Open Source Observatory (OSOR)

TYPO3gem is a Dutch municipal user group for the TYPO3 content management system (CMS). Its 41 members exchange information, develop new functionality in small alliances, and share the costs. An anniversary booklet containing a dozen success stories of TYPO3 deployments marks the start of an evangelisation campaign that is expected to substantially boost the number of new members this year.

TYPO3gem will also function as a blueprint for the communities around other open source solutions. Also in the making is a municipal umbrella organisation on open source that will eventually oversee these domain-specific workgroups.

Acronym: EC Europa platform
Website: http://europa.eu/
Start Date: July, 2014
Operational Date: January, 2015
Case status: operational
Funding source: Public Funding EU
Geographic coverage: EU

Abstract

Last summer, the Directorate General for Informatics (DIGIT), and DG Communication (DG COMM) started the implementation of the new europa.eu platform. This is built on Drupal version 7 and will replace the current Corporate Web Content Management System (CWCMS) based on Documentum, as well as the temporary Multisite Platform also based on Drupal 7. The Digital Transformation programme, which will consolidate all Europa websites onto the new platform, is led by DG COMM, DG Translation (DGT) and DIGIT, working in partnership with all DGs and executive agencies. From 2017, all new websites will be developed on the Europa platform.

Pleio, the social media and collaboration platform for Dutch civil servants, is being redesigned, lifting the platform to a more professional level. The open source software will be provided with a more modular base architecture, allowing functional components from other platforms to be integrated.

The city of Ede, the Netherlands, currently has an annual total ICT budget of six million euros. According to the Dutch Berenschot benchmark for municipal ICT costs, that is 24 percent less than other municipalities of comparable size are spending. Drilling down shows that most of this reduction can be explained by Ede's extremely low spend on software licenses: only 56 euros per full-time equivalent employee (FTE) instead of 731 euros. That's a very impressive 92 percent less than average. Such a large reduction was achieved by moving from proprietary to open source software.