MERIT/Infonomics at the University of Maastricht (UM): has proven excellence in the area of free/open source software socio-economics and policy. The lead researcher for FLOSSWorld was also the coordinator and lead author of the F/OSS project (FP5 IST programme), the first comprehensive empirical study of the use, development and policy of free/open source software, worldwide, and the ongoing FP6 IST FLOSSPOLS project. The FLOSS study has been widely  publicized and presented at several international forums, and the final FLOSS Workshop held at the European Commission in Brussels in 2002 (with the support of the US National Science Foundation) has led to several further research projects. The F/OSS user survey was the first comprehensive survey worldwide to study the extent of use and to ask organizations why they use open source software, and to perform a detailed technical analysis on developers’ contribution to open source software projects.

UM has also conducted a detailed survey on open standards and open source in 500+ government authorities for the Dutch Interior Ministry, is contacting over 3 000 public authorities across the EU for a similar survey under the FLOSSPOLS project, and 300+ employer organizations for the FLOSSPOLS skills survey.

UM manages the European Union Open Source Observatory for the IDA Programme of DG Enterprise, the central clearinghouse for information on open source and the public sector in Europe.

UM is involved with URJC and Stanford in a US National Science Foundation funded technical and productivity analysis of open source software, and is part of the CALIBRE project on libre software engineering and economics.

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