Tuesday, February 19, 2008

European Union poors US$1million into Open Source!!

Great things are happening in the FOSS community. This will undoubtedly propel Linux forward!! While this figure is by no means extra-ordinary, it is enough proof that the open source community is firmly in the driving seat of tomorrow's innovation.

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Tuesday 19 February 2008: The European Union has awarded a €703,000 (US$ 1 million) grant to a consortium of 11 organizations to explore the use of Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) as a development tool.

Dubbed FLOSSInclude and funded under the EU's 7th Framework Programme, the two year project will be carried out by a project team of research institutes, government agencies, private companies and non-governmental organizations in 9 countries - Argentina, Cambodia, China, Ghana, India, South Africa, Spain and the UK. The consortium is led by UNU-MERIT, a joint research and training centre of United Nations University and Maastricht University in the Netherlands.

The FLOSSInclude project will carry out an in-depth analysis of the technical, business and socio-political needs for the growth of FLOSS use, deployment and development in the target regions. The project further aims to build on the network developed during the course of the
study to promote international collaboration between the EU and developing countries.

FLOSSInclude will expand on earlier work by some of the consortium partners, such as the groundbreaking FLOSSWorld study, by providing a rich contextual analysis based on the specific expertise and country experiences of the participating organisations and countries.

In pilot efforts, the partners will implement FLOSS solutions, tools and services to ensure they are cost-effective and practical for each environment. The result will be a roadmap for future EU development research cooperation, with concrete and validated solutions for clearly identified needs. Together with a massive push in dissemination and networking, the FLOSSInclude aims to ensure a lasting impact beyond the project duration.

A project fact sheet is available at http://flossinclude.eu

The members of the FLOSSInclude consortium are:

  • United Nations University's Maastricht Economic and social Research and training centre on Innovation and Technology (UNU-MERIT) at the University of Maastricht, The Netherlands (http://ccg.merit.unu.edu/)
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