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

[till.adams at fossgis.de]

Dear Steven,

good words and most of them mirror my opinion on this topic. I think 
Marc and Dirk already - at least partwise - let the cat out of the bag: 
We 2 met last week in Gent at Dirks office and discussed about this 
tender - the final decision was to put it on this list and start a 
discussion (which is well ongoing) and use this to start our work as 
formal OSGeo-EU chapter towards our goals.
So I disagree little with the term "there is little we can do to 
influence" - we can show any reaciton - let it be an open letter, a 
shared letter from several OSGC's (I like the term ;-)) or even a 
personal note AND a hint to our discussion here.

Our second issue (and also Dirk and Marc at least hinted towards this 
in their contributions) on our agenda last week was the formation of a 
soft "come together" of what you call OSGC's, maybe in the first step 
based on an agreement, that does not limit the freedom every single 
signing OSGC has. There is a first draft of a LOI we want to address to 
several european OSGC in the next weeks with the goal to fire this 
discussion. I agree in an ealry meeting in 2017 - maybe FOSS4G-EU is a 
goal (although it's not really early)....

Till




Am 2016-11-30 12:31, schrieb Steven Feldman:
> Thanks to Till for starting this thread.
>
> I suggest we park the discussion about this specific tender as there
> is little that we can do to influence it at this late stage we have
> not been in dialogue with them and as we do not even have a
> vehicle/organisation/consortium to engage with them.
>
> Large public sector bodies (municipal, regional, national, EU etc) 
> are
> ‘a' or even ‘the’ main target market for many OSGeo Companies (I
> am going to coin the acronym OSGCs). In general OSGCs are SMEs and at
> the smaller end of that grouping - I would guess there are few OSGCs
> in Europe with more than 50 employees and most are in the 10-25 
> range.
> Size is important, OSGCs will compete successfully for projects at
> municipal level and for some smaller national projects but are likely
> to be excluded from larger projects due to financial reserves,
> resources and range of skills.
>
> It’s not just size that limits us, for most larger projects the
> successful bidder will have been building a relationship with the
> client, their senior management and the procurement team for many
> months or years before the procurement is announced. This is the
> standard approach of the enterprise sales team whether it be a global
> software vendor or a big systems integrator. If we want to compete we
> will need to work out a way to match that approach.
>
> I can think of two approaches that OSGCs could consider (others may
> come up with some alternatives):
>
> 	* Partnering with a Systems Integrator - SI’s may prefer to partner
> with an OSGC to give them some credible skills base.
>
> 	* The downside is that the OSGC will usually be the junior partner
> and may have less influence in the technical approach proposed.
> 	* The upside is that the SI will be known to the customer, there 
> will
> be no doubt as to their capacity to deliver etc.
>
> 	* Partnering with one or more other OSGCs
>
> 	* Upside - we share all the work. Likely to be more competitive
> pricing
> 	* Downside - questions about commercial responsibility for delivery
> and ongoing support
>
> There is a lot more to discuss about how we would go about forming a
> partnership, whether it would need permanent staff for sales,
> marketing etc, how/who would project manage, who would take legal
> responsibility etc. If we want to succeed in larger projects we will
> need a lot more than a small amount of advocacy, that will take time,
> cost money and require long term commitment.
>
> If there is an appetite for some serious form of collaboration 
> amongst
> OSGCs we would need to spend some time together exploring options -
> perhaps a meet up in early 2017?
>
> mtfbwy
>
>  ______
> Steven
>
>> On 30 Nov 2016, at 07:50, eu-request at lists.osgeo.org [1] wrote:
>>
>> Send EU mailing list submissions to
>> eu at lists.osgeo.org [2]
>>
>> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/eu
>> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
>> eu-request at lists.osgeo.org
>>
>> You can reach the person managing the list at
>> eu-owner at lists.osgeo.org
>>
>> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
