Redmond software giant makes moves to open up the source code
to Windows. Speaking at the opening of the first Information
Security Solutions Europe conference in Berlin yesterday, new
European Union information society commissioner Erkki Liikanen
said security system vendors could suffer from a lack of access
to the code on which their applications run.

He said of the cryptographic industry: "There is a major
obstacle to its expansion, the desktop computing market is
dominated by a few systems. This would not be a problem in
itself if those weren't proprietary systems. Building security
solutions when one has no access to the source code is a major
challenge, it means there is a whole range of security products
which European industry cannot supply." Discussing what the
European Union could do to encourage open source OS's, Liikanen
said: "One way could be to ensure that public tenders for
computer equipment no longer specify particular systems."

The assembled audience of public key infrastructure (PKI)
vendors and other IT security firms agreed that lack of access
to Windows makes the challenge of securing the desktop more
difficult (although Liikanen was diplomatic enough not to
mention Microsoft by name, there was no doubt what he was
referring to). Swedish security startup MySpace AB, which makes
a device to securely bypass the desktop PC when conducting
high-risk transactions, told ComputerWire it had recorded 123
reported security back doors in Windows so far this year.

A source within the German Ministry of Economics and Technology
and members of the EC's Directorate General DGXIII, all
suggested that the EU should actively promote open source
operating systems as a means to improve the security of the
internet. How this could be achieved is another matter - many
EU governments have no centralized purchasing policy at that
granular a level.

The ISSE conference runs until tomorrow, and is the first is
what is planned to be an annual convention of vendors of PKI
and security software. The conference is organized by trade
body EEMA (European Electronic Messaging Association) and
featured speakers from notables such as IBM Corp, VeriSign Inc
and various European governmental bodies.

-phm



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