FSFE Legal and Licensing Workshop 2019 - Workshop on Public Administration Free Software Policies

This workshop follows up on the Public Administration workshop from LLW18 with the ultimate aim to set up a LN Special Interest Group on Public Administration (PA) Policies. We will look back at what public administrations have done so far to adopt policies related to free software and plan ahead for what can be done to foster the adoption of free software by public administration going forward. The workshop will present and discuss current findings about government policies on free software acquisition and production, current legal documentation and identify priorities. We will review the leading the policies, examine the similarities and talk about common and best practices. We will also talk about the gaps between industry best practices around FOSS and the government practices and what lessons Governments still have to learn to match the sophistication of private industry.

Part I: Introduction [40 Minutes]

Short Presentations on Sample of Public Administration Policies (10 Minutes each)

• Barcelona (Malcolm)
• California (Marc)
• Torino/Piemonte (Marco)
• Quick round robin on “major issues faced”
  • 3-5 minutes individually making a list collaboratively online shared doc with projector

Part II: Break Out Sessions [40 Minutes]

Format: Attendees are divided into three tables one per topic to work on a shared document for each topic.

Objectives of the break out: to discuss the following 3 major areas for completing a type of “Master template FOSS Policy” with explanatory notes and back-up materials for public entities and administrations.

Break out Topics

• Procurement (https://bit.ly/2UvNBYW)
• Managing a Project (https://bit.ly/2HZkebQ)
• Licensing (https://bit.ly/2K5vgOs)

Break out procedure

• Review the preliminary suggestion of items for each topic and agree on the scope of the topic
• Identify existing policies and other documents relevant to the topic - archetypes?
• Identify key elements / questions to be addressed by the policy in this topic
• Provide input on this section of the template (shared document above)
• Identify related additional topics (in or out of scope in this area)

Break out target outcomes:

• Checklist of items for someone developing a FOSS Policy to think about and consider in the process of creating their Policy
• List of resources: specific to the topic, and existing PA policies that cover this topic
• List and summary of challenges

Part III Wrap-up / Conclusions [10 mns]

• Bring together main ideas
• Identify additional topics that have not been considered
• Set goals for 2019
• Share repo and email references

Resources:

PublicAdmin FOSS Working Group GitHub Repo