On January 31st, the CNLL, the OSBalliance and the Cossfi laid the foundations of a new structure: APELL (Association Professionnelle Européenne du Logiciel Libre). "The idea is to create a umbrella association to carry the voice of Free Software companies in Europe in the broadest sense" explains Stéphane Fermigier, co-president of the CNLL.

A relatively light structure that includes members, supporting members (such as the Open Forum Europe or OW2) and associate members. The association will be based in Brussels and registered in the register of lobbies with the European institutions.

 

Two triggers were at the origin of this creation. "The first was the copyright directive and its impact on the development of free software, the battle over the forges. We clearly saw that it was necessary to have the voice of free software companies," observes Stéphane Fermigier. "The second trigger is the structuring of associations to respond to European issues, to collaborate on commercial projects, to have collaborative R&D," he continues.

 

This initiative also comes at a time when the European Commission is communicating a lot about open source and 2020 should be an important year in this area. "A major study is being launched on open source in Brussels and a major restitution event is due to take place in 2021," emphasises Stéphane Fermigier. He also mentioned other elements such as recommendations on good practices in terms of free software, policies to support innovation and work on ethics and digital sovereignty.

 

 

 

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Source : Le Monde Informatique