>> than "Re: Contents of EU digest..."
>>
>> Today's Topics:
>>
>> 1. Re: European "partwise" Open Source GIS-Tender (Jachym Cepicky)
>> 2. Re: European "partwise" Open Source GIS-Tender
>> (till.adams at fossgis.de)
>>
>>
> 
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 1
>> Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 05:41:57 +0000
>> From: Jachym Cepicky <jachym.cepicky at gmail.com>
>> To: dirk.frigne at geosparc.com, eu at lists.osgeo.org
>> Subject: Re: [EU] European "partwise" Open Source GIS-Tender
>> Message-ID:
>> <CAAZUH4GG5ic2P853NuXyi=Qq=m8roSc3C5fsXQK6v1g8hiyLLg at mail.gmail.com>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="utf-8"
>>
>> I think, that the buzzword we need to promote here is Open APIs -
>> that
>> leads to decomposition of the huge task and therefore to possibility
>> to
>> split one huge service to many
>>
>> j
>>
>> On Tue, Nov 29, 2016, 16:41 Dirk Frigne <dirk.frigne at geosparc.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Thank you Till for sharing this tender,
>>> Thank you Maria for your comments,
>>>
>>> I also was discouraged, reading that Eurostats wants a shift
>>> towards
>>> open source (which is imho the right choice and a very good
>>> decision!),
>>> but at the other hand, strictly restrict part of the experience to
>>> one
>>> particular service provider, with a 4 letter word as abbreviation.
>>>
>>> What I think we should do (from OSGeo) is writing a letter where
>>> we
>>> encourage the initiative, present the OSGeo foundation, and ask
>>> why the
>>> tender is not divided in two lots: one for open source services,
>>> and one
>>> for services from a specific proprietary system.
>>>
>>> We should also write that a lot of community members of OSGeo,
>>> working
>>> for businesses with an business model based on open source
>>> software
>>> values, are interested to work together to provide an answer to
>>> this
>>> tender, if the specific proprietary know how was not requested.
>>> (in
>>> other words, if there where two separated lots in the tender).
>>>
>>> We should mention that we (from the OSGeo community) are convinced
>>> that
>>> solutions fully based on open source technology are a perfect
>>> replacement for any proprietary system out there today, and that
>>> the
>>> change for vendor lock-in is much smaller with such solutions.
>>>
>>> Apart what OSGeo could do, I think we (the individuals belonging
>>> to
>>> commercial service providers) can start an initiative to form a
>>> consortium so we can provide an answer to such questions if we
>>> spot a
>>> new opportunity.
>>>
>>> But even then I think it is very ambitious to shift such an amount
>>> of
>>> 'good professional quality' in such a sort term, that I think that
>>> we
>>> also should promote and work on capacity building trough
>>> initiatives
>>> such as Geo4all.
>>>
>>> Dirk
>>>
>>> On 28-11-16 11:42, María Arias de Reyna wrote:
>>>
>>>> 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
>>>
>>>> class="">
>>>> Summary
>>>> EUROSTAT, europes statistical agency, is seeking a contracting
>>>> company,
>>>> that
>>> ">delivers GIS services worth 17.5 million €uros for the
>>> upcoming 4 years
>> -------------- next part --------------
>> An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
>> URL:
>>
> 
> <http://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/eu/attachments/20161130/d3e1b7fb/attachment-0001.html>
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Message: 2
>> Date: Wed, 30 Nov 2016 08:50:19 +0100
>> From: till.adams at fossgis.de
>> To: Jáchym Čepický <jachym.cepicky at gmail.com>,
>> <eu at lists.osgeo.org>
>> Subject: Re: [EU] European "partwise" Open Source GIS-Tender
>> Message-ID: <e4d4514a2e5024730578266d96b4979e at fossgis.de>
>> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8; format=flowed
>>
>> 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.
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
>>>> EU mailing list
>>>> EU at lists.osgeo.org
>>>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/eu
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> Subject: Digest Footer
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> EU mailing list
>> EU at lists.osgeo.org
>> http://lists.osgeo.org/mailman/listinfo/eu
>>
>> ------------------------------
>>
>> End of EU Digest, Vol 7, Issue 3
>> ********************************
>
>
>
> Links:
> ------
> [1] mailto:eu-request at lists.osgeo.org
> [2] mailto:eu at lists.osgeo.org