[ RMLL 2013, Bruxelles – Thursday 11th July 2013 ]

Mapping of Belgian open source marketPresenter : Dr Ir Robert Viseur

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Open source in Belgian public sector

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Prerequisite: organization of Belgium

• Belgium = federal state composed of regions (territory) and communities (people).

• Regions (3): Flemish Region, Walloon Region and Brussels Region.

• Communities (3): French Community, Flemish Community, German Community.

• Merger between Flemish Region and Community (= Flanders).

• Belgium also composed of provinces (10).

• Closest to the citizen: Belgian municipalities (589).

• The municipalities are autonomous but...

• Subject to the power of supervision of the Walloon region.

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Open source policies in Belgium

• No real headquaters for informatics policy.• Consequence: widely heterogeneous policies...• And case-by-case use of free softwares.• Differences between federal state, Flanders,

Walloon Region, Brussels Region, French Community, German Community, provinces and municipalities.

• Policies in municipalties influenced by power of supervision of the Walloon region.

• See (Viseur, 2010) for more details.

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Big picture (federal state)

• Variable use of free softwares.• Strong interest in open standards, less for free

sofwares (FEDICT).• Open data portal: data.gov.be.

• European context: INSPIRE, PSI, etc.

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Big picture (Brussels)

• Variable use of free softwares• Support of free softwares by CIRB

(www.cirb.irisnet.be).• Example: expertise in OpenOffice.org migration.

• Interest for open data :• Open data portal for city of Brussels: opendata.bruxelles.be.

• Availability of data from URBIS portal (CIRB).

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Big picture (Flanders)

• ICT services outsourced to Belgacom and HP consortium until 2014.

• Some reference initiatives.• Examples:

• Free software use in Schoten.• Open Data in Gent: data.gent.be.

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Big picture (Wallonia and FC) (1/2)

• ICT teams and external ICT structures dedicated to Walloon public sector (+ outsourcing: e.g. former GIEI).

• Walloon authorities in flavour of promoting free softwares and open data.• See « DÉCLARATION DE POLITIQUE RÉGIONALE

WALLONNE ».• « Promouvoir l'utilisation des standards ouverts et les logiciels

libres » (p. 120)

• See « Master Plan TIC ».• « Objectif stratégique. Libérer les données publiques pour doper

l'offre de services aux citoyens » (p. 77).

• But variable use in public sector...

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Big picture (Wallonia and FC) (2/2)

• Used by ETNIC (www.etnic.be) and SMAL (www.smals.be) ICT centers.• « Sleeping » forge: forge.etnic.be.

• Bottom-up project: CommunesPlone.• Integrated with Qualicité in IMIO inter-communal

structure (www.imio.be).• As a replacement for Agoractités and Qualicité

custom softwares.

• Open data portal (new): opendata.awt.be.

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Keep in mind

• Two lead projects: • CommunesPlone software suite (IMIO).• Open data in Gent.

• Soon: Hackathon eGov Wallonia the 4th, 5th and 6th October 2013 in Namur (hackathonegovwallonia.net).

• See (Viseur, 2010) for more details.

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Open source companies in Belgium

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Sources of data

• Study mainly build on LogicielLibre.be directory (~ 150 companies).

• Only for companies clearly communicating their engagement in open source technologies (pure players or hybrid offer).

• Less knowledge about the Flemish market.

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Location of companies in Belgium

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Size and rentability of open source companies in Belgium (1/2)

• Low number of bankruptcies (~5 between 2004 and 2011).

• Financial indicators (from BNB figures, median):• Solvability: 37.1%.• Equity: 129 239€.• Revenues: 3 256 911€ (partial data).• Rentability on assets: 6.8%.• Ratio « salaries / added value »: 79.7%.

(work in progress...)

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Size and rentability of open source companies in Belgium (2/2)

• Ten open source companies in ERP sector (figures for 2009):• Total of 87 employees (average of 9,7 employees by

active company).• ~45% of companies have 5 employees or more

(average in walloon ICT sector: ~25%).• 80% of companies are profitable.• Companies creating the largest number of jobs are

not always the most publicized.• Example: Alfea Consulting (22,8 employees, profitable).

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Products and services available in Belgium (1/2)

• What we looked at :• Sale of hardware

• Certified hardware.• Open hardware

• Open source edition.• Services.• Hosting, SaaS and cloud computing.

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Products and services available in Belgium (2/2)

(Viseur, 2011)

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Products and services: details (1/2)

(Viseur, 2011)

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Products and services: details (2/2)

(Viseur, 2011)

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Quelles sont les relations entre entreprises ?

(part of the full graph ; work in progress...)

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Lead open source Belgian projects

• OpenERP.• Claroline / Dokeos / Chamilo.• CommunesPlone.• Drupal.• Ekiga.• The DataTank (new).

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Discussion

• Comparison with France• Lack of representative organisations such as April

(www.april.org), Aful (aful.org) or CNLL (www.cnll.fr).

• Differences between popular technologies due to average size of companies ?

• In general• Wide range of services for open source technologies, but...

• Lack of providers in several domains (SIG, lawyers and embedded softwares).

• Some lead initiatives about open source or open data in public sector, but...

• General lack of clarity about open* policies.

• Commercial activities with open hardware or open data (except Data.be) ?

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Thanks for your attention.

Any questions ?

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Useful additional readings...

• Verstichel, P. (2013), Open Data – Données Publiques: Et la Wallonie dans tout ça ?, Jeudis du Libre, Mons, 20 juin 2013.

• Viseur, R. (2013), Les modèles d'affaires des prestataires en logiciels libres, Atelier « open source », Agence Bruxelloise pour l'Entreprise (ABE), 27 mars 2013.

• Viseur, R. (2011), Cartographie des marchés Open Source belges et français, Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre, Strasbourg, 11 juillet 2011.

• Viseur, R. (2010), Logiciels libres et données ouvertes en Belgique: point de situation, Rencontres Mondiales du Logiciel Libre, Bordeaux, 08 juillet 2010.

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Contact

Dr Ir Robert Viseur

Email (@CETIC) : robert.viseur@cetic.be Email (@UMONS) : robert.viseur@umons.ac.be

Phone : 0032 (0) 479 66 08 76 Website : www.robertviseur.be

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