Dutch government perspectives on procurement

Walter van Holst

Open World Forum, September 22nd, 2011

Programme

● Introduction

● Nederland Open in Verbinding/Netherlands Open in Connection

● What works/doesn't work?

● How can cooperation between OSS communities and government be improved

● How can OSS communities benefit from public procurement

For the sake of disclosure

● Legal consultant at Mitopics (http://www.mitopics.nl

● Seconded part-time to NOiV (http://www.noiv.nl)

● Vice-president of EDRi (http:www.edri.org)

Netherlands Open in Connection(not my translation)

● Dutch government programme, started in 2007:

● Improving interoperability

● Vendor lock-in reduction

● Level playing field on the software market

● 19 so called “lines of action”

● Programme office

● Programme ends in fall 2011

Context

● Growing need for flexibility

● e-Government

● Demographics

● Unbalanced relationship between government and vendors

● Public sector usage of closed standards influences private sector:

● Example: Internet Explorer only websites

Lines of action

● By 2010 every governmental body has established a policy on OS & OSS

● OS shall be required in procurement

● A “powerful impulse” to OSS by affirmative action

● Comply or explain

● Line 15: policy on releasing software developed for governmental bodies as OSS

Interoperability through open standards

● The standard is adopted and will be maintained by a not-for-profit organisation, and its ongoing development occurs on the basis of an open decision-making procedure available to all interested parties (consensus or majority decision etc.).

The standard has been published and the standard specification document is available either freely or at a nominal charge. It must be permissible to all to copy, distribute and use it for no fee or at a nominal fee.

● The intellectual property - i.e. patents possibly present - of (parts of) the standard is made irrevocably available on a royalty- free basis.

House of Thorbecke

● Centralised:

● 14 ministries

● Autonomous administrative agencies

● Agencies & Services

● Decentralised:

● 12 provinces (also vote for the Senate)

● 430 municipalities

● 26 water management authorities

Outside the House of Thorbecke

● Over 5000 primary schools

● Secondary education (about 1300 schools)

● Tertiary education:

● 14 universities + 40 other institutes of higher education

● Hospitals

● Healthcare institutes (long term care)

IT expertise in municipalities

● The typical IT department in a municipality is about 3-5 FTE

● The IT department will be part of facilities

● The head of the IT department usually has a technically oriented trade education + Microsoft certificates

09/22/11 11

Lessons learned (1/2)

● this is more than ('simply') an ICT issue:politicians and administration must be convinced,procurement staff must be informed (educated?)

● requirements for tenders must be accurately detailed,formats and text examples are welcomed

● policy ('comply or explain') is merely the starting point,implementation of standards is an ongoing procesand requires effort and endurance of all parties

09/22/11 12

Lessons learned (2/2)

● development and management of (open) standardsrequires involvement and flexibility of all parties

● especially for semantic standards, require::● agreement upon definitions (↔ legislation)● any change in policy, law etc. may affect standards

● substantial benefits for interoperability: semantic standards

What doesn't work? (1/3)

● Telling people that Microsoft is the problem

● (likewise about Oracle)

● Saying that OpenOffice.org is better than Microsoft Office

● Saying that free software fixes all your IT problems

● Assuming that people care about IT

What doesn't work (2/3)

● Assuming that IT in government is operating smoothly and is managed professionally

● Assuming that strategy automatically translates into tactical and operational actions

● Implementing free software without considering dependencies on proprietary standards

What doesn't work (3/3)

● Telling people that their tendering practices are lousy without providing alternatives/praising good ones

● Claiming OSS is cheaper when we just don't know the costs of the current systems

● Claiming OSS is cheaper when licensing costs are less than 10% of IT-expenditures

What works? (1/3)

● Explaining necessity of open standards and usefulness of open source software

● Having a roadmap towards vendor independence

● (and proper enterprise architectures)

● Communication

What works (2/3)

● Improving procurement practices

● Great interest in sharing code among governmental institutions (reuse)

● Creation and maintenance of new (semantic) open standards

● Communication

What works? (3/3)

● Organic approach to change

● Procurement is a potential ally

● Clear goals:

● Agility through vendor independence

● Communication

What are genuine obstacles?

● Lack of coordination between process 'owners', IT and procurement

● We only want applications running on ACME databases

● HR may have gotten its 'best practices' to assess employee performance from ACME corporation

● This is about organisational change, not about technology

● Non-specific reference architectures

● IT is not necessarily perceived as strategic in public administration

● Has anyone actually read the Microsoft font licenses?

How can coordination with communities be improved?

● Participation in a community requires skills/knowledge valued by other community members

● System integrators can add value to the interaction between end-users and communities

● Communities of like-minded user organisations

How can communities benefit from public procurement

● Mostly: they can't

09/22/11 Nederland Open in Verbinding 22

Questions?

● walter.holst@noiv.nl or w.van.holst@mitopics.nl

● +31 70-8887952

● http://www.noiv.nl or http://www.mitopics.nl