The European Commission's Open Source Observatory aims to encourage and spread the use of open source best practices in Europe.

Good move! I was talking yesterday with a friend who works for our gov and it's clear that many people there need a polite nudge in the right direction, and above all need to be better informed of what open source actually is and how it works.

Minor quirk (but it tells something about people's mindsets;-), they require you to fill a form with a million fields just to be informed of what happens there. Someone please tell them about RSS!

Hmmm....it's only a few days and they have already changed the URL...hmmm... ;-)