On open source competence centers


Just a few days ago, Glynn Moody posted a tweet with the message: “Italy to begin an open source competence centre”; a result of the recent EU project Qualipso, created with the purpose to identify barriers to OSS adoption, quality metrics and with the explicit target of creating a network of OSS competence centers, sharing the results of the research effort and disseminating it with the European community of companies and public administration. For this reason, the project created more than one competence center, and created a network (that you can find under this website) to cover not only Europe, but China, India and Japan as well. This is absolutely a great effort, and I am grateful to the Commission and the project participants for their work (hey, they even cited my work on business models!)

There is, however, an underlying attitude that I found puzzling – and partially troubling as well. The announcement mentioned the competence center of Italy, and was worded as there was no previous such effort in that country. If you go to the network website, you will find no mention of any other competence center there, even when you consider that the Commission already has a list of such centers (not much updated, though) and that on OSOR there is even an official group devoted to Italian OSS competence centers, among them two in Friuli (disclaimer: I am part of the technical board of CROSS, and work in the other), Tuscany, Trentino, Umbria, Emilia (as part of the PITER project), a national one and many others that I probably forgot. Then we have Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Ireland, Malta, Netherlands, Nordic Countries and many others. What is incredible is that most of these centers… actually don’t link one with the other, and they hardly share information. The new Qualipso network of competence centers does not list any previous center, nor does it point to already prepared documentation – even by the Commission. The competence center network website does not link to OSOR as well, nor does it links to other projects – past or current.

I still believe that competence centers are important, and that they must focus on what can be done to simplify adoption – or to turn adoption into a commercially sustainable ecosystem, for example by facilitating the embracing of OSS packages by local software companies. In the past I tried to summarize this in the following set of potential activities:

  • Creating software catalogs, using an integrated evaluation model (QSOS, Qualipso, FLOSSMETRICS-anything, as long as it is consistent)
  • For selected projects, finds local support companies with competence in the identified solution
  • Collect the needs of potential OSS users, using standardized forms (Technology Request/Technology Offer, TR/TO) to identify IT needs. Find the set of OSS projects that together satisfies the Technology Request; if there are still unsatisfied requirements, join together several interested users to ask (with a commercial offer) for a custom-made OSS extension or project
  • Aggregate and restructure the information created by other actors, like IST, IDABC, individual national initiatives (OSOSS, KBST, COSS, …)

This models helps in overcoming several hurdles to OSS adoption:

  • Correctly identify needs, and through analysis of already published TR can help in aggregating demand
  • Helps in finding appropriate OSS solutions, even when solutions are created through combination of individual pieces
  • Helps in finding actors that can provide commercial support or know-how

It does have several potential advantages over traditional mediation services:

  • The center does NOT participate in the commercial exchange, and in this sense acts as a pure catalyst. This way it does not compete with existing OSS companies, but provides increased visibility and an additional dissemination channel
  • It remains a simple and lean structure, reducing the management costs
  • By reusing competences and information from many sources, it can become a significant learning center even for OSS companies (for example, in the field of business models for a specific OSS project)
  • It is compatible with traditional IT incubators, and can reuse most of the same structures

Most of this idea revolves around the concept of sharing effort, and reusing knowledge already developed in other areas or countries. I find it strange that the most difficult idea among these competence centers is… sharing.

(update: corrected the network project name – Qualipso, not Qualoss. Thanks to Matteo for spotting it.)

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  1. #1 by Stefane Fermigier - April 26th, 2010 at 19:28

    Hey, what about France then ?

    http://www.gt-logiciel-libre.org/ ;)

    S.

  2. #2 by Simone Cicero - April 27th, 2010 at 11:29

    Ciao Carlo,
    I totally agree.
    Furthermore, when you say:

    The center does NOT participate in the commercial exchange, and in this sense acts as a pure catalyst. This way it does not compete with existing OSS companies, but provides increased visibility and an additional dissemination channel

    I find hard to believe that the newly announced competence Center being started in Italy, by including one of the most influencial IT Company in Italy will act as a “simple” catalyst.

    The Italian way strikes again.

  3. #3 by Matteo Melideo - April 27th, 2010 at 16:59

    Thanks for your comments on the Competence Center initiative but as coordinator of this initiative I want to provide some brief clarifications:
    1. the official announcements we did about the Competence Center never claimed that it is the first and unique initiative in Italy. If this is the case it is because not properly reported.
    2. For sure there are a lot of local reality that work very well. On the other side, I do not know if at National level there are still something up and running.
    3. Does QUALOSS network of competence centers exist? Probably you are referring to QualiPSo one.

    Concerning all the other suggestions you raised in your post, they all go in the direction of what the Competence Centre intends to do in the next months. In particular,

    1. one of the goal of the centre is to create a software catalog using the QualiPSo methodologies and tools where we have heavily invested in.
    2. the Competence Center intends to become the aggregator of all the Italian initiatives on the Open Source working like a window toward the world thanks to the network of contacts it is involved in (see below).
    3. Try to find expertise and competences to provide support on the identified solutions by offering consultancy services remotely and on-site.
    4. We have a specific section set-up that is called “Provide us feedback” whose goal is exactly to collect requirements from potential stakeholders to be able satisfy as much as possible their TR/TO (at the best of our possibilities).

