Sustainable Business Model for FLOSS in the Public Sector

Cesare Brizio

agile.open.connectedFOSS in the Public Sector: Business and Sustainability Models

2nd OSEPA Conference in Jihlava 28 – 29 March 2012

C. Brizio2nd OSEPA Conference in Jihlava 28 – 29 March 2012

This presentation is not about “which exact steps you should take”: PloneGov didn’t discover anything new, and I’m not in the

condition of teaching “secret arts”.


Rather, it’s a talk about awareness, about understanding a system that generates

opportunities - a free software community - and about surrendering to that system


From energy to synergy:let’s put the pieces together


Which is the smartest way to converge??

Three different energies...

Public organizations

Requirements and operational

knowledge

Free SW communities

Methods and opportunities (“lifestyle”)

Free SW SMBs

Technical knowledge,

services

new Laws, Procurement... Who else can provide them?


Each source should irradiate the other two!Public

organizations

Free SW

comm

unitiesFr

ee S

W

SMBs

Requirem

ents

Solutions,

Consulting,

Training,

Custom

ization

Met

hods

, co

mm

unity

st

yle,

free

so

ftwar

eFr

ee s

oftw

are,

stra

tegy

Methods, community style, free software

Free software, strategy

Law should favor this synergy!

Global and National

crises provide opportunities!


We call such a synergy

“The PloneGov Triangle”:

everybody keeps on doing what he is best at,

it just requires...

• a mature free software community

• companies actually embedded in that community (not opportunists...)

• some degree of involvement of the Public Sector in that community

• in short, each side of the triangle must be self-sustaining!

PloneGov itself is a community


Public bodies

Plone free software

Community

RedTurtle,Zea Partners network

& other SMBs

Gov

✓ Tri-polar synergy

✓ Simple concepts, far-ranging implications

✓ Network-style collaboration at all vertices

XXX

THE MODEL MAY APPLY TO ANY MATURE

FREE SOFTWARE


✓ Under very specific conditions (availability of skilled resources within the Public Sector, tradition of common investments) such as the CommunesPlone platform, the Public Bodies can do all by themselves

✓ Resource pooling, Project-focused collaboration

✓ Excellent example, but too advanced, unapplicable in most cases. PloneGov Italia may be less impressive, but is much easier to generalize and spread.

A borderline case from Belgium: “IMIO, nouvel acteur de la mutualisation informatique pour les

communes” (http://www.communesplone.be/)

Union des Villes et Communes de Wallonie

A project-centric communitiy (“CommunesPlone”) of “Do It

Yourself” Public bodies

http://www.communesplone.be

http://www.communesplone.be


Why the Public Bodies?

... well, OSEPA already knows the answer :-)


I hinted at “.....some degree of involvement of the Public Sector in that community”

Q.: which degree???


A.: Any degree, up to this:


Why Plone?(...or any other suitable free software community....)

C. Brizio

COMMUNITIES:a key feature of free software

Metrics of openness and reliability: Simon Phipps’

Software Freedom Scorecard

The model can only be based on a mature free software

supported by an active, mature and widespread

community, worth participating. A community giving an advantage to its

members.


FREE SOFTWARE

Operating Systems

Personal productivity

... CMS DBMS ERP ...

Drupal... Joomla ... EZ Publish... Alfresco ...

Standard CMS Enterprise CMS


Why RedTurtle?(...or any other suitable community-embedded SMB serving

the public sector....)

C. Brizio

RedTurtle: the importance of being embedded in the community

Opportunists (“pretenders”) may look like believers, we are believers.

✓ highest standard of involvement: • see what’s happening

• influence decisions

• have some saying on the roadmap

✓ highest standard of ethics and commitment: • release software

• be fair

• be collaborative

Opportunists may look like believers, but they can just float ...

... where we swim.

