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Linux Business

RFPs And Open Source Projects? 113

Posted by timothy from the entrepreneurs-take-note dept.
An Anonymous Coward writes: "My company is currently sending out RFPs to various real-time collaboration software vendors. One of the packages we would like to persue is Jabber (the open-source IM/chat software at www.jabber.org). However, for open source projects, where should the RFP be sent? For Jabber, we may use Jabber.com as our reference. But, as my company possibly pursues other open source alternatives, how do we answer this question?"
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RFPs And Open Source Projects? More

RFPs And Open Source Projects?

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  • Who to ask to do the work (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Zachary Kessin ( 1372 ) <zkessin@gmail.com> on Friday October 26, 2001 @10:29AM (#2483744) Homepage Journal
    Well there are two cases to consider.

    1) Jabber does all of what you need. In that case just use it.

    2) Jabber would need to be modified in some way to meet the needs of the project. In this case you probably want to have someone (Or several someones) working on these improvements full time and one should assume that one way or another you will have to pay them. If you want the Jabber crew to do it Send the RFP to the jabber developer's mailing list. If someone is interested then they will respond. Or just hire a few people to do the work in house. Of course you could just wait and hope that the folks working on jabber add the things you need. But I would recomend proactivly attempting to get them in there by paying somone to write (and *TEST*) the code.

  • send to developers (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shibut ( 208631 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @10:32AM (#2483755)
    Maybe you've finally landed on the way that people developing open source projects can be paid. Send an RFP to the group that put the code together and assuming that they'll customize it a bit for you, they could finally make money on the code. This is particularly true for packages that don't have as much commercial power behind them (i.e., when there isn't a project-name.com for them).
    • Maybe you've finally landed on the way that people developing open source projects can be paid.

      You do realize that RMS has been doing that [google.com] for almost 20 years now ...

    • For a real grass-roots open source project you can't simply send an RFP or an RFQ to the developers. The quoted price is '$0', and the completion date will be 'When I get around to it.'

      You could hire contractors on a time contract to assist an open source project that is already going in a direction you think will be valuable to you; or you can go through the standard RFP process to contract for the development of a custom software solution, and then open source the resulting code, but even doing that isn't trivial.

      There are companies like CollabNet [collab.net] who specialize in forming communities around software that companies want to open source. Or you can start the community yourselves, but community building is a labor of love -- it takes forever, and you have to be committed. I speak here from personal experience since we tried to form a community around a product we initially wrote internally and failed miserably in attracting a wider community of interest.

      There are a few open source projects that are centered around consulting companies; Jabber is one, but there is also MySQL, Zope, and Lutris among others. If your problem fits one of their areas of expertise, then by all means send them an RFP; but you can't RFP the world. It really doesn't generate interest in people who don't already have a contracting mindset.

  • Local user groups. Or try employment agencies that specilize in technology. They may have people with the skills you are looking for.

    Hope my 2cents helps
    • It would probably be a complete waste of time to contact an employment agency and ask for someone who knows how to modify and enhance "Jabber".

      Asking on the Jabber developers mailing list, though, would be like shooting fish in a barrel.

  • simple. (Score:1)

    by Zurk ( 37028 )
    send the RFP to the current maintainer for the various open source projects...or if there is a group dump it on the main developers list.
    some developer may decide to answer or not.

  • Definition of RFP (Score:3, Informative)

    by JimTheta ( 115513 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @10:36AM (#2483785) Homepage

    I thought others would appreciate a definition, so they wouldn't have to look it up, like I just did.

    Taken from Everything2.com:

    (thing) by daglo (print)

    RFP: Request for proposal. A long boring document filled with legalese which is supposed to be the equivalent of asking a vendor for a bid for service. In actuallity it is a demand for a bid which requires that said bid include and be subject to certain requirements. One could say it is akin to Satan's "Proposal for Bennefit in Exchange for Soul" which is hailed as a great masterpiece of legalese.

    This is a copy/paste; all typos are property of the author.

    It's probably not the best definition, but it answered all I wanted to know.

    -Grant/JimTheta

  • It has been my experience that every open source project has a core group of developers (5-20 depending), often with a generally accepted benevolent dictator figure, who could safely be considered the leader.

    Identify the leader, contact him or her and ask about the request you have in mind. Get permission to post it to the dev list and see if you get any takers. There are usually a couple people looking for contract programming work sitting on the dev list who are familiar with the project. You will want to give preference to those who actually contribute to the code base since they have demonstrated some understanding of the present code.

    Don't contract with open source projects in general since there is no concrete entity to hold accountable for the work. However, it would make perfect sense to contract with an individual contributor to enhance/deploy the project according to your specifications.

    • For Jabber, the main developer is Jeremie Miller, jer.jabber@org (address anti-spammed in an obvious way). The development mailing list is at jdev.jabber@org. You can get information on other communications channels through the Jabber web site at http://jabber.org.

      (Or you could send your RFP to me. I'm not kidding.)

