1. ESS.VIP.SERV Shared Services
SG Meeting 6 October 2016
Maintenance/Support/Licensing
Eurostat

2. Task Force Conclusions - General
M/S/L should be made mandatory for services being shared amongst ESS members. NSIs will decide about providing those services to the wider community,
Eurostat/SERV should take the lead in providing governance or guidelines regarding M/S/L,
Usage of services should be "out of the box" and need little or no adaptation,
Funding possibilities were suggested :
Break-even,
Open source (i.e. self-funding and collaboration),
EU funded implementations,
Share the cost according to usage.

3. Task Force Conclusions - Maintenance
Level of maintenance should be established and clearly stated for the following areas of maintenance:
Bug fixing,
Technical maintenance (i.e. updating underlying libraries used in the service),
Evolutionary maintenance, response to requirements,
A binding agreement should exist between the provider and the consumer.

4. Task Force Conclusions - Support
Detailed documentation should be provided as the services are being shared outside or the providing entity,
Best effort is to be expected as ESS members all have budgetary constraints,
There should be a way of training and training documentation (formal, webinar, tutorials).

5. Task Force Conclusions - Licensing
There should be a hosting model as licensing may vary based on hosting,
Using open source or commercial licensing has different implications including on the other aspects (Note: what about closed source free software?),
Dependencies of the services have to be identified and stated as there may be license cascading or other implications,
The use of EUPL could be pushed forward when it is applicable (open source).

6. Feedback from the Steering Group ?