I would start by defining an MVP. What do you really need to support operations, and what can wait until later? If it can be done by hand for a while, don't put it in the MVP. If you can manage with Excel for a few months, don't put it in the MVP.
That should give you insight into how big of a project you are looking at. The bigger the project, the greater the chance it's not going to go well.
EDIFACT is a bit of a mess, but not that scary. IME the details of logistics are more complex.
If you are in Europe there are a lot of people in software development in non-glamorous industries. I see more risk in judging tech talent. How do you know if you're talking to the right people?
Something seems to be off with the grouping. If you look at Chinon (France) there are 2 different statuses, but 3 groups. A1 is not grouped with A2 and A3.
It should work the same in The Netherlands, but when my city had semi-technical problems with registering me at my new address, they weren't exactly forthcoming with this option.
An alternative would be to print IDs using https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FE-Schrift, which was specifically designed to make normally similar characters to look different.
Sometimes it's the other way around. I saved a Cromemco Z2D from the trash when the company where my father worked cleaned out their basement prior to moving to a different building.
- Keep Firefox alive as an alternative to Chrome. It doesn't feel like Mozilla is achieving that.
This has been on my mind for a long time. It would be good for everyone to have a real alternative to Chrome and it would be good for Europe to be less dependent on the US, as you mentioned.
In time, it might be possible to fund this off donations, but a bit of EU funding would go a long way to getting this off the ground. Unfortunately, the workings of EU funding programmes are a mystery to me.
- It automatically closed in 2018, but the algorithm was adjusted to close at a lower water level, specifically to enforce a closing under storm conditions.
Now all you need are the opening and closing parentheses at the start and end, and we're back to normal.