Keeping IT Platforms Open: Resisting the Power of Firm Lobbyists

Two-sided platforms such as software platforms exhibit strong network effects that drive the emergence of monopolies in the information technology (IT) industry. Prior research suggests that the use of open source software (OSS) and software implementing open standards can mitigate the anti-competitive dynamics driven by network effects, thereby inhibiting the rise of platform monopolies. Moreover, as a consequence of increasing competition between software platforms, OSS and open standards mandates have the potential to decrease costs, increase innovation, and foster the emergence of homegrown software industries. Therefore, encouraging or even mandating the use of OSS and open standards in public administrations is often said to be sensible policy that contributes to good governance. The European Union appears to recognize the potential benefits of open source software and open standards, at least if its rhetoric is to be believed. However, in practice the EU has behaved very haphazardly when it comes to passing OSS and open standards mandates. For example, in 2004 the European Commission published the European Interoperability Framework (EIF), a public procurement framework that contained far-reaching provisions in support of open source software and open standards, delighting open source advocates. In 2010, however, the Commission revised the EIF and weakened many of the framework’s OSS and open source provisions. The proposed paper explores why this was the case, and in particular how business lobbyists influenced the process. The paper puts forward two hypotheses: Hypothesis one holds that the Commission supported strong OSS and open standards mandates in 2004 because it wanted to weaken the market positions of the dominant proprietary software vendors from the US. Hypothesis two holds that by 2010, the Commission had changed tack as a result of the lobbying efforts of representatives from the proprietary software firms and their proxies. Using process tracing, the paper draws upon three different data sources to test the two hypotheses: 1) Interviews with officials from the European Commission, industry representatives and open source activists; 2) the minutes from relevant Commission meetings; 3) the multiple drafts of the second version of the EIF. The annotated drafts of the second version should be particularly valuable in determining who suggested the changes to the open source and open standards provisions in the EIF. By examining the drivers of the different levels of support for open source software and open standards in the different versions of the EIF, the paper contributes to a better understanding of how firm lobbyists influence the regulations governing platform technologies. This matters because the extent of private actors’ influence determines, at least in part, how successful regulations can be at ensuring that platforms fulfill their potential of facilitating interactions between individuals and groups in society. The lessons learned from the EIF will therefore also be important when regulating new platform technologies such as blockchain-enabled platforms and sharing economy platforms.