Public procurement of open source software: some lessons learned in the Netherlands The Netherlands was the first EU country to formulate formal policies on the promotion of open standards and open source software within its government in fall 2007. Part of that policy was mandating certain open standards in public procurement and an explicit position regarding a level playing field for open source software in public procurement. In order to facilitate this, a programme group was appointed. One aspect of the programme (called Netherlands open in Connection), which is about to end, is the ongoing monitoring of calls for tenders in order to gauge compliance with this policy. The programme also encompassed informing public bodies about this policy as well as providing advice on matters such as making government-owned software open source, implementation strategies and public procurement.

1. Dutch government perspectives
on procurement
Walter van Holst
nd
Open World Forum, September 22 , 2011

2. 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

3. 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)

4. 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

5. 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

6. 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

7. 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.

8. 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

9. 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)

10. 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

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 proces
and requires effort and endurance of all parties
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12. Lessons learned (2/2)
● development and management of (open) standards
requires 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
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13. 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

14. 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

15. 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

16. 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

17. 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

18. What works? (3/3)
● Organic approach to change
● Procurement is a potential ally
● Clear goals:
● Agility through vendor independence
● Communication

19. 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?

20. 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

21. How can communities benefit from public
procurement
● Mostly: they can't

22. Questions?
● walter.holst@noiv.nl or w.van.holst@mitopics.nl
● +31 70-8887952
● http://www.noiv.nl or http://www.mitopics.nl
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