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</head><body><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Hi all,<br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">OSIA is now at the stage that our initial clean-up/state of play is mostly complete and therefore we are now moving onto the next stage. What OSIA would like to know is what do you, as members expect OSIA to do for you and provide to you as members. It is our industry and as in any good open source community it is driven by the members of that community. OSIA should be the coordinator of this industry not the driver.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">We need feedback. What is it you expect the OSIA to do for the industry. What is important to the industry and more importantly, how do we achieve the industries goals?</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">So far we have commented on the signing of the CPTPP and have submitted comments to OGNAP. What is forthcoming is a submission to the senate enquiry regarding the CPTPP, the OGNAP second round of consultation, and the DCA copyright modernization initiative. All of these initiatives affect open source in one manner or another. In the case of CPTPP and DC copyright modernization, making it harder to operate a business. In the case of OGNAP, we are trying to pressure the Australian government into opening up it’s decision making processes in order to make doing business with the government easier.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">We are looking at providing closer ties with Linux Australia, Open Contracting Partnership, and Transparency International. All of which should help us OPEN business dealings with the government.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">We are also proposing a series of member services. There are four services that we believe are important and will go a long way in providing traction in supporting/enhancing our members businesses.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><ol><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">A location/referral system that will allow a searching mechanism for providers of services or solutions. This has been tried a number of times, but in all cases it looks like it was an OSIA push of a service rather than OSIA member request. The idea is to provide a database of members, member services, and a referral system. This system should be map driven and allow a purchaser of services to select criteria to show on this map.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Is this a service members would find useful and more importantly would members supply the necessary data to feed into the database? ( refer to tenders assistant service below)</p></li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Recruitment services: This is envisioned to be more than a simple recruitment service. The idea is to provide, as a first stage, a simple member recruitment page as well as a simple member “I’m available” page. This “I’m available page is geared more to the single user contracting company member rather them the multiple employee business.</p></li></ol><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">An additional bonus for recruiters would be to allow indirect postings of vacancies whereby OSIA triage’s the applications before passing them onto an anonymous poster.</p><ol start="2"><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Tender assistant services. Open contracting is world wide initiative to open up the bid process, for either contracts or tenders, to public scrutinization. We believe OSIA should be associated with this group. At the moment the Australia Government, as such, is not a supporter, however, the NSW government is.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">The NSW government have actually supplied an API to assist. So, would it be of benefit to OSIA members to have access to a single point access tender system pulling data from any government or corporate tender OSIA can find?</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">An additional mechanism would also allow members to publish their requirements for specific interfaces/designs in a similar manner to tendering. OSIA members could then bid for the work.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">It then follows that a mechanism for bringing together multiple OSIA companies in order for them to build a community to discuss forming a joint venture for bidding on a specific tender would also be useful.</p></li><li><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Advertising service. All of members, sponsors, case studies and events and members. Any open source event held in Australia could be advertised on the front page of the OSIA website. We should also support our sponsors by pushing their products. Case studies give as an excellent mechanism for displaying success stories built around open source. We may also be able to advertise specific member services.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">The current idea is to place a carousal on the front page of the website cycling through each of a selection of case studies sponsors and members.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">There would also be an event list on the front page.</p></li></ol><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">However, these suggestions, made to the OSIA board, were made by myself and as such are my views of what I think OSIA should be doing. This may not necessarily be the views of you the members. So we need input to determine if these proposals are something members would see value in. And if these suggested services and actions we are currently undertaking, are not important to you then we want to know what is!</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">In the following weeks our director of membership, Paul Moore, will be ringing around to discuss how you see OSIA helping you to expand your business. What is important to you and where do you see value in for your membership fees.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Once the ring around is complete we will be holding a serious of focus group meetings in order to discuss these findings. At the moment we hope to hold focus group meetings simultaneously in Melbourne, Sydney, Brisbane, and Adelaide. If there is anybody in Canberra, Perth or Hobart, or any other major city, who would like to hold a focus group meeting get in contact.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">These focus group meetings are open to all, both members and non-members, so pass the word around to anybody you think might be interested.</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Mark Phillips</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;">Chairman OSIA</p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p><p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; line-height: 100%;"><br></p></body></html>