The Business Software Alliance (BSA) is pressuring the European Commission to remove the last vestiges of support for Open Standards from the latest version of the EU's interoperability recommendations, the European Interoperability Framework. FSFE has obtained a copy of a letter sent to the Commission by the BSA last week.

Free Software industry criticises remarks by Commission's Vice President Siim Kallas: The European Commission (EC) has given in to the demands of lobbyists for Microsoft and SAP when it revised a key document on interoperability between electronic government services.

The European Commission today published its long-awaited revision of the European Interoperability Framework. This document aims at promoting interoperability in the European public sector. The document is the result of a prolonged and hard-fought process.

The final version of the important Digital Agenda for Europe has been leaked – and shows that the European Commission has betrayed open standards. Where an earlier draft had an entire section headed “Open Standards and Interoperability”, the latest version only uses the word “open” once in the corresponding section “Interoperability and standards.”

FSFE has obtained a copy of a letter sent to the Commission by the BSA last week. In the following paragraphs they analyse the BSA's arguments and explain why their claims are false, and why Open Standards are key to interoperability and competition in the European software market.

The European Commission is currently trying to get a new draft of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) approved by Member States. The draft gives rise to concerns that the Commission is giving up its worldwide leadership in the use of Open Standards, hurting innovation, competition and user freedom in Europe.

The European Interoperability Framework is just one battle among many. Besides the topic of interoperability in the public sector, there’s the task of reforming standardisation systems so that they produce Open Standards, and educating policy makers about the importance of the issue.

The European Interoperability Framework (EIF) is back from the dark corners of the European Commission, and it’s worse than ever.

The concept of open IT standards, which is central to the European Interoperability Framework (EIF), is to be watered down to such a degree that it will fade into insignificance. At least that's the impression given by a current EIF 2 release leaked to the Free Software Foundation Europe