FSFE's input on ICT standards for the Digital Single Market
FSFE provided the European Commission input on setting priorities in ICT standards and answered to the public consultation on the adoption of a Priority ICT Standards Plan which has been proposed in the Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy.
According to our position, and in line with our DSM strategy evaluation, priorities in standardisation must be set carefully. FSFE believes following priorities at the EU level has to be set:
Promote standards that are open, minimalistic and implementable with Free Software. These standards have proven to be sustainable, interoperable, pro-competitive and transparent. These standards allow actors of different size to easily adopt and implement them that in return will guarantee widest competition of goods and services on the market, and the widest proliferation of technology.
Use Free Software as reference implementation of the standard and to make sure a reference implementation is published under a Free Software licence, including all software that has been developed with public funds to be released as Free Software. As a consequence, this practice will contribute to digitisation of the European industries and an increase in digital skills amongst population.
Refrain from harmful FRAND licensing policies in the field of software, internet and web, as these areas have evolved and developed based on open standards that are free from royalties and other restrictions.