Section 11.9. The Future Is Hard to Read....


11.9. The Future Is Hard to Read....

We have tried to show how libre software is flourishing all over Europe. Of course, there are many differences throughout an area where diversity is the rule, but also many coincidences. For now, Europe is an important pillar of the libre software world, and is maintaining an equal leadership of it. We have a large share of developers; there are companies producing, maintaining, using, and providing services; and our public administrations seem to be aware of the libre software phenomenon.

However, experiences are fragmented. Few companies are based on libre software in Europe as a whole, although an increasing number are working at the national and regional levels. The developer community, and the libre software community in general, is in fact a collection of loosely linked national or linguistic communities, with very little coordination among them. We do not have common news sites, and there are very few umbrella organizations, or even meeting events, recognized throughout Europe. The initiatives of the public administrations may be a bit more coordinated, but even those are wildly different from country to country. Maybe all this is just a consequence of the fragmentation of Europeor maybe it is a first step toward a real European space of libre software. Whatever the reason, for now the real impact of European initiatives in the libre software world is far lower than the relative importance of libre software in Europe. In a few specific cases (such as the campaign against the directive on software patents, which is not carried only by libre software activists), we are starting to see coordinated movements that show the real strength of libre software in Europe.

In this context, we still have to wait to see whether Europe will capitalize on its current leadership in libre software penetration or, on the contrary, will lose this position in favor of other regions with a clearer and more active policies of promotion. The coming years will tell but, for now, we have the potential to be the first economic area to experiment with the benefits of large-scale deployment of libre software, creating a whole new industry around it, and promoting not only companies, but also the individual developers who are making this a real possibility.

In case libre software provides real advantages in terms of innovation, competence, and social benefits, Europe is well placed for advancing in that direction. Are those opportunities not worth exploring? Can we risk losing our advantageous position in what could be the next revolution in the information society?



Open Sources 2.0
Open Sources 2.0: The Continuing Evolution
ISBN: 0596008023
EAN: 2147483647
Year: 2004
Pages: 217

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