
Open Source Micro-Purchasing Forked in Singapore - fieryeagle
https://gbuy.gds-gov.tech/
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breakingcups
Interesting! This kind of forking and hopefully inter-government OSS co-
operation is exactly what I've been hoping to see.

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ivank
FYI: "Bidders must have a bank account in Singapore to receive payment for
work done."

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pmontra
I looked for that on the site and didn't find it. Would you mind linking the
page with this statement? Thanks.

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ivank
Hit Sign up, then Authorize with GitHub.

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softwarelimits
And btw it would be very interesting if anybody from the US would like to
write a little bit about the role of 18F - I am not sure that I understand
things right, but it seems to be a very interesting concept of governmental IT
services.

How is this agency perceived? How does it work out in practice? How are things
coordinated? Anything would be appreciated!

Thanks!

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andrefrancisco
Hello! Happy to answer any questions you have about 18F. The basics: we're an
office of federal employees inside the General Services Administration that
helps other federal agencies improve how they build, buy, and share
technology. Other agencies have to pay us for our work, so we operate in a
similar way to a private business. You can see a summary of the types of
things we ship (with examples) here [https://18f.gsa.gov/what-we-
deliver/](https://18f.gsa.gov/what-we-deliver/). More info about the micro-
purchase platform here [https://18f.gsa.gov/tags/micro-purchase-
platforms/](https://18f.gsa.gov/tags/micro-purchase-platforms/)

*I'm an 18F employee.

~~~
softwarelimits
Thanks for your answer!

I am just looking at this from the viewpoint of an interested citizen (in
Europe) and try to compare with how things work here. Currently I suspect we
are heavily missing something like 18F.

Do you know what brought 18F into existence? Was this an administrative
initiative? Was there big resistence to start that? I am interested in some of
the "meta" behind how all that happened.

Also: are there some laws involved?

I guess I could contact your press office, however, maybe you would like to
post some interesting links to stories that certainly went unnoticed on the
other side of the ocean.

Things like 18F show a very interesting aspect of USA that does not fit into
the usual "ultra-capitalist" stereotypes that are painted in the european
media much too often. Especially the commitment to OS is extraordinary
interesting!

Thanks for your attention!

~~~
andrefrancisco
18F came out of the Presidential Innovation Fellowship (pif.gov) when some
fellows wanted to stick around and continue their public service. So they
created 18F as a more permanent home that could house larger projects and hire
people for longer tours of duty. It's a sister office to the U.S. Digital
Service (which is in the White House) but it's primarily a GSA initiative.

There aren't specific laws involved. We aren't funded by Congress, but instead
by an investment from GSA and fees from our partner agencies.

Here's one of the larger stories about the digital services movement in the
U.S., including the U.S. Digital Service and 18F.
[https://www.fastcompany.com/3046756/obama-and-his-
geeks](https://www.fastcompany.com/3046756/obama-and-his-geeks)

We've taken heavy influence from the GDS team in the UK, and Estonia is also a
leader in digital government. [https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/06/17/what-estonia-
can-teach-us-abo...](https://18f.gsa.gov/2015/06/17/what-estonia-can-teach-us-
about-government-records/)

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yen223
Gbuy is an ... awkward name for a Singaporean service.

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doppp
It's pretty common. We have G-Cloud Cloudstore [1] and GeBIZ [2] among other
things.

[1] [https://www.ida.gov.sg/programmes-
partnership/sectors/G-Clou...](https://www.ida.gov.sg/programmes-
partnership/sectors/G-Cloud-Cloudstore) [2]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeBIZ](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GeBIZ)

~~~
Gigablah
They're alluding to the fact that Gbuy sounds similar to a Hokkien profanity
:)

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softwarelimits
Does anybody have a list of similar gov services around the world?

