The Swiss government is studying if it can organise procurement of open source services similar to the way it is done for Sweden's public administrations. The Swiss government's Federal IT Steering Unit FITSU funded the translation into German of Sweden's open source procurement framework.
"This should facilitate the procurement process of open source software solutions. Our aim is to increase the use of this kind of software within the Swiss government", says Matthias Stürmer, board member of the Swiss Open Systems User Group /ch/open. "There is a lack of experience within the public sector. The use of an open source framework contract similar to the Swedes, or by creating a customized Swiss open source procurement guideline, will help remove obstacles to buying open source services and help get rid of uncertainties."
The decision to translate the documents and discuss the possibilities of a framework contract with open source providers was taken shortly after a conference in the Bern, in September last year, by the FITSU, the Federal Office for Buildings and Logistics (BBL), Swiss ICT and /ch/open. One of the speakers at that conference was Daniel Melin, a Procurement Officer for ICT at Sweden's National Procurement Services.
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The Swedish procurement framework creates a competition between the suppliers of open source services, allows them to organise flexible consortia of companies and specialists, minimizes the risks for public administrations and makes sure that additional code developed with tax money is contributed to the open source communities. The framework is used by the central government, the public educational sector, all twenty county councils and 225 out of the 290 Swedish municipalities. "The amount of services procured under this contract is growing faster than under any other", Melin said in Bern. "Annual growth is around 10 to 15 per cent."
The translations into German were published this Tuesday. FITSU translated the 'Preliminary framework agreements for Software 2010' and its tender document and technical specifications, as well as the general and specific supplements. The five documents are available on the website of the Swiss Parliament's Group for Digital Sustainability.
More information:
German translation of Sweden's open source framework procurement
Joinup study on Sweden's open source framework procurement