C. Brizio

RedTurtlenetwork and community

✓ a scalable workforce:

• we

• our business network

• Plone core developers

• Plone community

✓ a continuing involvement in the evolution of our reference technology and in the community

✓ about 70 Products released with GPL license

C. Brizio

ZEA Partners

✓ A global network of SMBs building open source solutions

✓ 20 partners, 2 italians (RedTurtle is part of the board)

✓ ZEA in 2007 contributed to the birth of PloneGov.org by providing technical assistance to the founding members in Belgium

✓ Recently reborn in Italy (I’m the secretary) ZEA continues to engage actively in the support of the PloneGov initiative, in Italy and elsewhere


The PloneGov device: mechanical parts

Gov Italia http://www.plonegov.it

http://www.plonegov.org

http://www.plonegov.it




C. Brizio

PloneGov

A worldwide community of the Public Sector, aimed at sharing and reusing Plone software and Plone knowledge among the member Public Bodies.

Requirements?

•Being a Public Body

•Using (or having interest for) Plone


✓ The national chapter of PloneGov (http://www.plonegov.it)

✓ About 50 members

✓ Different public bodies and solutions: Universities, Health Agencies, Regions, Provinces, Cities, Chamber of Commerce, ...

Gov Italia




A COMPANY

A GLOBAL NETWORK OF PUBLIC BODIES

Gov

Promotes and gives technical support

A NATIONAL NETWORK OF PUBLIC BODIES

Gov Italia

A Free Software Technology

A community of developers

A GLOBAL NETWORK OF COMPANIES

A PUBLIC BODY

Plone, PloneGov and ZEA Partners - the big picture

And any FLOSS company and freelance may join in the business model (no monopoly)!


Plone SMBs, ZEA network

“Pilot” body

1) REQUIREMENTS

3) PROTOTYPE

2) VALIDATION

other bodiesreusable solution

PloneGovreusable solution

Reusing bodies

4) SUPPORT TO REUSE

‣ triggered by an individual Public Body(e.g. Chamber of Commerce, Town, local Agency...)

‣ propagating by “peer to peer” infection among other individual organizations

‣ particularly suited for products

‣ may escalate to “top down” model when becoming epidemic and attracting the attention of an Association of Public Bodies

Sustainable reuse model, the “bottom-up” way


P. B.Assn.

Public Bodies in the Association ‣ triggered by involving an Aggregate of Public Bodies

‣ propagation “by directive” and by “peer to peer” infection

‣ suited for products but particularly well-suited for ad hoc projects

‣ market target potentially bigger

‣ human and economical resource pooling may be much easier

Sustainable reuse model, the “top-down” way

Plone SMBs, ZEA Network

Public BodiesAssociation

“Pilot” body PROTOTYPE

VALIDATION

Reusing bodies

SUPPORT TO REUSE

reusable solutionREQUIREMENT REQUIREMENT

other bodiesreusable solution

PloneGovreusable solution

HARMONIZATION


The PloneGov Model - case studies

Gov Italia


Model 1 - “Institutional” reusea real case from an Association of Communes

Unione Reno Galliera

Communes of the Unione

Online official board integrated with different Resolutions management softwares

Gov Italia


Model 2 - Horizontal infection (solutions) a real case between identical Public Bodies

Chamber of Commerce of Ferrara

8 other Chambers of Commerce

Portal and Intranet

Gov Italia

Gov Italia


Model 2 - Horizontal (modules) An example (among many) - between two identical bodies

City di Modena

City of San Giovanni in Persiceto

Monet.Modulistica

Gov Italia

Gov Italia


Model 3 - Cross / bidirectional reuse a real case between two similar bodies

Province of Ferrara

City of Padova

Intranet / DMS / Resolutions / Quality Management System

Official Register

Gov Italia

Gov Italia


Model 4 - Bottom-up escalation vertical reuse: hierarchical escalation

City of Modena

National Level(Agreement RER / ANCI / Ministry of Youth)

Youth Information portal

Emilia Romagna Region

GECO Federated Portal

Gov Italia

Gov Italia


Model 5 - On-demand development borderline case: “on demand development” (offer in reuse)

Chamber of Commerce of Ferrara

State Prosecutor Office, Court of Ferrara

Digital Archival and Search of criminal lawsuits files

Gov Italia


Model 6 - Pooling brains and experiencesself-managed technical events

City of Modena, Emilia Romagna region

Workshop for the exchange of PloneGov solutions (November 2010)

Gov Italia


Model 6 - Pooling brains and experiencesbrowsing around for the missing pieces....

Guardia di Finanza

Websites and Institutional portal

Gov Italia

City of Modena Gov Italia

Regione Emilia Romagna Gov Italia

Grazie. Thank you.