    In addition to this the QualiPSo network of Competente Centers (and the Italian one is among this) are part of an international network of competence centers supported by OSI and launched last year during the OWF (www.flosscc.org ). This initiative goes exactly in your direction trying to collect the best practices, experiences, expertise and know-how that each competence center can offer, sharing this all together within this initiative.
    In addition to this the participants to this initiative all signed a MANIFESTO that describe the principles, ethics and motivations behind each actions undertaken by the competence centers.

    Last but not least, the CC is up and running since the 22nd of April and we are still on an adjustment phase. Happy to receive constructive suggestions to improve.

  4. #4 by cdaffara - April 29th, 2010 at 09:28

    Dear Matteo, first of all thanks for participating and leaving your comments (and sorry for the delay in approving them!)
    I am happy to hear that the initiative will be open to other realities. I can provide two additional suggestions:
    - as you mention the activity on the catalog, I would suggest that you check the one already developed in the past FLOSSMETRICS and OpenTTT
    ones, available at http://guide.conecta.it on the right side. The catalog is already receiving contributions from the IOSN open source network
    of the United Nations in the south-east of Asia, and is mirrored there as well. It is available under a very liberal CC license, allowing also commercial
    use. Or we can include what is developed in your network – as before, to try to reuse knowledge and enhance what is already there.
    - on networking with other centers: I am well aware that some competence centers have limited activity in the past year, and the Commission has
    been slow as well to update its page. But I would suggest to add a page to your network site, listing other competence centers (even if they are not
    in your network yet). The flosscc.org site, in fact, mentions only the Qualipso-created or supported competence centers.
    - a good number of industry-oriented centers are emerging as well, especially in France, Germany and Spain. I believe that these can be useful as well – maybe as
    “multipliers” of contacts, or to help spreading the information collected.

    As a side note: my ideas of how to create a center are, of course, my own – and I were in no intent to use them to criticize alternative styles or approaches. In this sense, while I believe that commercial neutrality is useful, it is not an absolute, and I know several centres that sell services themselves, with good results. As
    you can imagine, it is more a “design decision” than a clear, hard fact. My model is based on the idea of the conference center as a catalysis agent for interaction between potential partners, but there are other approaches as well that deserves merit.

  5. #5 by Matteo Melideo - April 29th, 2010 at 10:41

    Simone Cicero :
    Ciao Carlo,
    I totally agree.
    Furthermore, when you say:
    The center does NOT participate in the commercial exchange, and in this sense acts as a pure catalyst. This way it does not compete with existing OSS companies, but provides increased visibility and an additional dissemination channel
    I find hard to believe that the newly announced competence Center being started in Italy, by including one of the most influencial IT Company in Italy will act as a “simple” catalyst.
    The Italian way strikes again.

    Don’t be pessimistic a-priori …

  6. #6 by Matteo Melideo - May 11th, 2010 at 15:57

    Carlo,

    cdaffara :
    Dear Matteo, first of all thanks for participating and leaving your comments (and sorry for the delay in approving them!)
    I am happy to hear that the initiative will be open to other realities. I can provide two additional suggestions:
    - as you mention the activity on the catalog, I would suggest that you check the one already developed in the past FLOSSMETRICS and OpenTTT
    ones, available at http://guide.conecta.it on the right side. The catalog is already receiving contributions from the IOSN open source network
    of the United Nations in the south-east of Asia, and is mirrored there as well. It is available under a very liberal CC license, allowing also commercial
    use. Or we can include what is developed in your network – as before, to try to reuse knowledge and enhance what is already there.
    Carlo, at the right moment we are still setting up and facing the possible cooperation strategies with other initiatives but for sure this is a very good one.
    - on networking with other centers: I am well aware that some competence centers have limited activity in the past year, and the Commission has
    been slow as well to update its page. But I would suggest to add a page to your network site, listing other competence centers (even if they are not
    in your network yet). The flosscc.org site, in fact, mentions only the Qualipso-created or supported competence centers.
    We have to distinguish between our network and the flosscc network. These are two different things. The flosscc network is open to any CC interested in the network and the manifesto. As far as concern our CC it is our intention to create synergies with the other CC but also for this aspect it is valid what I previously said: we are still in a settlement phase.
    - a good number of industry-oriented centers are emerging as well, especially in France, Germany and Spain. I believe that these can be useful as well – maybe as
    “multipliers” of contacts, or to help spreading the information collected.

    Definitely. There are aware of the flosscc initiative and it is open to anyone. We will act only at National level for the moment.
    As a side note: my ideas of how to create a center are, of course, my own – and I were in no intent to use them to criticize alternative styles or approaches. In this sense, while I believe that commercial neutrality is useful, it is not an absolute, and I know several centres that sell services themselves, with good results. As
    you can imagine, it is more a “design decision” than a clear, hard fact. My model is based on the idea of the conference center as a catalysis agent for interaction between potential partners, but there are other approaches as well that deserves merit.

    This is what we intend to do even if we do not exclude a priori the possibility to make business out of this initiative.

(will not be published)