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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?"
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).
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.