      Eric

  • Doesn't it seem however that in order to make this work, that there should be some sort of predefined way of going about this?
    I remember seeing a while back that there were a few sites that just collected needs from the buying public and made those needs available to developers with skills and time to complete projects to meet those needs. But I have no idea if any of those sites are still around, or if they actually work at all.
    Still it does seem to beg a huge question of the opensource development community.
    This is actually one of the things that's crossed my mind continually in the past few weeks as my one-man anti-microsoft campaign has ensued. How does one make money without the 'populace-approved' microsoft tools? Apps like jabber rock, but when there's Netmeeting and IM for windows, how many people can be expected to know how to customize the smaller tool? Also, where (besides the developer mailing list) would someone in the mood to purchase customizations go to find the people with the right skills / inclinations / reliability to get the job done right?

    -mh
    "Adding to the confusion of the difference between what I know and what you don't know by the opposite of what you don't know."
    • www.elance.com

      Dunno if its still around, but at the last place I worked (a software development house), we farmed out more than a couple things to people we found on elance. I never had to deal with the account, so I don't know if we ever had to pay for it or anything, but if your project is important enough, that won't matter anyway. Either way, check it out...
  • I appreciate your business and computing problem, and I hope it's solved.. but let's look at the implications of there being nobody to send an RFP to for a minute.

    Absolute anonymity online doesn't currently exist; not for registering a domain and not for a computer program.

    I have read science fiction novels in which there are technologies that nobody remembers the origins of.. nobody knows who's responsible for it.

    The implications of open source programs without any responsible author base or group of authors would be interesting.

    Like a virus, the program would be propagated everywhere, branching and forking all the time as people modified it without releasing code back to an original developer group.

    Like a virus, the program may also evolve more quickly.. adapting to new situations, without the tight control of a politically powerful developer core.

    • I have read science fiction novels in which there are technologies that nobody remembers the origins of..nobody knows who's responsible for it.



      This sounds similar to the Jargon File -- an amorphism file that got propagated and mutated over time. Consider what has happened with it: b/c it was generally useful, it aquired a maintainer (ESR) and a main stream.



      I expect this to be the general case, for instance if some source code is found/circulated, if it is useful it will aquire some sort of maintainer (e.g., in the interactive fiction archive, I found a useful little program which couldn't compile with gcc, and whose author had moved on (their email bounce). I made a lil' patch and put myself down as a contact, since it's useful enough.). Thus, while the concept of an unknown maker is interesting, I expect in reality it would be restricted to minor works of limited interest, if only b/c it is relatively easy to pick up maintainership of a found object in this sense.



      Now cathedrals, on the other hand...

  • http://itworld.newmediary.com/ [newmediary.com]. They've got a fairly extensive list of RFPs and let you post yours for free, and I know a couple open-source developers who've had success with them in the past.

    But I do have to wonder why you're bothering with RFPs at all: the beauty of open source is that you aren't beholden to an autocratic developer. You can just grab the source, hand it to a competent individual inside your company, give him/her a few weeks to get up to snuff, and roll it from there.

    Given that, it's sad that open source and RFPs haven't mixed much in the past. Even sadder now that lots of companies that hoped to cash in on open-source development are running out of venture capital. If open source is ever going to achieve the level of market penetration that its proponents hope, we're going to have to start thinking about these little things a bit more.
  • There are really two places you can find people to respond to your RFP. The first is the appropriate developers mailing list. Most open source projects have one. Don't send the whole RFP, just say that your company is interested in funding some work on the project and point them at the RFP. This will hit a broad audience of people who know the package.

    The second choice would be the consulting/professional services groups at most of the Linux companies. They have skilled developers who know a lot about Linux and Open Source and can contribute to a variety of problems. Chances are they'll see the mail to the developers list as well, but it doesn't hurt and pretty much insures you'll get a response.

    Finally, you can and should ask that whoever does the work do it as open development and release it as open source. You can benefit the projects and get the pieces you want. That's they way most of our graphics drivers were developed.
  • ...like Jabber Inc. for Jabber, it would be natural to send them the RFP. Otherwise, identify the principal developers and perhaps some prominent users and ask them to recommend a software service organization that is familiar with the software (they might work for one!) Send them the RFP. If you are putting together an RFP, you have to be planning on spending some money. You will probably spend less money for an open-source solution, but you can't expect everything to be free. Responding to an RFP is excruciating work that only a commercial firm is likely to do. A company that is familiar with the software and is committed to the open source development process can probably put together a good, cost-effective solution for you.
  • I'm probably out of date, but I thought that was collab.net's [collab.net] and SourceXchange's [sourcexchange.com] purpose: bring together people who want code and have money with people who can make code and want money.

    I'd think that it'd be easy to make the RFP there, then send a note to the developers/project mailing list steering them towards it.

    No?

    --j
  • You probably ought to send the RFP to some consulting/professional services firms who specialize in OSS.

    There are some cases where the developers are the guys to go to, such as PHPGroupWare, but they are the exception. (I don't happen to know about Jabber, but the odds are they don't have the professoinal structure to properly respond to an RFP.)

    -Peter
  • I wonder who many other people didn't know what an RFP was? I'll bet most of us have never been through the process of sending out RFPs. (Ironically, I was, but only very briefly, and forgot the meaning of the term...)

    An RFP stands for Request For Proposals and are sent out when a company wants other companies to complete something for it. (It's a request for proposals to complete a certain task - also known as a Request for Contracts.)

