Abstract
Over the past three to four years, national and local governments around the world have experimented with legislative proposals and official policies designed to favor or promote open source and/or free software in procurement, research, and standardization. This presentation will briefly survey the various forms of such laws and policies proposed or adopted in countries around the world from 1999 to the present. The speaker will provide a critical assessment of the evolution of open source preference proposals, and will identify key legal and policy issues that may weigh against official favoritism of any particular software model, including possible concerns in the areas of procurement, trade, and economic policy. Questions and debate are invited and encouraged. |
