The LibreSoft research group (a part of the GSyC, Systems and Communications Group) has a long interest in libre (free, open source) software, and a strong relationship with the libre software community. When the GSyC group was previously at Carlos III University (before 2000), it already organized several national seminars and congresses on libre software, including the first Spanish seminar on libre software and the 2nd Hispalinux Congress (the largest Spanish congress on libre software), in 1999. After moving to URJC, the group has continued with its activities related to libre software, with a periodic seminar on libre software and libre software engineering, and a PhD course on libre software (probably the first one in the world, in combination with Universidad Politecnica de Madrid, Madrid, Spain). It also started the Libre Software Engineering portal and has developed the world's largest publicly available set of metrics on thousands of libre software projects as well as tools to extract and analyse such metrics from software source code and related data sources. It is also one of the founding members of the Morfeo community on libre software, lead by Telefonica. Currently, in the Libresoft group work 5 senior researchers, 5 junior researchers, and about 10 students and research assistants.

The Libresoft group has been involved in numerous research activities related to libre software during recent years, including: a joint issue of Novatica and Upgrade (the magazine of CEPIS, the Council of European Professional Informatics Societies) on libre software, in 2001, and a new upcoming issue on a similar topic in 2005; several publications and pressentations in workshops and congresses; organization of the Seminar on Libre Software, bimonthly, where several of the researchers participating in this proposal have come to deliver talks; participation on several libre software projects, as volunteers (Debian, TLDP, GNOME, Mono) and in many funded research projects.

In addition, the group has hosted the Hispalinux Congress in September 2003, the largest meeting related to libre software in Spain, with more than 2,000 participants, and is participating in the design of European master studies on libre software (in the context of the MoLOS group, in collaboration with may other Universities in the European Union).

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