    As a general reference to Open Source packages, I'd either send RFCs out to a company that deals with them (ie, RedHat is known to do work with several open source packages, so for an RFP involving a piece of software they package, they would be a good choice to receive an RFP).

    In the case of Open Source projects that happen not to have a company involved with them, you could try and look for general purpose contractors, I suppose, or you could look into doing the work internally. You might also look into general software contracters.

    It may also be possible to contract with the people working directly on the OSS project, so you should definately try and contact people on the project list (if to be polite, for no other reason) but be aware that most OSS developers are either A) already employed, or B) students. (The "project list" in this case is either a developer list if the documentation included with the source distribution includes such information or the list of people in the AUTHORS file that many Open Source projects include - assuming it's up-to-date.) In either case, it's highly probable that the active maintainers will not be able to send back a useful proposal, and your best bet is looking for outside contracters.

    (This of course could open up an interesting buisness plan - a software house that specializes in creating contracts to do work on Open Source software...)

    • Careful on your nomenclature. I didn't know what RFP meant until I read your post. Actually I knew it meant Rain Forest Puppy, but he's just a security expert, not a Reqeust for Proposals. But RFC collides with the internet's RFC or Request for Comments. The biggest reference for that would be here [rfc-editor.org].
    • (This of course could open up an interesting buisness plan - a software house that specializes in creating contracts to do work on Open Source software...)

      Yes, that is a very interesting business plan. Hmmm. Imagine a company composed of developers experienced with open-source projects. Other companies, instead of buying closed-source products, pay this company to assign a developer to fix up an existing open-source project to meet their specifications. This way, companies can get the benefits of open source without doing everything themselves and they get someone to blame if something goes wrong, the open source community gets improved programs, and there is finally a workable open-source business plan!

  • Usually the purpose of an RFP is to get vendors to bid on a job you want done. They have incentive to do this because you're paying them to do the job. Free software programmers might be willing to give you advice, but they probably aren't going to go to the trouble of writing you a "proposal" just in the hope that you'll adopt free software rather than some commercial solution. (Though plenty of them will probably write you long email tirades, I doubt those will compete seriously with the professional proposals you get.)

    Are you planning to pay someone to set up a system for you? If so, you want to talk to a consulting services / support company, not to the free software community (unless you want to try, say, just posting your RFP on a semi-appropriate mailing list or newsgroup, and then trying to sort through all the junk responses and/or complaints you get).

    Basically, open source / non-open-source doesn't make a difference here. A professional services company is a professional services company. If you're interested in having someone customize a free software product for you, find a consulting company that knows that product, and send them an RFP, just like you would if you were interested in a custom non-free-software solution.

  • Yes, open source as a hobbyist development model can and will persist long into the future, and I'm sure that there will be fun and exciting products as a result of it.
    That said, now that the heady, greedy days of the dot com boom are long behind us, it's high time to re-evaluate the position. Money isn't growing on trees and being plucked from the asses of VCs star-struck by that beautiful three-letter phrase (IPO, IPO, IPO!) so much that they can overlook that little thing called "a business plan."
    Internet advertising is the redheaded stepchild of the marketing family. Old media ads have no need to justify themselves with inanities like "click-through"; they know their demographic and their real estate is mindshare, that precious commodity which they assume that they're purchasing with their ad dollars, regardless of whether or not this purchase translates into a product purchase immediately or down the road. The internet is a fickle bastard: people gravitate towards the warez model of "buy none, get one free" and so there's the propensity towards stealing everything we can. To wit: the inevitable linking to archives.nytimes.com anytime they've got an article up because registration is such a chore, but if you were to ask the average Slashdotter how they feel about someone using "their" resources without registration (think Anonymous Cowards here), one would instead getsthe impression that merely providing a name and e-mail address is as simple as could be. Hmm. To wit: proxies, ad-killing bots and specialized hosts files that insure that our precious bandwidth isn't eaten up by ancillary ads that might keep the sites afloat, but then again if we don't click on them and buy something might not even if we do see them. Hmm.
    Ah, open source. Communism reborn, and who can hate that? Not the watered down Leninism that the Soviet Union ran through in short order, but honest-to-goodness communism. Take what you need, give what you have. Beautiful. A touching sentiment.
    Also impossible to be a commercially viable entity when human nature comes into play. If we can get our content ad-free we will, even though it means economic hardship and possibly the closing of the sites we visit and love (or love to hate, as the case may be) and if we can get our software cost-free, without the dirty stigma of clicking through porno banners to find the 3rd word of the 4th paragraph to get entry to L33t b0b'5 h0u53 0f w4r3z, all the better. I whip up a weekend project that is derivative but I'm proud of and off to Freshmeat with you! Maybe even Sourceforge! Take it! Share it!
    I'll pour a few hundred hours of blood, sweat and tears into it! Shiny new! Everyone wants it! It's hot!
    But how do I parlay it into a commercial venture when everyone can get it for free and fix it up as they want? Hmm.
    Open source is a lovely idea with lofty goals, and as long as talented, motivated, intelligent programmers buy into it, it will generate impressive results. Unfortunately, there's a very finite number of talented, motivated, intelligent, ascetic programmers out there who will buy into it.
    OSDN's changing business strategies faster than you can say "we're a B2B play now!" (read: brushed up that resume yet?). If bigger ads or a subscription service to a website who doesn't give a whit about the quality of its journalism and doesn't know the meaning of the word "editing", relying on constantly inflammatory agitprop to woo its readership are the order of the day, then I'll just stick with Ars Technica [arstechnica.com], The Register [theregister.co.uk] and memepool [memepool.com] (topical, informative, and normally journalistically objective sites), thanks. Slashdot's been a fun little ride, and like many other things, peer moderation was a sexy little idea, just unfortunate in that it pretty much disintegrated into ugly mob rule groupthink. Scene, not herd.
    • Your comments on slashdot and group moderation are interesting but fairly obvious. Isn't democratic form of any kind essentially subject to hijacking by a special interest group? And when you have something like slashdot which essentially is entirely a special interest group, should you be surprised? Moderation is a way for a community to express its opinion. When most of the community shares an opinion, that is reflected.

