RFPs And Open Source Projects?

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?"

Comments

Who to ask to do the work

[Zachary Kessin]

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.

The Truth

[Reality Master 101]

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.

Open Source RFP Experience

[ReuabLeahcim]

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.