Italian Constitutional Court gives way to Free-Software friendly laws

Autori

  • Carlo Piana Array

Parole chiave:

Free Software, procurement law

Abstract

The Constitutional Court in Italy has ruled on the compliance with the Italian Constitution of a Regional law issued by Piedmont on Free and Open Source Software and Open Standard. The result is that a Regional law can give more “weight” in public procurements to offers that provide Free Software and implement Open Standards. The Court holds that a similar provision is compatible with the Constitution and – more specifically – such a preference is not against competition. This ruling dismantles therefore one of the most cunning objections against similar provisions that blossom across Europe, because it does not give preference to a technical solution, but rather to a peculiar asset of rights.

Decision no. 122 of 22/03/2010

Biografia autore

  • Carlo Piana, Array
    Independent lawyer specialising in Information Technology and Telecommunication Law and Free Software Advocate. Started by using GNU/Linux and became intrigued by the legal and philosophical implications of it. Serves as Counsel to the Free Software Foundation Europe and advises projects and companies active in Free and Open Source Software. Based in Milan, he has accumulated experience for more than 15 years in the IT legal consulting sector, in a medium-sized firm, as name partner in a boutique firm and now in a solo practice entirely dedicated to IT. He has been involved in the largest antitrust litigation in Europe which led to the disclosure of secret protocols in the Workgroup Server area, and was called to the Board of the Protocol Freedom Information Foundation. He runs a small bi-lingual blog on Digital Liberties named "Law is Freedom"
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Pubblicato

2010-06-14

Fascicolo

V. 2 N. 1 (2010)

Sezione

Case Law Reports

Licenza

The most restrictive licence we will accept for submission is Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 international (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) SPDX identifier CC-BY-4.0

Come citare

Italian Constitutional Court gives way to Free-Software friendly laws. (2010). Journal of Open Law, Technology & Society, 2(1), 61-66. https://www.jolts.world/index.php/jolts/article/view/38