      Democracy - dictatorship of the mediocre masses.

      However, I will note that good technical information does tend to get moderated up. Yes, you have to ignore some of the rah! rah! Open-Source! Down with M$! propaganda that gets modded high positive, but OTOH is that any worse than ignoring the corporatist slant at many other sites that claim unbiased journalistic integrity? I think not.

      One thing you can say about slashdot, you know what you get, bad or good. When its bad, its bad. When its good, it can be pretty impressive.

      Like most things in life, it boils down to panning for gold and trying to sort out truth from lies. If you think you'll get away from this anywhere and that journalistic integrity is much more than an oxymoron, then you're kind of naive. At the end of the day, it costs money to keep a site hosted and capable of handling heavy traffic. Someone pays those bills. People have to eat. So we see the creeping onset of the true capitalist revenue stream in the open-source world (since all the too-stupid-to-live VCs have washed away and the remaining survivors are wily enough to know mixing any three buzzwords is not a business model worthy of note...).

      Slashdot at least still lets people vent. If you don't like the moderation scheme, you certainly can adjust your reader prefs accordingly and read even downmod'd comments.

      But if you want to leave, you can. That's the one good thing about a democratic forum. To quote Morpheus "I can only show you the door. You must go through it yourself." (roughly).

      Tomb

  • The Truth (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Reality Master 101 ( 179095 ) <.moc.liamg. .ta. .101retsaMytilaeR.> on Friday October 26, 2001 @10:54AM (#2483893) Homepage Journal

    I'm wondering if the submitter has ever filled out an RFP. Unless it is miraculously tight and succinct, filling out an RFP is one of the most boring, frustrating and inane activities imaginable. The usual RFP has gone through all the departments of a company, which each department adding in their own 2 cents. That usually entails adding poorly worded and contradictory questions that are impossible to answer. Of course, the real gems come from the marketing department, which lists "requirements" along the lines of, "program must be able to think for me, and anticipate what I will want the next day, week, and year."

    Bottom line, if you want someone to fill out a typical RFP for free (e.g., open source developer), you are dreaming. If you really want it done, either do it yourself, or hire a consultant to do it.

    On the other hand, if you want a shot at something being done by the developers or general users, make a mini-RFP of no more than 10 questions, and see if you can get those answered.

    • The submitter is asking for who to send the request for proposal to, which has nothing to do with filling out a RFP. Its up to recieving company to first decide if they wish to submit a proposal, and secondly to to prepare the proposal if they are interested.

      The proposal need not be nearly as encompassing as the rfp - of course the additional requirements will be established in contract negotiation which effectivly makes the rfp disappear. Also if the proposal is lacking the client (requestor) won't hire them.

      • Also if the proposal is lacking the client (requestor) won't hire them.

        I didn't get the impression that they were looking to hire the developers of Jabber, they were looking for someone to answer the questions on their RFP so they can decide if they want to use the Open Source solution. In other words, they want to see if they can use the free solution, but don't want to invest any of their own resources in doing it.

    • We use RFPMaster [santcorp.com] from the Sant Corporation [santcorp.com] to crank out our RFP's in minutes. Saved us SO much money because our salespeople would sit around writing these ridiculous things for days. There's a client/server version that just got updated, it's killer sweet and has some great features. Highly recommended if you have to drag yourself through these things on a regular basis.

  • Rather than seek out organizations or individuals related to the project itself, it's sometimes beneficial to find an implementation company (a la RedHat's model). They usually base their business on providing a stable release of an open source product, with support and such as a fee-based product.

    For instance, I would go to ActiveState [activestate.com] if I was planning to roll out a large Perl installation. They have core Perl developers on staff, and they already have release cycles and customer service in place. I'm sure there are similar companies for any major open source project.

    Even if they're providing no more than the software itself, they still provide a single point of contact for technical questions and software updates. That in itself is usually worth the fees they charge.

    ~chris

  • gaim, an open source messenger client, is distributed by Red Hat as part of 7.2. I wouldn't be surprised if other vendors ship it too.

