The Blue Bell, Pennsylvania-based services provider said a consortium led by its Belgian subsidiary had won the European Commission contract to create the Open Source Observatory and Repository, OSOR, following an August 2005 call for tenders.
The OSOR will be a common repository for administrators for EC member states to share open source code, software information, licensing and knowledge, with the aim of encouraging code reuse and project collaboration.
According to Karel de Vriendt, head of the European eGovernment Services Unit, the success of open source at this level is based on the flexibility it provides for building custom applications and collaboration.
Public administrations’ interest in open source is not so much about open source replacing proprietary products, he said. More and more it is about developing custom applications based on open source software, on collaboration during development and on using open source licences to share the results of such developments.
As well as Unisys Belgium, the OSOR consortium also includes the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology, the GOPA-Cartermill consultancy, and the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos in Spain.
The OSOR is designed to build on the existing Open Source Observatory news and resources site, which has been hosted by Unisys. Plans for the repository will be finalized later this year, with the service due to commence operation in late 2007.
