1. [ RMLL 2013, Bruxelles – Thursday 11th
July 2013 ]
Mapping of Belgian open source market
Presenter : Dr Ir Robert Viseur

2. 2
Open source in Belgian public sector

3. 3
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.

4. 4
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.

5. 5
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.

6. 6
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).

7. 7
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.

8. 8
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...

9. 9
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.

10. 10
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.

11. 11
Open source companies in Belgium

12. 12
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.

13. 13
Location of companies in Belgium

14. 14
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...)

15. 15
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).

16. 16
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.

17. 17
Products and services available in
Belgium (2/2)
(Viseur, 2011)

18. 18
Products and services: details (1/2)
(Viseur, 2011)

19. 19
Products and services: details (2/2)
(Viseur, 2011)

20. 20
Quelles sont les relations entre
entreprises ?
(part of the full graph ; work in progress...)

21. 21
Lead open source Belgian projects
• OpenERP.
• Claroline / Dokeos / Chamilo.
• CommunesPlone.
• Drupal.
• Ekiga.
• The DataTank (new).

22. 22
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) ?

23. 23
Thanks for your attention.
Any questions ?

24. 24
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.

25. 25
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
This presentation is covered by « CC-BY-ND » license.