India shows the way for European Interoperability Framework 2.0

Berlin, Nov 18th 2010 — India has just adopted an open standards preference policy. In contrast, the directorates for Internal Market and Trade recently hindered an adoption of the European Interoperability Framework (EIF) 2.0 during the European Commission’s inter-service consultations. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) and other observers expect a watered down version of the EIF 2.0 to be released later this year which falls short to enforce Open Standards.

“With its slow pace in delivering effective interoperability policies Europe falls behind emerging IT-superpowers as India”, warns FFII Vice-President Rene Mages. “Openness of web standards has been a key to the rapid growth of the world wide web. Proprietary or patented standards lead to lock-in dependency pain and vendor capture.”

The Indian policy sets an unequivocal preference for open formats. In particular, a format would only qualify as truly open under the Indian policy if it and all relevant patents are made available on a royalty-free basis for software implementation. The FFII closely follows the European Commission draft processes on interoperability policies and noticed attempts of vested interests to water them down.

“The Indian policy based on truly open standards provides the basis for innovation and growth. Europe should take note of the Indian example and enshrine strong open standards in its new EIF 2.0”, recommends Mages.

Links

Contact

FFII Berlin Office
+49 30 41722597
Fax: +49-721-509663769
office at ffii.org

About FFII

The FFII is a not-for-profit association active in several European countries, dedicated to the development of information goods for the public benefit, based on copyright, free competition, open standards. More than 1000 members, 3,500 companies and 100,000 supporters have entrusted the FFII to act as their voice in public policy questions concerning exclusion rights (intellectual property) in data processing.

Comments are closed.