Consortium

The wealth of today's economies depends on their ability to generate new knowledge, innovation and technological progress. The European Observatory for SMEs, established in 1992 in order to improve monitoring of the economic performance of SMEs in Europe, clarify the "role of networks", addressing SMEs networks almost as a necessity to perform innovation projects and to get the required information and know-how to profitly conduct a business, sharing costs and risks to collectively contribute to a common business goal.

From several years some Italian companies have been deploying custom services through Free and Open Source Software, and now few of them created the CIRS consortium, a *RMD-Vendor*[1] able to deliver "services off-the-shelf" out of a catalog, made up of _goods_ instead of "licences".

The experiences collected by our companies individually are now part of a common base of *Knowledge*, and we work together to benefit the market with a synergic offer, creating the first Italian ICT consortium able to offer packages and solutions completely based upon Free Software.

This consortium, made by 9 funding companies, where others with interesting skills will be accepted to join us later on, is working to become the first RMD Vendor based in Italy.
 
[1] RMD, Re(use), Modify, Distribute, a simple acronym to mean software licensed to permit free use, modification and distribution, complying with the definition reported in:
-http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
-http://www.opensource.org/docs/definition_plain.php


What is Cirs?
The Consortium Italicum Ratione Soluta (CIRS) is an organizational and technological consortium dedicated to help the adoption of Linux and Free Softare in the enterprise and public administrations.
CIRS seeks to enhance our collective professional growth through collaboratively advancing the curricula at our institutions, developing tools and platforms freely deployable and delivering "packages of services" to the whole market.
Founded on the 30th April 2004, CIRS is an organization supported by Open Source and Free Software italian industry leaders,  that provides state-of the-art software programs all over Italy and Europe.
A complete list of CIRS members is provided on the member page.


Mission
To be a viable center for Linux and Free Software adoption, delivering "best of breed" Open Source software solutions.
Our main activities regard:

• Supporting customers to select and implement services and     processes through Open Source and Free Software;

• Focusing investment on common areas of interest, developing ad hoc software and documentation;

• Practical guidance to our members - vendors and customers as well  - on taking advantage of Free Software usage.