[OSGeo Africa] ESRI in Government and tender requirements

[Sindile Bidla]

Dear List Those who are concerned by this issue could perhaps raise it with the CFO (I have sent him an email and spoke to him on the phone). This creates a defacto monopoly with regards to GIS services in Government and does not encourage the emergence of other players. Sindile XJ Bidla ---- On Mon, 30 Jul 2018 08:30:45 +0200 Zoltan <zoltans at geograph.co.za> wrote ---- Hi List, To me, this is exactly the problem bodies like GISSA and SAGI need tackle. These Institutes/Societies are "there for their members", whereas the Professional bodies (SAGC) are their for their "Members' clients" (very broadly speaking). GISSA charges a pittance for its membership fees. SAGI doesn't (charge a pittance), but SAGI gets things done - more for their surveyors at this stage, but as their professional approach swings more to the GISc side, that is where things will start to happen for us (GISc types). Join one, and become an evangelist/rabble-rouser or whatever you need to be in order to start swinging the tide. It is ludicrous that in this age of technology we are told that a hand-brush is needed to maintain the data, so now use a hand-brush to capture it all. Perhaps start by looking hard at the import/export options on ESRI products, and finding a way in through those methodologies. Once the users see that data flows easily in and out of Arc, the next step can be taken. Hope this thought helps. Regards, Zoltan On 2018/07/30 07:37, Angie Atkinson wrote: -- 

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Zoltan Szecsei GPrGISc 0031
Geograph (Pty) Ltd.
GIS and Photogrammetric Services

P.O. Box 7, Muizenberg 7950, South Africa.

Mobile: +27-83-6004028
Fax:    +27-86-6115323     www.geograph.co.za
============================================= _______________________________________________ Africa mailing list Africa at lists.osgeo.org You can UNSUBSCRIBE at https://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/africa Hi Everyone,   I have just read all the comments and replies with regards to the requirement that one uses ESRI.   Something we have come across and what is a concern for us as well is that in most of the tenders, and will more than likely soon be come all tenders, stipulates that one needs to provide the municipality / government department with an ARC Map Package, no other software is compatible with this except for ARC, so unless the TORs states that one can provide shapefiles compatible with ESRI/ARC you will need to have ARC so that you can comply with the TOR requesting a Map Package.   Many of the Government Departments we work with have indicated that the ARC Map Package is the ARC GIS Format they are referring to when asking for data, some have amended the TORs to indicate that the data needs to be provided in ARC Map Package format.   Regards   Angie     From: Africa <africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> On Behalf Of Gavin Fleming Sent: Thursday, 26 July 2018 10:10 To: Africa local chapter discussions <africa at lists.osgeo.org> Subject: [OSGeo Africa] ESRI in Government and tender requirements   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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