HU: Procurement continues to puzzle open source companies

The companies have been studying the procurement document ever since it was published on 16 April. "We are desperate. We just cannot find open source in it. It is not in there at all", said a representative of a group of open source companies, who declined to be named. "Maybe the reason is that this tender is focusing on open standards. It is also possible the government does not see the difference."

The Hungarian government in early April announced changes to the procedure it had previously used to procure software for the administration and for schools and universities. At a press conference the senior state secretary for Informatics Baja Ferenc announced the administration's annual software budget of 25 billion HUF (about 100 million euro) would be split in two. From now on, half of the budget would be spent on open source.

However, the tender document is calling for licences of Microsoft or Novell software or equivalent alternatives. The government is also requesting software licences that enable interoperability through open standards. And in the section specifying the award criteria, the government requires that companies need to show at least one reference of an earlier contract worth one million HUF (about 3.5 million euro). This places companies offering open source software-based solutions at a disadvantage, as most of this software is supplied at zero cost.

The office of Commissioner Ferenc did not yet respond to calls and emails asking to comment.

More information:

Procurement document (in Hungarian)

Earlier Osor news item