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<p>Hi Max<br>
</p>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">Thanks for your response! I'd like to
clarify a bit to explain the nature of the collaborations in
municipal free software development here in DK - it's actually
quite interesting:</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix"><br>
</div>
<div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 1/10/20 10:20 AM, Max Mehl wrote:<br>
</div>
<blockquote type="cite"
cite="mid:1578647637.r1f2744wt8.2220@fsfe.org">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
</pre>
<blockquote type="cite">
<pre class="moz-quote-pre" wrap="">
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/authoritative-information">https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/open-source-observatory-osor/news/authoritative-information</a>
Basically, it's about something as bureaucratic as maintaining
authoritative organisation hierarchies, e.g. for local authorities
(which the tools was specifically made to support). Ideally, all
onboarding etc. of new staff could be done in this tool with
integrations in place to allow automatic access to other systems the
employees would need. Or, as it says in the article:
</pre>
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Thanks for sharing, and congratulations! I find this very interesting
and relevant, as it is another example for ready tools that
organisations like administrations can use, study, share, and improve.
In particular, I am happy about the following:
"OS2 already involves 66 of the country’s 98 municipalities, and 35 IT
services providers. 'OS2mo could grow to become a standard
application, because it delivers a common service that all public
organisations in Denmark need,' he says.
According to Mr Thirifays, the software can even be adapted to other
countries. 'It can already be used as a standalone tool, helping
public services, companies, or NGOs keep their address book and access
directory up to date.'"
The fact that it is supported by a wide range of companies and
administrations, and the ability to be adapted by other players as well
is a good indicator for its re-usability, which is a key asset for Free
Software projects.
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</blockquote>
<p>It's important to distinguish between OS2 and our product OS2MO.
OS2 is a collaboration between 66 municipalities, as the article
states, and the idea is that the municipalities pool together
their resources to create software they all need. Since this is
always released as free software (normally the MPL, but this
varies - some of the projects are under e.g. GPL3), the software
is then available for all of them free of charge; of course, with
a price tag depending of the TCO of operating it themselves or
asking one of the associated vendors to do it. <br>
</p>
<p>All OS2 projects have a name that starts with "os2" and is
described on this page:</p>
<p><a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://os2.eu/produkter">https://os2.eu/produkter</a></p>
<p>(alas, only in Danish - there is an introduction in English here:
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://os2.eu/node/332">https://os2.eu/node/332</a>)</p>
<p>I think the collaboration originated in TING, which is/was a
Drupal-bases CMS package with many customizations made and used by
a large number of public libraries. Some OS2 products have been
developed in-house in the municipalities, others have been
procured with external vendors like my own company.<br>
</p>
<p>My company has developed and/or worked with a number of these
products, e.g.<br>
<br>
* OS2datascanner, a web and file system scanner to detect GDPR and
other privacy violations (originally the use case was to detect
possible leaking of citizen's confidential data to municipal web
sites, which increasingly contain vast amounts of data)</p>
<p>* OS2borgerpc, which I presented at FOSDEM in 2014, when it was
still called BibOS - a GNU/Linux based OS for public-facing PCs in
libraries and municipal offices, with a central admin system to
control and update them</p>
<p>* OS2display, a system for controlling info screens in public
libraries and other places, also based on GNU/Linux and with
central management (but the OS is controlled by os2borgerpc). This
product was created by the municipality of Aarhus, but they asked
us to take over the governance and development and sales to other
municipalities as it's not really their line of work.</p>
<p>* OS2bos, a very new system for appropriation of funds for
caseworkers in social services (specifically child protection
services). This system just went into production in December!<br>
</p>
<p>So all of the 66 municipalities are not involved in OS2MO, but in
somewhere between zero and many of these products. I should also
add that while this model and idea is really wonderful, there are
drawbacks. OS2, the coordinating organization, has very few
resources - a coordinator and a few employees to help which are
donated by some of the larger municipalities. (Thus, the
coordinator is formally employed by the municipality of Aarhus.)</p>
<p>OS2 does not have funds to maintain these systems, so maintenance
is paid by the procuring municipalities. And there is a - let's
say, spectrum - of willingness to invest; thus, the municipality
of Ballerup are completely committed to the concept of "open
source" as a rational digitization tool, and they are a <i>really</i>
big customer of ours and have also really been reaping the
benefits and savings of their investments. A few others are "big
players" that help a lot of free software into being. Other
participating municipal have a tendency to sit on the fence and
wait for others to create the software and then latch onto it when
it becomes available. This is compensated by "enrollment plans"
for municipalities that want to join the "common track" deployment
instead of rolling their own from the source code, which can be
demanding for a small organization. But it can be complicated. :-)</p>
<p>And, it is also the OS2 collaboration, and not the specific
product, that has 35 associated service providers.<br>
</p>
<p>So, OS2MO is currently being deployed to 16 municipalities in
Denmark, and as the article states, ideally it can be used to
onboarding and offoarding of staff in these organizations, with
integrations to directories and other systems to automatically
give user access to relevant IT systems (most of which are
proprietary in these landscapes). But we do hope more will jump on
the bandwagon, and I know of at least one other vendor who's very
interested in providing this system. So we're very definitely
going in the right direction, and the whole OS2 collaboration is
one of the most interesting free software related things to happen
in Denmark in the last decade.</p>
<p><br>
</p>
<p>Best,</p>
<p>Carsten</p>
<p><br>
</p>
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