[OSGeo Africa] Another illegal GIS RfQ

[Luncedo Ngcofe]

Dear all

Please enlighten me

  *   If open source software (s) are free, then why would Government put out a tender for that instead of downloading such and start using such?

Regards
Luncedo


From: Africa <africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> On Behalf Of admire
Sent: Friday, 18 October 2019 11:39
To: africa at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] Another illegal GIS RfQ


Hi all
On 2019/10/18 09:47, oripfa sigidane wrote:
Abraham,

I totally agree with you, what I do not understand is that the complaint is only related to Esri related tenders. Yet there is a tender at SANRAL that mentions another service provider yet the is no complaint about it on this forum. So now this begs the question, is it a sole attack on Esri? If so why?



I do not think this is sorely an attack on Esri but since they are enjoying the biggest slice of the cake they  get mentioned a lot. It's just the nature of life. The same principle applies to open source GIS desktop software when people refer to QGIS it doesn't mean it's the only viable option there. Because it is more popular it will be used as a reference point.


Even if they are not implementing a system from scratch I think it would still be viable to use an open-source package and some of the money that could have been used for licenses would be transferred to train the staff and other relates task i.e (documentation, update features in software). Projects like QGIS are where they are right now because some organizations and municipalities that have taken the initiative to dig into the open-source world irrespective of their prior engagements with proprietary software.

Open Source GIS always gets flake for lack of support but if you read  https://www.qgis.org/en/site/forusers/commercial_support.html you can see that there are a lot of companies offering QGIS Support.

For the database, you can read the http://themagiscian.com/2016/11/21/the-simple-and-free-postgis-vs-the-complex-and-expensive-oracle-spatial/.

For a comparison of GIS, Servers read http://www.digital-geography.com/arcgis-server-vs-open-source-gis-solutions

For a comparison of GIS Desktop solutions https://gisgeography.com/qgis-arcgis-differences.

The above links showcase that Open Source is well capable of handling the tasks already being done by other proprietary software. I think the initial message was just to reiterate that these tenders are not fair and are exclusionary. GIS should be more about the processes rather than the software and if the current software follows industry standards ( i.e https://www.opengeospatial.org/standards) then it should not be difficult to migrate from one setup to the other.

Regards

Regards

Ori






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________________________________
From: Africa <africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org><mailto:africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> on behalf of Abraham Parbhunath <ParbhuA at eskom.co.za><mailto:ParbhuA at eskom.co.za>
Sent: Wednesday, 16 October 2019, 22:25
To: Africa local chapter discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo Africa] Another illegal GIS RfQ


I'm not sure if I fully agree with you.  Yes, if they were implementing a system from scratch then this is not 'kosher'.  However if you already have an implemented system, have invested money and training on your staff, maybe even automated some processes and you just need to procure a few more licences and support, then this is definitely not illegal.  There are many smaller resellers who earn a living from responding to these kind of tenders.

Regards
Abraham Parbhunath

-----Original Message-----
From: Africa <africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org><mailto:africa-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> On Behalf Of Gavin Fleming
Sent: Wednesday, 16 October 2019 21:37
To: Africa local chapter discussions <africa at lists.osgeo.org><mailto:africa at lists.osgeo.org>
Subject: [OSGeo Africa] Another illegal GIS RfQ


this time, Umungundlovu DM not even trying to hide names.

Government entities are not allowed to simply renew contracts like these ELAs. They have to go out to *open* tender to test the market for alternative solutions and lower prices.

http://www.umdm.gov.za/Official_Site/index.php/quotations/req02148-2019-supply-enviromental-systems-research-institute-esri-licensing-maintenance-renewal-from-november-2019-to-november-2020/download

Now how many firms can compete for this one?

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