[EU] European "partwise" Open Source GIS-Tender

Tue Nov 29 23:50:19 PST 2016

Hi Jachym, @all

I agree in nearly every issue you list up. The tender I posted is more 
about "hiring people" for manifold projects, so the goal is not one big 
all singing, all dancing application, it's more a "work on demand" in 
various projects for various agencies.

Especially for this kind of tender I see the great chance to share this 
tender and divide it at least into two (or even more) parts:
One proprietary and one open source part.

The procedure they selected shows to me, that people in EU 
administration on the one side take note of (and even see the need for) 
Open Source, but do not understand our business, our community and how 
Open Source works at all.
My goal is, to take this tender as an example and try to start a 
discussion with them - because if nobody is there, that explains our 
business, things will not change in future.
And in general: In my understanding this is one of OSGeo-EU's core 
goals: http://wiki.osgeo.org/wiki/Europe

;-) Till

Am 2016-11-29 11:57, schrieb Jáchym Čepický:
> I would like to note: I agree what  Till concludes. I see companies
> in Europe (I had chance to participate on some EU-founded projects,
> where I meat large companies too) and they are all in favor for open
> source, even then do not really contribute back and they are likely
> not part of the community. But they are big enought, to get one-two
> small partners (who usually do the dirty job) and are able to go for
> such tender.
>
> Big IT tenders in public administration are IMHO evil in general.
> They asked for the money, they got it and want a system, which does
> *everything*. No place for small expert groups, like we usually are.
>
> What to do about it? Get in people hads, this is not the way, how to
> support MEs. And not the way, you get something functional any time
> soon (agile). We started on local level, people seem to start
> listening. But EU-level? I have no idea whom to approach
>
> J
>
>
> Dne 28.11.2016 v 12:29 till.adams at fossgis.de napsal(a):
>> Maria,
>>
>> I guess "lobbying" is the word I would use in german too. And yes, 
>> feel
>> encouraged in putting our European Chapter forward (and count on 
>> me).
>>
>> Indeed, an open letter of several European Open Source companies was 
>> one
>> of the ideas on my list :-).
>> I heard that there is the possibility of a notify of defects in 
>> European
>> tenders, but I am not aware where to direct to (but I will care).
>> The good thing is, that this defecting has no legal aspects, it's 
>> more a
>> "possibility to complain".
>>
>> So that could also be one (equal) text sent to them from different
>> companies (and different countries as well).
>> I am sure we also could count on Dirk Frigne's GeoSparc here.
>>
>> I could write a first draft of that text, but would like to wait for
>> some more opinions here.
>>
>> Another idea was a formal letter from a European OSGeo regional 
>> chapter,
>> but that's somehow the hen and egg problem:
>> As long as we do not have a formalized European chapter....
>>
>>
>> Maybe this tender is a kick in our a..., that we needed to inspirit 
>> this
>> European chapter.
>>
>> Till
>>
>>
>>
>> Am 2016-11-28 11:42, schrieb María Arias de Reyna:
>>> On Mon, Nov 28, 2016 at 11:30 AM,  <till.adams at fossgis.de> wrote:
>>>> Dear list!
>>>>
>>>> I come up, because we stumbled over this tender:
>>>> https://etendering.ted.europa.eu/cft/cft-display.html?cftId=1824
>>>>
>>>> (and although most of you may regard me as the "guy who was chair 
>>>> of
>>>> FOSS4G
>>>> 2016 in Bonn", I write as managing director of terrestris and
>>>> mundialis, two
>>>> SME's having an Open Source business model.)
>>>>
>>>> Summary
>>>> EUROSTAT, europes statistical agency, is seeking a contracting
>>>> company, that
>>>> delivers GIS services worth 17.5 million €uros for the upcoming 4
>>>> years (or
>>>> ~7.5k person days per year !!).
>>>> In the tender they define two main technical directions: ESRI and 
>>>> Open
>>>> Source - and they name every popular OSGeo project such as 
>>>> GeoServer,
>>>> Geonetwork Open Source, OpenLayers, QGIS, PostGIS, GRASS etc..
>>>> Also they clearly define, that Open Source must be favoured, if 
>>>> ever
>>>> possible.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> My thoughts:
>>>> Regarding our Open Source business landscape, I see huge problems 
>>>> for
>>>> any of
>>>> our Open Source SME's to have any chance in even participate in 
>>>> this
>>>> tender.
>>>> Nobody of us, even if we all would come together, could 
>>>> approximately
>>>> deliver such an amount of person days and we are not able to prove
>>>> that we
>>>> can deliver knowledge in ESRI technology to their reasonable
>>>> satisfaction.
>>>> My guess is, that on the proprietary side of the market there are
>>>> huge full
>>>> service companies, that are capable in delivering these magnitudes 
>>>> of
>>>> services and who can argue "yes, we can also deliver Open Source
>>>> knowledge".
>>>> Our landscape of service providers with an open business model is 
>>>> quite
>>>> heterogeneous with many small and medium-sized companies, often 
>>>> very
>>>> specialized on single aspects or software packages. This will in 
>>>> the end
>>>> lead to the fact, that even if EU favours to use Open Source
>>>> Software, these
>>>> services are provided not from companies from our community.
>>>>
>>>> And this matters two things in my eyes:
>>>> 1. The money paid for Open Source will not (or only partwise) be
>>>> invested
>>>> into our community and into our projects
>>>> 2. The contracted service provider will presumably not favour Open
>>>> Source
>>>> software and with that the goal clearly defined by EUROSTAT
>>>> degenerates to a
>>>> well-intentioned idea
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> What I want:
>>>> In general I wanted to let you all know about this tender and the
>>>> drifts,
>>>> that also in the EU take place towards Open Source. All together I
>>>> would be
>>>> happy, if we can start a discussion about how to deal with tenders
>>>> like this
>>>> in the future and how we, as an European Community, can operate
>>>> towards the
>>>> EU for a better understanding of Open Source and also our Open 
>>>> Source
>>>> business models.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> BTW: Also a good discussion on this here on this list could be a 
>>>> good
>>>> starting point to show the appropriate people from EU, that we are 
>>>> here!
>>>> Happy about any contribution to this!
>>>>
>>>> Till
>>>>
>>>
>>> Hi Till,
>>>
>>> Part of the idea of the european chapter was precisely to be able 
>>> to
>>> ¿lobby? in favor of open source. (I am not sure if lobby is the 
>>> right
>>> word, in Spanish it has a bad meaning, related to corruption). In
>>> GeoCat we discussed this internally and it was very discouraging 
>>> that
>>> it was so ESRI oriented.
>>>
>>> While we solve the legal issues about setting up an official 
>>> european
>>> chapter (which reminds me, we have a list of TO-DO things 
>>> pending!),
>>> what do you suggest we can do? Maybe write a formal letter signed 
>>> by
>>> many european companies asking the European Commission to avoid 
>>> naming
>>> specific companies or software? Maybe we can try to set up a 
>>> meeting
>>> with the responsible persons of this tender to try to explain the 
>>> good
>>> things about being more open (and how the money will be reinvested 
>>> in
>>> local companies instead of the big monopolistic one)?
>>>
>>> Regards,
>>> María.
>>
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