[foundation-board] Does OKF want to go for data.gov.eu tender?

[Jonathan Gray]

Hello board!

I have only recently noticed that an advance notice for a data.gov.eu
tender went out on 31st December (details pasted below and at [1]).

The OKF is exceptionally well placed and has the relevant
experience/expertise to undertake work in this area. In particular:

  * work is already underway as part of the publicdata.eu work, that
is part of LOD2 - see lod2.okfn.org for more details
  * we are already working on numerous (around 28) data catalogues in
different countries and now have quite a bit of experience in this
area

I would be happy to lead work on a tender, if we decided it was a good
idea (FWIW I think this is highly worth doing, and would be happy to
start to brainstorm/put this together if deemed necessary).

That said this is really a matter for the board and the community to
decide: is this the kind of thing that the OKF should be doing?

If I were to make the case that I think we should do it I would say that:

  * we want to make sure this is done well, and not by some large IT
company with no other interest in this area
  * we want to ensure there is an appropriate focus on open licensing
(as opposed to non-open PSI which is simply freely accessible)
  * we want this to be the technical plumbing for a rich ecosystem of
open data, and this is an unbelievable opportunity to pursue this
vision, and go a significant way towards realising the dream of an
'apt-get for data' across Europe
  * we want to include a broad range of stakeholders including data
journalists and civic society stakeholders, and work with these
communities to make sure we make something that responds to concrete
demands and interoperates with other bits of technology and existing
projects

That said, we want to be careful to ensure:

  * we have the capacity to deliver well on this
  * we manage this carefully and have a strong vision about why we are
doing this and how we want to do it
  * we don't do this because its a source of income which we can use
to fund other stuff that we're *really* interested in - i.e. if we do
it we should do it because we *really* want to do it, not as a means
to an end

I'd very much appreciate a steer from the board on whether or not
people think we should proceed. If we want to go for it there will be
a comparatively short window between tender release and tender
deadline. Hence if we decide to do it, we need to start thinking long
and hard now!

Thanks very much to all for all your time.

All the best,

Jonathan

[1] See: http://ted.europa.eu/udl?uri=TED:NOTICE:389984-2010:TEXT:EN:HTML
(details excerpted below)

II.1)
TITLE ATTRIBUTED TO THE CONTRACT BY THE CONTRACTING AUTHORITY
Data.gov.eu
II.2)
TYPE OF CONTRACT AND PLACE OF DELIVERY OR OF PERFORMANCE
Service category: No 11
II.3)
SHORT DESCRIPTION OF NATURE AND QUANTITY OR VALUE OF SUPPLIES OR SERVICES

The procurement action(s) would support the definition and launch of
an initial data.gov.eu initiative for the benefit of reusers across
Europe and eventually becoming the recognised and widely used European
access point to government information. The procurement may be split
into different lots. The objectives of the(se) procurement(s) are:
1) undertake a needs assessment exercise to define, to design, to test
and to launch a pilot data.gov.eu infrastructure that would:
(a) make available the data resources created by the European
Commission, European agencies and the other institutions; and
(b) become the Web portal to establish together with the Member States
an integrated and shared EU-wide governmental data information system;
2) provide a first prototype of the data.gov.eu infrastructure (main
objective of the procurement); and
3) define an upscaling strategy in view of it becoming the recognised
and widely used European access point to government information.
Total amount of contracts to be launched under categories 10 and 11:
11 000 000 EUR.Division into lots No

--
Jonathan Gray

Community Coordinator
The Open Knowledge Foundation
http://blog.okfn.org

http://twitter.com/jwyg
http://identi.ca/jwyg