    Since a large part of RedHat's business model is professional services, they should be more than willing to respond to RFPs (provided, of course, that there's some revenue in it for them in the end). RedHat's web site for professional services claims to be vendor neutral, why not give them a shot?
  • I checked out Jabber.org - does this do any collaboration, or just IM? If collaboration is what you are after, there are many products out there that may serve your needs. Now for the cheap, shameless plug: My company, Cisco, has a neat system called the Cisco Collaboration server. Although originally create for the call center market, it is browser based, and quite customizable. My group is currenty using it for Synchronous distance learning. You can see more at: http://www.cisco.com/warp/public/180/prod_plat/cus t_cont/cis/web_collaboration.html Another tool that my wife's company uses is called webex. (http://www.webex.com) Not that flexible, in my opinion, but it may be cheaper t aquire/use.
  • There is a company behind the project (Jabber, Inc. -- publicly traded under symbol WEBB) to be found, oddly enough, at jabber.com. The relevant info:

    http://www.jabber.com/about/contact.shtml [jabber.com]

    info@jabber.com [mailto]

  • Did the submitter ever think of writing their own RFP?

    I'm kind of confused by the submitters situation. RFPs for software is pointless really. The job of software (or combinations of) is to provide a solution to a problem.

    So the real question is who is providing the solutions? It doesn't matter whether it is internal IT or outsourced. So assuming the submitter is from an internal IT group, they should be the ones writing it.

  • Don't listen to these people ... ;-)

    give them guys a chance and send your proposal to them, with very detailed information of what the "funding" is exactly (an amount would be nice) and see the reply's. Ask on the mailing list if a person you want to hire is reasonably competent, or ask him to give recommendations from people and check them. Then decide for yourself if you are willing to take the risk ... it's just like hiring an employee

    just my 2 cents

  • I'd say to find a consulting company that works with the open source program your interested in. If possible, start by finding out if any of the developers on the project do consulting. If not, see if they can recommend someone.
  • SourceXchange was great until it went dark. We got some great proposals to some Jabber open source development RFPs there. Collab.net has picked up the slack so that's an option too.

    In general, I'd recommend trying to find the associated developer email lists for open source projects (or, of course, the Jabber conference rooms if they have them!) and post there. Can't think that would upset people.

    For Jabber, send your RFP to the JDEV email list. Go to http://mailman.jabber.org/listinfo/jdev for info.

    . I've actually managed a number of Jabber open source projects so talk to me too! (bauer@michaelbauer.com)
  • Jabber, Inc. (jabber.com) is certainly an obvious choice. Keep in mind that the RFP will include what you need, not the technology. Any company that works with (supporting) Jabber is a good choice.

    Anyone can take the Jabber source, modify it (if needed), and install it for you. While Slashdot would probably like you to go to the authors, in looking for your corporate bottom line, you should contact ALL companies that work with Jabber.

    Sure the source is "free", but who cares?

    What matters in this case isn't the license (though the GPL may make the Jabber-based bids more pleasant), its the result.

    Each company should submit you a proposal with a description of how they will meet your needs and a price.

    All the companies that submit with Jabber have an advantage, they don't need to support the full infrastructure of development, just their portion. The Jabber, Inc. people should be able to bid competitively, given that they already have a sales and support network in place for selling Jabber.

    Good luck, and thank you for considering open source solutions in your RFP process.

    Alex
  • I would agree with the general statement that most OSS programmers won't fill out an RFP. There are several reasons for this.

    1. Programmers are not business people (Usually) The information you are going to get from a Programmer will be very technical and then when you question it, the programmer will get annoyed.

    2. OSS programmers are notoriously lazy if the project doesn't fit "their" requirements. This is not a flame, but look how long it takes to get many things done in OSS. All the cool stuff gets done ASAP!!!! but try to get someone to fix their grammar in a help file? Heh...

    3. If you want help, you will have to call a professional consultant. Jabber.Com, RedHat.Com, CommandPrompt.Com, someone like that. They have the people that can read an RFP and yes, fill out the laborious questions.

    4. Get references. No matter what. Even from RedHat. Make sure you call them too.

  • It makes no sense for an "open source project" to respond to an RFP. It is the nature of Open Source Licenses PRECISELY TO DISCLAIM that the software does anything or is suitable for any purpose. Most OSS projects are a decentralized group, or a deepcore+fuzzypenumbra of individuals, who do not have authority to act for or on behalf of one another.

    In short, the commercial relationship sought by forwarding an RFP to a "project" or with respect to a particular OSS codeset is improbable, at best, and most likely incoherent.

    On the other hand, there is a great opportunity for a forward-looking company. Perhaps you might direct your RFPs not to software vendors per se, but to application integrators and consultants, making clear that you intend to buy on total cost of ownership, and that you would like the proposal to be based both upon proprietary and open source solutions.

    Now, you are hitting where it hurts for the benefit of the company. The application integrator who is used to taking a commission on the software is now going to bid for a value-added combination of the free software plus integration and consulting fees, and is going to seek to make a buck in that matter.

    I would expect that the consulting costs would be valued at a premium over traditional value-add deals, since they include providing services (support and maintenance) that are ordinarily provided by a software vendor, and my be asked to "stand behind" the software with a committment to repair bugs and the like. But there is a buck to be made there, and a lot of flex, since the software licensing cost for the RFP is out of the picture.

