[OSGeo Africa] ESRI in Government and tender requirements

[Kashmira]

Hello

After reading the entire mail trail we must not shy away from the fact
that, if the Government Sector already has a licence then they can
stipulate that "the use of this existing environment is a must and
enhancements may be required", its like asking them to replace all windows
to linux (someday)

I do agree that SITA itself should not be partial to ESRI seeing that they
are products that do the same at a reduced cost. Yes we can raise this as
an issue against SITA and request a review of the decision to list ESRI as
the preferred product. We should seek legal advise if possible as I feel we
do have a strong argument here.

Thanks

Kashmira





On 26 July 2018 at 10:10, Gavin Fleming <gavinjfleming at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi all
>
> I attended the briefing session for the Department of Home Affairs
> geographical accessibility study (Thanks Zoltan for the heads-up).
>
> The ToR states that the service provider has to have ArcGIS. I asked for
> this requirement to be removed since it does not matter what software the
> service provider uses as long as they deliver the result. The response from
> DHA was that Govt has a ’transversal ESRI licence’ and that all Govt
> departments have to use ESRI! Never mind that this is completely contrary
> to the FOSS policy agreed to by Cabinet in 2007 and against SITA
> procurement policy, if it even is true that Govt is ‘has to’ use ESRI that
> does NOT mean service providers have to. Nevertheless I got a vocal support
> from other attendees as this requirement is ridiculous and exclusionary.
>
> DHA went further to say they want service providers to use ArcGIS so they
> don’t end up with issues using the data that service providers deliver.
> They are confusing software with data and don’t seem to be aware (or are so
> brainwashed) that most formats produced by most GIS software these days are
> completely interoperable. Furthermore they are unaware of and indeed
> flouting the MIOS (SA Govt Minimum Interoperability Standards).
>
> Even worse and quite nonsensical is this formal response from DHA to all
> attendees of the briefing session:
>
>    -
>
>    Relating to SITA circular 1 of 2017/18 and National Treasury SCM
>    circular 3 of 2017/8, it is a requirement that all Government departments
>    make use of ESRI South Africa for software and therefore the format
>    required will be in Arc GIS format.
>
> Firstly there is no such thing as ‘Arc GIS format’. Secondly this is
> blatantly incorrect (and illegal if it is true). Lastly, can anyone
> enlighten the list as to the contents of the two circulars mentioned and
> whether they even support this argument?
>
> Your thoughts? Anyone willing to take action?
>
> regards
>
> Gavin
>
>
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-- 
Thank You

Kashmira
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