> What prevents SLX Debian Labs (the commercial entity connected with > skolelinux) from being counted as a company?
SLX Debian Labs or interactors.coop (the cooperative I represent) are legally companies but they can't opt by themselves to this tender organized by the Catalan administration, because the tender is only open to homologated companies. Public administrations tend to create such systems to save time and diminsh risk (this is what they say) by organizing an homologation process that assures that companies opting to big public projects are technically and financially reliable, may demonstrate that have a set of skills, curricula, etc. In the case of this tender they are talking about 300.000€ for a two year contract of development and support, and they are going to invite just the homologated companies. We are teaming with some homologated companies. Last november-december, when we started looking for alliances, we were thinking on Skolelinux as a possible partner. Then this looked too far, now it would be different. On those days I was asking to the Catalan Debian community whether Debian would need a lobby [1] to get in this kind of projects. There were almost no answers (actually Sergio Talens-Oliag was one of the few people that replied). I think the average opinion from the average Debian enthusiast is something like "why you need a lobby when you ave a free, stable, reliable Debian GNU/Linux distribution you can just download and install". Which might be technically true... but as true as then Novell or RedHat are much better positioned to win tenders and get big projects. On that time our answer was the Ubuntu Debian-based distribution, backed by a Canonical Ltd you can meet and partner with, signing budgets, agreements and other stuff completely usual in the commercial world. An Edubuntu scenario with the participation of different projects around Debian and Ubuntu makes it easier for small companies like ourselves to opt to big projects where only Microsoft and their partenrs could ot in the past and where Novell, RedHat, Sun, IBM, etc, are the current competitors. > Is it simply a question of how many millions you have standing > behind you, or what is the issue? What kind of certification > is needed? In the Catalan case you need to fulfill a complex procedure in a periodical deadline. Money plays a big role (money is security in business, they say) but there are other factors such as amount of people working in the company, projects done, skills, history, previous contracts with the administration... [1] http://www.lafarga.org/node/view/100 (sorry, In Catalan) Quim -- \|/ interactors | http://interactors.coop \|/ |_ activant xarxes | http://desdeamericaconamor.org \|/ |_ activando redes | / |_ activating networks -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
