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Newag, the company from the presentation is still getting fat government contracts: https://en.railmarket.com/news/rolling-stock/25459-newag-s-griffin-200-locom

Newag, the company from the presentation is still getting fat government contracts: https://en.railmarket.com/news/rolling-stock/25459-newag-s-griffin-200-locomotives-ready-for-service-at-pkp-intercity https://en.railmarket.com/news/rolling-stock/25459-newag-s-g...

nicce 2y ago
:( Feels like the money is flowing into multiple directions.
- H8crilA 2y ago
  I think it's a case where money / influence may indeed be flowing in both directions, but fundamentally the trains are working. Unless they experience the International Compressor Failure Day, or randomly clip GPS coordinates of a "dead zone" and simply refuse to move forward - but that just means some money hadn't flown where some crooked people expected it to flow. One thing that is unclear to me is who is backing whom. The Left / Together Party backs our guys - no surprise there, all lefties love trains. But they are not such a big party in Poland, they can raise some ruckus in the media but I am not sure they can offer comprehensive legal/political backing in order to score a victory. They certainly would like to, it's a great story that would add them some voters.
  - ajuc 2y ago
    These things are pretty random and don't usually align with party boundaries. Train lovers / open source / hacker communities are marginal interests groups. If a MP is from the region where the factory is - he might support it just because of that. Morawiecki famously has close friends in Newag board and PIS as a whole is on the Newag side it seems. Razem has Paulina Matysiak who is a big train nerd so she's on the right side of this issue, but for a few decades the biggest supporter of hacking/open source culture in Poland was PSL's Waldemar Pawlak (he even organized Linux conferences in Palace of Culture :) ). I only found out when I attended one such conference in late 2000s and he had a presentation about Linux/Open Source in administration. It did not seem to turn the whole PSL into open source supporters and their image of backward/naive farmers certainly doesn't match with that. Whenever there's some politicized case parties switch sides depending on temporary interests (see protests against ACTA back in 2011 vs PIS defending their Pegasus affair and spying on opposition members and journalists in 2060-2022).
Kwpolska 2y ago
They can’t be banned from participating in public tenders without due process. Tenders tend to have the price as the most important factor in choosing the winner.
- solarkraft 2y ago
  Tenders also tend to have specific requirements and "don't sabotage the trains" seems like it would be a useful one
  - Kwpolska 2y ago
    How do you encode that into a requirement that won’t be thrown out by the courts as libel or targetting a specific manufacturer?
    - franga2000 2y ago
      It's not unfairly excluding a specific manufacturer if it's a reasonable requirement. Something like "no service vendor lock-in" and "firmware can't be silently updated remotely" would do the trick and either: 1) Newag would refuse to participate; 2) Newag would not do the same shit under the new contract; 3) Newag would do the same shit, easily found in direct breach of contract, then excluded for a few rounds of tenders on the basis of past breaches and/or active litigation.
    - solarkraft 2y ago
      It’s not uncommon for tenders to be even more specific (allegedly actually unfairly benefiting specific manufacturers), but this one seems highly functional & reasonable to the point of it being more of an oversight that it wasn’t originally included.
    - ptsneves 2y ago
      Tenders very often require prior history and experience to evaluate quality, ability or plain moral suitability. In a more publicly visible industry you see this, where a given banker or bank cannot get a license for some operations, Revolut for example.

nicce 2y ago

:( Feels like the money is flowing into multiple directions.

H8crilA 2y ago
I think it's a case where money / influence may indeed be flowing in both directions, but fundamentally the trains are working. Unless they experience the International Compressor Failure Day, or randomly clip GPS coordinates of a "dead zone" and simply refuse to move forward - but that just means some money hadn't flown where some crooked people expected it to flow. One thing that is unclear to me is who is backing whom. The Left / Together Party backs our guys - no surprise there, all lefties love trains. But they are not such a big party in Poland, they can raise some ruckus in the media but I am not sure they can offer comprehensive legal/political backing in order to score a victory. They certainly would like to, it's a great story that would add them some voters.
- ajuc 2y ago
  These things are pretty random and don't usually align with party boundaries. Train lovers / open source / hacker communities are marginal interests groups. If a MP is from the region where the factory is - he might support it just because of that. Morawiecki famously has close friends in Newag board and PIS as a whole is on the Newag side it seems. Razem has Paulina Matysiak who is a big train nerd so she's on the right side of this issue, but for a few decades the biggest supporter of hacking/open source culture in Poland was PSL's Waldemar Pawlak (he even organized Linux conferences in Palace of Culture :) ). I only found out when I attended one such conference in late 2000s and he had a presentation about Linux/Open Source in administration. It did not seem to turn the whole PSL into open source supporters and their image of backward/naive farmers certainly doesn't match with that. Whenever there's some politicized case parties switch sides depending on temporary interests (see protests against ACTA back in 2011 vs PIS defending their Pegasus affair and spying on opposition members and journalists in 2060-2022).

Kwpolska 2y ago

They can’t be banned from participating in public tenders without due process. Tenders tend to have the price as the most important factor in choosing the winner.

solarkraft 2y ago
Tenders also tend to have specific requirements and "don't sabotage the trains" seems like it would be a useful one
- Kwpolska 2y ago
  How do you encode that into a requirement that won’t be thrown out by the courts as libel or targetting a specific manufacturer?
  - franga2000 2y ago
    It's not unfairly excluding a specific manufacturer if it's a reasonable requirement. Something like "no service vendor lock-in" and "firmware can't be silently updated remotely" would do the trick and either: 1) Newag would refuse to participate; 2) Newag would not do the same shit under the new contract; 3) Newag would do the same shit, easily found in direct breach of contract, then excluded for a few rounds of tenders on the basis of past breaches and/or active litigation.
  - solarkraft 2y ago
    It’s not uncommon for tenders to be even more specific (allegedly actually unfairly benefiting specific manufacturers), but this one seems highly functional & reasonable to the point of it being more of an oversight that it wasn’t originally included.
  - ptsneves 2y ago
    Tenders very often require prior history and experience to evaluate quality, ability or plain moral suitability. In a more publicly visible industry you see this, where a given banker or bank cannot get a license for some operations, Revolut for example.