Open Source Public Procurement Guidelines

This is the name of the document , which was created as a result of a study commissioned by the European Union. I found a link to this document in PDF format in a blog from Ivan Begtin (the same one who opened the letter to the letters on the Russian government procurement site)

I was excited about the idea of ​​translating this document into Russian, so that there was something to poke in the face of the gentlemen officials who buy trivial software for 1 million dollars , for example. Those. so that the question “what is it all about?” could be given a link to this document.
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But being a lazy person, I immediately realized that translating PDF, while preserving formatting, would be an impossible task for me. Therefore, I wrote to the organization that conducted the research (OSOR.eu) , a letter asking me to send me the document to ODT. Why in ODT because the PDF metadata indicated that it was exported from the TOE.

In general, the correspondence lasted about 2 weeks, and I still got my way. I do not know how, but they found this document and sent it to me.

The document is quite large (88 pages in Russian), so I decided to write a post with a brief abstract + to talk about a tool that I used to more or less easily translate a document in ODT into Russian while preserving the formatting.


As it turns out, in the European Union, recently, great attention is paid to open source software (hereinafter, open software means software that is both open and free at the same time). Therefore, in October 2008, an observatory and repository of OSOR open source software was created ( http://www.osor.eu/ ). This organization and the European Union ordered a study on the purchase of open source software.

The essence of the study was to create a guideline that allows, by complying with all national and European legislation, to purchase open source software at tenders.

Why do we need tenders when it comes to open source software?

The fact is that although open source software is free (as a rule), for example, technical support or revision still needs to be purchased. Similarly, if an organization does not know which software it needs (but knows what it is required for), market research can be ordered.

In this case, there are many points that need to be brought into line with the legal norms, according to which all purchases are made at all, and not just software purchases. Exactly such moments are considered in the document. In addition, there are specific ways to solve the problems that arise.

What is the situation with software purchases in the European Union?

Judging by the study, in the same way as ours. Very often, tenders clearly indicate either the name of some proprietary software or a particular supplier company. The authors note that this is a bad practice, because restricts competition. In addition, when purchasing proprietary software, there is a dependency on a specific vendor, “vendor lock-in”.

The authors propose a different method, namely: to enable the tenderers to present their decisions based on functional and technical specifications. That is, if we are talking about the delivery of office software, instead of specifying in the tender that it is required to supply a certain number of licenses for Microsoft Office, you should describe the required functionality, for example: typing and editing text, spell checking, spreadsheets, presentation editor and etc. (Of course, in more detail, I wrote this for example).

At such a tender several solutions may already be presented, including open ones. Naturally, the organization is faced with a choice - choose proprietary, but compatible with the existing database of software documents, or choose open, but not always compatible. At this point, you should consider the cost of ownership in the long run and the possibility of transition to open standards.

Open standards

The essence of open standards is their general availability and independence. Any software vendor can implement HTTP or SMTP support in their products, and if he does it properly, his product will be compatible with thousands of others. You do not have to pay any license fees. In addition, there is confidence that no company will be able to appropriate the rights to such a standard, and that all companies interested in using it can take part in its development.

Why are open standards especially important for government organizations?

As a rule, the essence of the state organization is to provide services to the public, including through information technology. By offering documents or other materials to its users, the state organization does not have the right to require them to have some proprietary software. If this happens, the state actually grants the status of a monopolist to the company owning this proprietary software. That is, the state makes citizens spend some of their income in favor of this company, although citizens have already paid taxes and are entitled to receive a document on a gratuitous basis.

The most natural way to provide information in a form that is not dependent on any individual software vendors is to provide it on the basis of an open standard. Say, to print a document in PDF format, a citizen does not need to buy any additional software, because there are several options for free (and free) software for all relevant platforms.

Cost-effectiveness of open source software and open standards

An organization that accumulates information in a proprietary format runs the risk that the vendor of this software has stopped supporting it, or left the market altogether. In this case, there are at least two problems:

• there is no one to keep the software up to date
• It is impossible to transfer information to other organizations and citizens, because no right to transfer software to third parties

In the case of using open source software and open standards, an organization always has the opportunity to hire some company or developer to modify the code, and thus keep the software up to date. If you need to distribute the document, you can distribute it with the software. For example, put on the site and a document, and a program to work with him. At the same time, if the format is open, then it will be possible to work with the document in any program that supports the standard.

In addition, by working with open source software and standards, the state is developing the domestic IT market . Instead of investing in one company, often a foreign one, the state can invest in local developers, paying for their development and maintenance services. The openness property of the software generates a fully competitive market, since With all open specifications, a large number of companies can offer competing, but compatible products and services. This is called the state approach.

Applicability of the document in our conditions

I am not a specialist in tenders, but the methods described in the document, in my opinion, are quite universal. Almost all legal topics are reduced to the fact that the purchase of open source software occurs within the framework of European directives. But these directives are so rigid that the methods that allow to purchase preferably open source software and the services associated with it are subject to any reasonable legislation. Of course, it is necessary to listen to the opinion of procurement experts in this regard.

In general, I believe that the mind will still win and we will also decide to use free software and standards at the heart of the state’s activities, and to contribute in every way to its development and the support of our programmers.

Remarks

I want to immediately note the fact that I am not a lawyer (and, moreover, not a lawyer with a specialization in European law), but I taught English myself. Therefore, everyone who reads the document, comparing it with the original in English, and finds translation errors or inadequate text translation is a big request: make the necessary corrections and send the document to me so that I can update it. Thanks a lot in advance.

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How to translate documents in ODT with formatting

In order to translate the tests stored in the files of the OpenOffice format, there is a special software package called the "translate toolkit". Located here: http://translate.sourceforge.net/wiki/developers/projects/odf .

This set works like this:

• using the odf2xliff command, the odt format file is converted into a special xlf file
• the xlf file is opened in the Virtaal program (which is part of the set) and translated
• using the xliff2odf command, the xlf file is converted back to the odt format with the formatting preserved, but in the translated version.

Installing the software package

Here I describe the installation in Ubuntu OS. If there is information like this is done in other OS, please share.

• Download the latest version of the svn repo:
  

  svn co https://translate.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/translate/src/trunk 

• go to the package directory and execute the command
  

   sudo ./setup.py install 

• go to the virtaal subdirectory and execute the command
  

   sudo ./setup.py install 

Using the software package

In order to translate the file /tmp/osor.odt, you must perform the following steps:

• convert odt to xlf:
  

   odf2xliff /tmp/osor.odt /tmp/osor.xlf 

• run the translation program with the virtaal command
  
  
  
  
  
  
• open the xlf file in the virtaal program using the “Open” button or the File-Open menu:
  
  
  
  
  
  the contents of the file appear for translation as a sequence of lines
• click on the line, a text field appears, divided in half - the original text is on top, you need to enter the translation below.
• Mark the status of the translated piece as “translated” using the selector to the right of the text field.
• save the file, File-Save
• convert the converted xlf to odt:
  

   xliff2odf -t /tmp/osor.odt /tmp/osor.xlf /tmp/osor_ru.odt 

  at the same time we get the translated file with the saved original formatting

Remarks

The package is not yet in the final version, so there are problems. For example, it treats some footnotes incorrectly, and they are lost during the inverse transformation. Therefore, after generating a document with a translation, its reading and correction is necessary.

But, despite these shortcomings, in general, the work on translation is very much easier, especially collective (of course, if several people are translated).

In addition, this package also has a tool for collective online translations. But I did not use it, because translated one.