    His risk in not bidding the OSS solution is that a competitor will do so, and outdo him by a fair amount. If such RFP's were prepared and built in a practical manner, and responses for OSS software seriously considered, the premiums between consultants would diminish over time due to competition (or vary based upon reputation).

    This is a business model that could be exciting.

    But a straight-up response to a traditional commercial RFP? That's silly. Also, read your RFP language -- most standard forms require commitments of a vendor that NO Open Source software can provide, as to warranties, indemnities and so forth. Remember, you not only need to get the beans to count, you also need to please legal.
    • It makes no sense for an "open source project" to respond to an RFP. It is the nature of Open Source Licenses PRECISELY TO DISCLAIM that the software does anything or is suitable for any purpose.
      Wrong. Warranties are separately negotiable (as is, for instance, duplicating) and anybody that wants to buy or sell any service related to free software is free to do so. "Free" as in "it's a free country", dude.
    • It makes no sense for an "open source project" to respond to an RFP. It is the nature of Open Source Licenses PRECISELY TO DISCLAIM that the software does anything or is suitable for any purpose. Most OSS projects are a decentralized group, or a deepcore+fuzzypenumbra of individuals, who do not have authority to act for or on behalf of one another.
      Please consider this for a moment. Since most open-source projects are given away, gratis, there is no money received from the users, therefore there is no money available for those involved to purchase liability insurance or provide support. Besides, when was the last time you saw anything but an indemnity or a warranty promise from a proprietary software company? When was the last time you saw a Microsoft product that had any kind of warranty claim OTHER than a long disclaimer of warranties? Why should we expect unpaid software to be provided with better protection than stuff people are supposed to pay for?
      But a straight-up response to a traditional commercial RFP? That's silly. Also, read your RFP language -- most standard forms require commitments of a vendor that NO Open Source software can provide, as to warranties, indemnities and so forth. Remember, you not only need to get the beans to count, you also need to please legal.
      I doubt you'll get much in the way of indemnities from a major proprietary developer and very little in the way of warranties either. But in the case of an open-source product if you want to pay for it you can get someone to support it, even if that someone is your own staff. If someone wants to pay the developers to provide support, then there is the ability to have warranty protection and whatever terms people are willing to agree to. As the saying goes, "you gets what you pays for." But sometimes you can get considerably MORE than you're paying for.

      Paul Robinson <Postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us [mailto]>

      • I doubt you'll get much in the way of indemnities from a major proprietary developer and very little in the way of warranties either.

        We invariably get virtually comprehensive indemnification with respect to intellectual property issues (and often for package software as well).

        Warranties are always negotiable, and vary from time to time, but it is common to get warranties of conformity with spec or published documentation.
    • Do some research on ReiserFS [reiserfs.org] for how OSS projects should be run in this respect. PS, companies don't always want 'exciting' they just want results.
  • You are confused on several issues:

    The open community cannot respond to a serious RFP. Sure, they could write a proposal (so long as there wasnt a deadline :) But the moment they start to do work for money there could follow a slew of legal issues. Most of these people probably work for IT companies - working for an open source project is fine if you arent being paid, but once you start accepting money you run the risk of conflict-of-interest. Also, you can't make a contract with the open community. They aren't a business and have no license to operate as such.

    Furthermore; are you asking for a proposal for work you don't intend to pay for? How is that different than the current open source model? Except that now you want to impose a tight schedule on the developers? That's not going to work. Open source development is generally if and when work -- especially if the developers aren't being paid.

    If you want to incorporate open source software development into your project, you must find a legitimate contracting firm to do the work (there are thousands). It's that easy. In the RFP say "...using jabber technology..." or some such statement. Then only catch to be wary of now is the matter of intellectual property (you will have to check the open source code license and run it by your lawyers to see what you can and cant do) - it is very important to make sure that the IP issues are spelled out on paper somewhere.

    Anyway, thats my two and a half cents thanks to inflation.
    • You are confused on several issues:
      I do not see how he is confused. He wants to find out how to have someone provide a particular software system to solve a problem, e.g. to scratch his itch. He wants the solution to be open sourced, i.e. under a license similar to GPL or one of the other similar ones. The solution to his problem may imply finding an existing package and using it as is or having the successful respondent to the RFP modify it, or perhaps they will be involved in creating a new application from scratch if nothing is available for his particular need. He wants to know how to go about doing this. What is confusing about this question?
      The open community cannot respond to a serious RFP.
      This is true. Communities do not respond to RFPs. Individuals do. And there is no reason an individual can't simply respond to any request they feel the desire to do so.
      Sure, they could write a proposal (so long as there wasnt a deadline :) But the moment they start to do work for money there could follow a slew of legal issues.
      Unless you are either writing code for a competitor of your employer or you have some contractual obligation not to do work outside of regular hours I see no issue here. Personally, I have never had any restrictions by anyone I've ever worked for against doing work for someone else as long as it didn't interfere with my employer's business.
      Most of these people probably work for IT companies - working for an open source project is fine if you arent being paid, but once you start accepting money you run the risk of conflict-of-interest.
      I think it's not that difficult to tell when there is one. And just because you are not accepting money doesn't mean there can't still be a conflict of interest. If I work for a company that produces accounting software I could very easily have a conflict-of-interest if I was doing unpaid work on an open-source accounting package.
      Also, you can't make a contract with the open community. They aren't a business and have no license to operate as such.
      I could answer it again by saying one doesn't make contracts with communities, one makes them with individuals. Further, I do not see where any licensing issues come into play. If I am doing writing for someone - whether I am writing articles for a publisher of encyclopedias, writing opion columns for a newspaper, writing unpaid responses to items in Slashdot, or writing code for computer programs - that writing represents an action fully protected by the First Amendment (at least in the United States) and as such the government cannot require someone to be licensed to do so.

