Hi,
just saw this:
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/open-source-extend-finlands-municipal-share...
Open source to extend Finland's municipal shared services centre
Kuntien Tiera, shared IT service provider founded two years ago by Finnish cities and municipalities, is basing a majority of its online services on free and open source software. "It is a very important step for us", comments Kari Syrjärinne, business area manager at Kuntien Tiera.
The two firms announced their agreement earlier this month.
Syrjärinne explains that Finish municipalities can use the hosted software solutions to provide citizens on-line access to common municipal services. "Instead of having to send a letter, write an email or visit the municipal offices, citizens can access these services online. This will really help to modernise Finland's municipal services."
According to Petri Lillberg, the CEO of Proactum, examples include allowing citizens to apply online for temporary income support, registering their children for daycare or reserving a space for their boat in the municipal marina. "We're planning about a hundred such services."
[...]
What do you make of it?
Best regards, Karsten
Hi
Some quick comments without knowing the case:
Proactum is a long term OSS supplier in Finland. Small, yet continuously growing (3M+ turnover, currently) with important customers with a quite broad specturm. Proactum is COSS, member, in steering group, as is Kuntien Tiera Oy too. I think Proactum is doing important grass root business work. We need Proactum to grow and get more similar companies here.
Kuntien Tiera, well, it's a bit more complicated. They are a company owned by about 50 municipalities, or so: it's a purchasing and it-production entity. It had a strong idea of openness originally - and started with high hopes -, but there were some strategy and personnel changes about 2 years ago and it started to go proprietary. The original idea was lost. E.g. I believe they won't be doing open publishing at all, and will focus on their owners (=customers). I think that they are just using open source (a good thing, but meek in comparison from which this started) in building some of their services. But the bottom-line is that I don't really know. Their presence in COSS has been not so optimal, the person there is perhaps not the right one.
Best, Martin
-----Alkuperäinen viesti----- Lähettäjä: Karsten Gerloff [mailto:gerloff@fsfeurope.org] Lähetetty: 25. tammikuuta 2013 9:48 Vastaanottaja: finland@fsfeurope.org Aihe: [Finland] [press] Free Software in Finland's shared municipal service centre
Hi,
just saw this:
https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/news/open-source-extend-finlands- municipal-shared-services-centre
Open source to extend Finland's municipal shared services centre
Kuntien Tiera, shared IT service provider founded two years ago by Finnish cities and municipalities, is basing a majority of its online services on free and open source software. "It is a very important step for us", comments Kari Syrjärinne, business area manager at Kuntien Tiera.
The two firms announced their agreement earlier this month.
Syrjärinne explains that Finish municipalities can use the hosted software solutions to provide citizens on-line access to common municipal services. "Instead of having to send a letter, write an email or visit the municipal offices, citizens can access these services online. This will really help to modernise Finland's municipal services."
According to Petri Lillberg, the CEO of Proactum, examples include allowing citizens to apply online for temporary income support, registering their children for daycare or reserving a space for their boat in the municipal marina. "We're planning about a hundred such services."
[...]
What do you make of it?
Best regards, Karsten -- Karsten Gerloff [ ] gerloff@fsfeurope.org Free Software Foundation Europe [ ][ ][ ] [http://fsfe.org] President | | +49 176 9690 4298 Support software freedom! [http://fsfe.org/support]
Free Software Foundation Europe e.V. is a German Verein registered at the Registergericht Hamburg (VR 17030).
Hi Martin,
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 11:44:50AM +0200, Martin von Willebrand wrote:
Hi
Some quick comments without knowing the case:
Proactum is a long term OSS supplier in Finland. Small, yet continuously growing (3M+ turnover, currently) with important customers with a quite broad specturm. Proactum is COSS, member, in steering group, as is Kuntien Tiera Oy too. I think Proactum is doing important grass root business work. We need Proactum to grow and get more similar companies here.
Kuntien Tiera, well, it's a bit more complicated. They are a company owned by about 50 municipalities, or so: it's a purchasing and it-production entity. It had a strong idea of openness originally - and started with high hopes -, but there were some strategy and personnel changes about 2 years ago and it started to go proprietary. The original idea was lost. E.g. I believe they won't be doing open publishing at all, and will focus on their owners (=customers). I think that they are just using open source (a good thing, but meek in comparison from which this started) in building some of their services. But the bottom-line is that I don't really know. Their presence in COSS has been not so optimal, the person there is perhaps not the right one.
thanks for putting this into context! Sad as I am to hear this, it's good to have a realistic picture of what's going on.
I know the journalist who wrote the article quite well. He might enjoy poking them every now and then.
Would Kuntien Tiera be a useful target for our work of pressing for change? What could we accomplish there under ideal circumstances, and what could we expect to achieve realistically?
Or are there other agencies in Finland we should be targetting instead?
Best regards, Karsten
Hello,
2013/1/25 Karsten Gerloff gerloff@fsfeurope.org:
Would Kuntien Tiera be a useful target for our work of pressing for change? What could we accomplish there under ideal circumstances, and what could we expect to achieve realistically?
Or are there other agencies in Finland we should be targetting instead?
I was in a COSS meeting yesterday planning the (COSS) strategy on how to increase open source in the Finnish public sector. Among the participants was development director Jani Moliis from Kuntien Tiera and CEO Petri Lillberg from Proactum. We discussed briefly this case and to it sounded only positive. I haven't though had time to dig into it, if there might be something burried in the details. At the moment I trust these people to advance our cause, so this is all good news.
We will continue our dialogs with agencies in Finland, but we don't have resources to specifically "target" anything. We are barely managing the procurement project, and if I or Martin have any excess time for FSFE work, we should put more time on that so that it would not simply die away.
Hi Otto,
On Fri, Jan 25, 2013 at 02:32:48PM +0200, Otto Kekäläinen wrote:
Hello,
2013/1/25 Karsten Gerloff gerloff@fsfeurope.org:
Would Kuntien Tiera be a useful target for our work of pressing for change? What could we accomplish there under ideal circumstances, and what could we expect to achieve realistically?
Or are there other agencies in Finland we should be targetting instead?
I was in a COSS meeting yesterday planning the (COSS) strategy on how to increase open source in the Finnish public sector. Among the participants was development director Jani Moliis from Kuntien Tiera and CEO Petri Lillberg from Proactum. We discussed briefly this case and to it sounded only positive. I haven't though had time to dig into it, if there might be something burried in the details. At the moment I trust these people to advance our cause, so this is all good news.
thanks for the up-to-date information!
We will continue our dialogs with agencies in Finland, but we don't have resources to specifically "target" anything. We are barely managing the procurement project, and if I or Martin have any excess time for FSFE work, we should put more time on that so that it would not simply die away.
I know that you're working on a very limited time budget, and you're certainly achieving a lot!
My question about targeting wasn't meant to say "you should take this on, too". Sometimes we can have a significant impact with very little extra effort (from you or me); we just need to know about the opportunities.
Best regards, Karsten
2013/1/25 Karsten Gerloff gerloff@fsfeurope.org:
I know that you're working on a very limited time budget, and you're certainly achieving a lot!
Thanks!
My question about targeting wasn't meant to say "you should take this on, too". Sometimes we can have a significant impact with very little extra effort (from you or me); we just need to know about the opportunities.
Quoting your paragraph above, I guess our time usage is quite effective at the moment :) But yes, I'll let you know if I come up with any ideas on higher priorities / re-allocation of time. At the moment I don't have any ideas on that, but I do have an expense request filed for DFD event in Finland waiting that Matthias/Sam would approve it.