chicken and egg dilemma for free business applications
My day at KOMCOM Süd at Karlsruhe fairground is over. This is a specialized fair for the public sector, dealing with IT, finances and consultancies.
Most of the exhibitors offer proprietary solutions. Many of them not even platform open, e.g. web or Java based. But of course there are positive exceptions, building apps completely with free software components and licencing them with free software licences like GPL or EUPL. But they are the minority.
During a workshop we discussed possibilities to change this situation. In my opinion this is a real cicken and egg dilemma. If there are the needs of public authorites at first, then there will be a public procurement. And then everybody would be able to offer solutions. And there are ready proprietary solutions with no development costs. So they could offer much cheaper than everyone wanting to develope a solution as free software. So there has to be a ready to use product at first.
On the other hand this is not the way how free software is developed. Why should anyone develope software no one – not even himself – knows if there’s a need?
For us public bodies this means we have to be more courageous. If we really want the change happen, we should join forces and take the first step, of course using free software and strictly combining open standards. There are similar requirements throughout every public administration, in Germany and in Europe. We shouldn’t invent the wheel by our own again and again, but if we really want to change the market behaviour, WE have to take action.
Big municipalities like Munich are somehow special. But there’s a high number of small and medium cities with small IT budgets. They can’t effort doing it alone.
Bringing them together may be a challenge for initiatives like LiSoG or linux-kommunale in Germany.
It’s a long way to get rid of closed proprietary software for business applications, but someone has to do the first step and – like in many other areas, real innovation is done by public authorities 
29. April 2009 um 9:37
[...] The dilemma with business apps: http://www.floschi.info/2009/04/chicken-and-egg-dilemma-for-free-business-applications/ [...]
19. Mai 2009 um 7:59
Ich glaube, die “Kieler Beschlüsse” müssen reaktiviert werden. Mit den heutigen Software-Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten via web könnten die Kommunen entsprechend ihrer Größe personelle Ressourcen für die SW-Entwicklung bereitstellen, sei es durch eigenes Personal oder über extern Beauftragte. Die Federführung für das jeweilige Fachverfahrens-Projekt könnte auf die Kommunen verteilt werden. Wichtig wäre, die benötigten OSS-Fachverfahren zu priorisieren und mit den wichtigsten zu beginnen. Außerdem sollte sich auf bestimmte Methoden (Programmiersprache, Entwicklungstool etc.) geeinigt werden.
19. Mai 2009 um 21:34
Hm, ich bin mir nicht sicher, ob das Modell der Kieler Beschlüsse heute noch so zieht. Ich würde lieber das Modell “freie Software Community” mehr in den Gedanken der Verantwortlichen verankern.