      If it is even necessary to have a business license - which may not be likely for work done in the privacy of one's home since there are no 'visitors' to a site when the item to be produced is delivered electronically and thus no issue to trigger the need for a business license - we are probably talking about $100 a year or less, which can be incorporated into the negotiated price of the contract if necessary.

      Furthermore; are you asking for a proposal for work you don't intend to pay for?
      This is a non-sequitur for the reasons stated above. You have not shown that they are not going to pay for the work they want done.
      How is that different than the current open source model? Except that now you want to impose a tight schedule on the developers? That's not going to work. Open source development is generally if and when work -- especially if the developers aren't being paid.
      Again, you seem to have jumped to some unreasonable conclusions which I have answered in exhaustive detail above so I won't bore people by repeating them.
      If you want to incorporate open source software development into your project, you must find a legitimate contracting firm to do the work (there are thousands).
      So presumably if one is not a contracting firm the work they do isn't legitimate? I find it a little hard to accept that it is unreasonable to ask individuals to do small projects which might only require part-time work of one or a few people and pay them accordingly, in the same way and manner that magazines and newspapers have been hiring free-lance writers for centuries.

      Why is this time-honored practice of hiring people to do writing remotely somehow perfectly reasonable when the writing is a book, an article or a press release, but somehow it becomes less 'legitimate' when the writing is a software package instead of, say, a professional textbook or an article requiring specialized research?

      Paul Robinson <Postmaster@paul.washington.dc.us [mailto]>

  • It sounds like the real request is not so much for software but for software, installation, and support. In other words, you want someone to be in charge of making it happen.

    There are probably plenty of excellent consulting companies that are qualified to be in charge of making it happen with Jabber.

  • two choices (Score:3, Interesting)

    by TheSHAD0W ( 258774 ) on Friday October 26, 2001 @11:58AM (#2484228) Homepage
    You basically have two choices with respect to adapting open-source software for your purposes:

    (1) Take a good look at the credits and people behind an open-source project. Pick out those whom you think are the most involved. Send them RFPs.

    (2) Hire programmers, or a consulting company, to modify the source for you. It is OPEN, after all. While people you hire may not be as knowledgable about that project as those who are actively involved in building it, if they're good, they should be able to parse the source and go from there. There is an added benefit in that, if you're only using the software in-house, you'd be able to keep some enhancements proprietary and have an edge over your competitors.

    If you're talking about spawning an entirely new open-source project, then it's no different from starting any programming project -- except you'd release the source code, and have some channel where people can send bug reports and patch suggestions.
    • (1) Take a good look at the credits and people behind an open-source project. Pick out those whom you think are the most involved. Send them RFPs.
      I think it would be easier and better to just ask the lead developer (or two) if they'd recommend anyone. They know who is a good contributor, and there's a good chance they also know who's looking for that sort of work.

      Of course, if the main developer is looking for that sort of work they might snatch it up without recommending other viable competitors. But really, that's not all that unfair, and a successful leader would hopefully understand the benefit of building good karma.

  • "However, for open source projects, where should the RFP be sent? "

    Send an email to the author, and if there is a mailing list associated with the project then send one to the mailing list. That is usually the best place to get the information that you want.

  • When compiling an RFP, not only are you usually looking for a product, but support of that product. For example, companies don't just buy SUN servers, they buy the support that goes with them (which is very nice, but off topic :). Unless you are looking simply to buy the product and, under normal business cases, let the vendor cut you loose, you're going to need to find a company that can offer you the support for your product.

    For example, you could contact NuSphere for MySQL, ISC for Sendmail, and so forth.

    Not also, that in doing so, you will not necessarily get comparable quotes unless you specify in the RFP that SUPPORT COSTS are to be included in the quotes. In the case of SUN above - the support contracts, while good, are not included with the system. Make sure your commercial vendors include figures for support equivalent to what you would get with the Open Source company supporting their product.

    You may have to take the support policies from the OS Company, and then import them into your RFP to come up with reasonable figures. Be careful about this though, as some vendors may recognize your source, and claim you're already biased toward one of the people you're sending the RFP to.

  • Open source is the perfect advertising tool (It got Linus a job)....and people are always looking to make money --- I would think that any one of the core developers for any project would be willing to provide bids against a RFP...hell it would be a great way to make cash against something that you were doing for free. (* Kind of like a high tech portfolio ). Would not the README, and other txt files in a package have enough contact info to send a company in the right direction?...and if not, then it would not be a very good portfolio.

