Anna Sołtysik‐Piorunkiewicz and Janina Banasikowska
perspective of interoperability, of fundamental importance are communication standards at the level of bit transmission in LANs and WANs or message transmission between software components,
• System level comprises data remembered in any databases, application software, data presentation software and objects. At this level, attention is paid to the issues of syntactic compatibility and message cooperation,
• Task( business) level comprises objects and procedures that are directly connected with real tasks performed by the entities concerned. These are mainly the processes of task performance, information used in these processes, organisational and legal conditions.
The most important recommendations of EIF include the following:
• Availability – understood as ensuring a multichannel access to contents in a form that can be understood by users,
• Multilingualism – making the contents available not only in national languages,
• Security – compliance with the pan‐European level,
• Privacy – protection of personal data,
• Subsidiarity – EIF operates on an auxiliary basis and doesn’ t interfere in internal national actions
• Use of open standards,
• Preferring open source software,
• Creation of multilateral solutions – originating from various sources and from various providers( Malotaux, van der Harst, Achtsivassilis and Hahndiek 2007; Banasikowska 2011).
The European Interoperability Framework places a particular emphasis on implementing its assumptions through choosing open standards and free open source software in e‐Government projects.
According to the European Interoperability Framework, open standards should have the following features:
• The standard was adopted by a non‐for‐profit organisation and the development of the standard will be based on an open decision‐making procedure available to every party concerned,
• The standard was published, and charges for using the standard are low and do not constitute a barrier to the access to the standard,
• The copyright to the standard or its part is available without charging any additional fees, and the way of making it available cannot be changed,
• There are no restrictions to reusing the standard.
The interoperability standards are generally considered in three aspects: technical, organisational and semantic. The technical standards of interoperability are responsible for data presentation, collection, exchange, processing and transportation. The organizational standards of interoperability are designed to provide organisations with processes and internal organizational structures for optimal information exchange.
The definition of a free and open software comprises four points given the numbers from zero to three. It describes a free and open software by the following freedoms granted to the recipients:
• Freedom to launch the programme for any purpose( freedom 0)
• Freedom to analyse how the programme works and to adapt it to one’ s own needs( freedom 1).
• Freedom to disseminate copies( freedom 2).
• Freedom to enhance the programme and disseminate own copies to the public so that the whole community can use them( freedom 3).
However, the prerequisite for freedoms 1 and 3 is the access to the source code. The assumptions of interoperability, and of open standards in particular, are best met by a free and open software.
The following countries in the European Union have the most developed national interoperability frameworks:
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