Sambruk includes 100 of Sweden's 290 municipalities and several other governmental agencies. By collaborating on open source applications, they try to rid themselves of oligopolies and IT vendor lock-in, says Thomas Rosenfall, a PhD student at the Linköping University in Sweden. For many applications tailored to municipalities there are just two suppliers and until recently procurement policies obstructed open source solutions. This led to increasing costs for licences and maintenance, continues Rosenfall.
The PhD student presented his study on Sambruk at a conference in the Czech city of Jihlava, on 29 March 2012. The conference was organised by the Open Sources Software Usage By European Public Administration (Osepa) consortium.
Sambruk allows even non-members to participate in their open source projects. It also makes it easier to switch IT service providers, stresses Rosenfall. "And, because their solutions are developed as open source, there is a fair chance that others will innovate on the application, even after Sambruk”, he adds.
The Sambruk Association was founded in 2005 and the municipalities working together in the Association represent over half the country's population. Its main goals are the development and sharing of eGovernment services. The group also aims to increase the purchasing power of the smaller members.
Any of the Sambruk members can suggest a project. When adopted, financing and procurement for its development are organised by the Association. Each project gets a supervisory board to evaluate the work, oversee the financing, sign agreements with suppliers and participants and establish the terms of use and distribution.
Rosenfall also looked in detail into two of the many projects developed by Sambruk. The first is a customer support system, Streamflow, a project developed with an external supplier. The second is a personal assistance system, Bita, a pilot project developed by a private researcher. Streamflow was made available commercially by the service provider contracted for the development in February 2012. Sambruk's involvement means there will also be a free and open source product available as well. Bita, developed by researcher from the University of Uppsala is meant to make speed up decision making for bureaucratic processes involving local administrations and Swedish social insurance organisations.
Further Information:
- Original news article – Joinup website
- Open Sources Software Usage By European Public Administration (Osepa) consortium
- 2nd Osepa Conference
- Sambruk Association
- Streamflow project
- Bita Project
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Autor(en)/Author(s): Gijs Hillenius
Quelle/Source: epractice, 07.05.2012
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