  • When SourceXchange was active we got over 30 responses to our RFP. We awarded the contract to a professional developer with some open source experience. The work was exceptional - done on time, in-budget and at the highest quality. We released the code as open source with the expectation that open source developers would take over maintenance. The code wasn't really taken up by the community nor was it really strategic to the company so the code wasn't really extended very far. Everyone seemed to be pretty happy - and the open source code base was extended.

    After that we did a number of smaller projects that were taken on successfully by "pure" open source developers. At last check, the open source developers were getting paid to develop open source code. The company was getting the software it wanted. Again, everybody seemed to be pretty happy about the arrangement.

    So I guess the upshot is that open source developers and rfps do mix. It just depends on the kind of RFP and the developers themselves to determine just how well they mix.

  • This was one of the things I found surprising about my own little foray into open source development. Once my project gained popularity, I started to get RFPs from big companies. These are typically a lengthy questionnaire, or a detailed set of requirements describing a document to be put together. The attitude that comes through in these things is, "jump through our hoops or we'll go with someone else."

    Typically these days I respond with an e-mail that nicely and politely explains the situation, and declines to bid on the RFP/RFQ. I sometimes suggest that if the individual is interested in using the software, that they treat it as an internal project for bidding purposes; i.e. they can put together their own internal proposal to be considered alongside the other vendor proposals. This seems to work pretty well.

    -Graham
  • In this discussion, we begin to see the real differences between the OSS and CSS models.

    Slashdot readers:

    • "RFP? What's that?"
    • "Deadline? What's that?"
    • "Accountability? What's that?"
    Business software consumer:
    • "Free? What's that?"

  • ... to actually fulfill the RFP. For large projects where responsibility is scattered among a large number of people - send your request to those whose contributions are closest to your needs.

    For small, tightly controlled projects you can send the request directly to the whole team or post your request to the small community that surrounds and supports the open source project.

    Even if the core team members are too busy to contribute, you are certain to get the attention of an outside person that actively uses and is very familiar with the project and code.

    There are a lot of consultants that keep a collection of open source tools in their bag of tricks. They will be happy to be paid to customize or enhance one of their favorite tools.

    In any case, it will require you to get involved in the community at least well enough to know who's who. Get on the message boards and mailing lists and start asking questions. You'll soon find out who is helpful.

    Regards, Rick Parrish
  • Well... that or to a consulting vendor who sells support for the Open Source ackage if youa re convinced they can do the job and will be in business as long as you need the support.

    This is the basis of Open Source software-- there IS no software vendor so either you support it yourself or pay a third parrty to do that support.

  • When you've predetermined the product to be bid on, you change the RFP process completely. In some environments (governments, many universities, etc.) you actually invalidate the RFP altogether and open yourself to legal challenges by providers of competing products. But assuming you're allowed to do so, how do you force the bid to get you the specific stuff you want normally?

    When outfitting an office of 7,000 managers and 3,000 geeks, do you send out an RFP for 10,000 copies of MS-Windows, 10,000 copies of MS-Outlook, 7,000 copies of MS-Office and 3,000 copies of MS-Visio and wait for Best Buy, CompUSA, jOeZZZZ WareZ, and Uncle Guido's Drive-by Software Truck to respond, then take the best offer? Do you call Microsoft and say "What's the discount on this, so I can get Purchase Order cut?"? Do you buy 1 copy of each from petty cash and install it everywhere?

    Whatever you do when you want a specific product and no additional services makes just as much sense for open-source software. Either way, you're probably focusing on the lowest-cost distributor of a commodity, because you've taken all the other bid-evaluation criteria off the table.

    Likewise, whatever you do when you want a specific product to be customized for your use makes just as much sense for customized versions of open-source "products". In this case, you're probably focusing on the service-delivery aspect, because except for really big RFPs, big software vendors don't customize their products. So you're going to compare reputations and track records of the responding consultants and contractors, in addition to the cost.

    All in all, just do what you always do when you want a fixed response to the RFP.

  • I assume you've already gotten emails from individuals asking for specs so they can submit an RFP. I assume you haven't tried guru.com, too.

    This is a good opportunity for some [osdn.com] body [valinux.com] to put together a site for codeteams (in fact, you could even register [register.com] codeteams.com) for displaced/unemployed IT professionals who are familiar with open-source software to get together and supply talent and solutions in ad-hoc groups for companies like this.

  • I don't know of an "Open Source" generic RFP
    site. 'twould be nice for us freelancers.
    Try posting your gig at sologig.com.

    Lotsa luck,
    Richard Vance
    real time embedded freelancer
    richardlvance@yahoo.com
  • I think that many of the comments so far have missed the point the original poster was trying to make with this post. "Who do I go to?" Not every company is 'with it' as far as Open Source goes. They want to deal with a reputable company which will support a 'product' that that want to use.

    In this case, the poster is not asking for Jabber to win, but is looking for a collaboration tool. The company wants a tool, not a bunch of source code that they have to pay people to maintain. They want an obvious company, not Fubar Consulting that nobody has ever heard of. Not every company wants to hire a group of coders, they want to make widgets.

    Yes you 'can' get 3rd party support, but the process is not obvious, particularly to companies with limited exposure to the Open Source movement.

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