SAOSS

Category: Latest News

  • Response to SA Police Tender: RFB 2040/ 2019: Enterprise architecture toolset for SAPS

    Response was sent on 6 December 2019 to Lesley.Chauke@sita.co.za – No reply

    Hi Lesley, I note this tender is advertised but would like to point out that going to tender could possibly miss out on far more cost effect effective and free and open source (no annual license renewals or restrictions) products such as ArchiMate or similar toolsets. Thinking back to the recent events for SA Police when they were held to ransom around their forensics system by the external provider, I would think they would be very interested in rather using an enterprise open source tool which is not only free of cost and procurement, but has no license restrictions in its use.

    ArchiMate is a tool provided by the Open Group who also runs the various TOGAF courses that most departments of SA government attend. There was a move, within SITA as well as government, to try to standardise on the use of ArchiMate for SA government for the above reasons.

    It would be a great pity if SAPS were again locked into an expensive proprietary product set. This could be the opportunity for SITA to take this requirement up a notch and look at it transversally for SA government.
    The approach for SA gov, SAPS, or SITA to procure an open source tool would involve two steps:

    1. A methodology to evaluate suitable free toolsets on the market without bidding. If a suitable tool is found then you go to step

    2. If not, then an open bid is advertised knowing there was no suitable open source tool available.2. Use of a contract such as contract 1183 to select a local service provider to install, configure and support the toolset if no internal resources are available.

    SA gov’s open source policy approved by National Cabinet is still in force for procurement by SA government – see https://foss.oss.gov.za/?p=2373.

    From https://www.archimatetool.com – “The ArchiMate® modelling language is an open and independent Enterprise Architecture standard that supports the description, analysis and visualisation of architecture within and across business domains. ArchiMate is one of the open standards hosted by The Open Group® and is fully aligned with TOGAF®. ArchiMate aids stakeholders in assessing the impact of design choices and changes.”

    I’m hoping the above could save time, costs, and prevent any vendor lock in.

  • Response to NSFAS RFI003/ 2019: contact centre solution

    Sent 6 Dec 2019 to their SCM at scm@nsfas.org.za – No reply:

    Hi, I am not formally submitting a solution but can point out that Armscor is using free and open source iTop as listed at https://foss.oss.gov.za/?forum=oss-products-discussion/helpdesk-software.

    The advantages for you would be:

    1. No procurement delay or cost in procuring actual product – can download and use.

    2. No vendor lock in with any specific company – anyone could train up and support it.

    3. No annual license costs or restrictions if you wanted to expand scope.

    4. Transversal contract 1183 could be used to select a vendor to support it, or an open bid, but the value would be a lot less than buying a commercial product.

    Re iTop: “A simple, web-based IT Service Management tool. iTop adapts to the needs of digital businesses (infrastructure or application service providers, software, telecom) to manage multiple customers, contracts and SLAs.”

    Hope this helps with your RFI process.

  • OSS Survey November 2019

    This is our first short OSS Survey to measure the perceptions and experiences

    https://survey.oss.gov.za/index.php/615484?lang=en

  • FOSS Social meeting

    3 December 2019.

    FOSS Social meeting, to revive Free and Open Source Software movement in South Africa. The meeting will start at 15h00. live Conference meeting at https://jitsi.sita.co.za/SAOSS