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$1 Bid Wins Government Open Source Software Purchasing Experiment (gsa.gov)
An anonymous reader writes: A couple weeks ago we discussed a project from a software team within the U.S. General Services Administration. Its goal was to set up a portal to let developers bid on the creation of open source code needed by the government. From the beginning, they said it was an experiment, and now the results are in from their first project. The project was quickly bid all the way down to $1, and on Wednesday, the winner delivered a functional solution that met their criteria. They say, "When we received the $1 bid, we immediately tried to figure out whether it was intentional, whether it was from a properly registered company, and whether we could award $1. We contacted the bidder and we confirmed that the bid was valid, that the registration on SAM.gov was current, and that the bid would be the winning bid. It was a plot twist that no one here at 18F expected. This unexpected development will no doubt force us to rethink some of our assumptions about the reverse-auction model." Despite their surprise, the team feels this is proof that the system can succeed. They're now working to refine the process.
I initially read it as $1B
If it builds your reputation then you will likely have additional customers looking to hire you at much more reasonable rates.
Next up is a reverse bid on a Multi-Purpose Fighter Jet, they are expect the winning bid to be between $5 and $10...
Yay! Nothing says "success" like working for free. Great job!
I'd say that Brendan Sudol, the winning bidder, may not have been compensated in dollars, but surely in notoriety. Now he's the first person to have won a contract with the GSA through this reverse auction system. Definitely a nice item in his portfolio.
Chuuch. Preach. Tabernacle.
Yes, building a reputation of working for a $1.
Now, the free publicity may be worth it but it could just have as easily gone the other way. In fact, it will when this becomes old news and the next idiot tries it.
BTW, for all budding entrepreneurs, believe me when I say anyone trying to make you work at subsistence or free, on the basis that it will net you reputation or some such, is just trying to scam free labor off you that will never pay off.
And then, when all competent contenders are out of the picture, prices raise and quality drops. This is _not_ a problem where a capitalist competitive approach is a good idea, as this is not about standardized products that a lot of people can produce.
Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
BTW, for all budding entrepreneurs, believe me when I say anyone trying to make you work at subsistence or free, on the basis that it will net you reputation or some such, is just trying to scam free labor off you that will never pay off.
There is a difference between someone trying to make you work for free and making a calculated risk to do it yourself. I'm now CTO of a multimillion dollar company. The first 5 years, every cofounder of the company had a day job and helped build the company for free on night and weekends as well as we gave our service away for 5 years as well. It paid off for us. Likewise, many artists, painters, caterers, wedding planners, photographers, barbers, massage therapists, and even lawyers built their portfolio first by doing work if not for free or pro bono then at least below what they would later like to charge.
sure who wouldn't want more exposure. Such a unique platform like getting Govt Bids is sure to be rewarding down the line.
Just another second banana
One dollar for the program. Okay. That's bragging rights.
How much is the support contract?
When politicians are involved, everyone loses.
The first 5 years, every cofounder of the company had a day job and helped build the company for free on night and weekends as well as we gave our service away for 5 years as well. It paid off for us.
Building a business by offering a free service tier is really very unlike a custom labour contract where the compensation is $1.
Likewise, many artists, painters, caterers, wedding planners, photographers, barbers, massage therapists,
A genuine massage therapist is not going to build a portfolio from offering "free massages", bro. They're going to get trained somewhere and they're going to either work in that place or somewhere similar. Ditto for barbers. Painters and photographers get fucked on a regular basis by endless offers of EXPOSURE - if you're doing a job somewhere prestigious enough that it'll wow whoever is reading your work history, they can afford to pay. If they say "for exposure!", it's because they know some idiot is going to add a huge amount of value to their product in return for zero - and if you offer, you're reducing pay across the market, and end up fucking yourself.
Now if you're starting out and offering to do a bit of work for a local charity or whatever, or you're getting some sort of active training, you might charge close to zero. If you're displaying your work in some sort of marketplace or cooperative, you might even be contributing to costs. Competitions? Great. But if a commercial enterprise wants to pay someone ZERO for simply doing some work, consider the quality of applicant you're competing against and the worth of experience (the example here is a gimmick because someone did something for the first time that caught attention).
and even lawyers built their portfolio first by doing work if not for free or pro bono
In England&Wales, the typical first step if you're not top tier is to spend endless years working as a paralegal, hoping and praying to secure that training contract, before realising that - like a model on the "casting couch" - your employer might not quite have been telling the truth about making you a star. There is something very wrong if, having fully qualified, you are thinking about building a pro bono portfolio - you really ought to be working at the firm that trained you, or somewhere similar. You might get shit pay, but you'll get pay.
then at least below what they would later like to charge.
Yes, juniors have less experience and command lower rates than experienced people who can do a better job... of that there's little doubt.
'Free' may not quite mean free.
It means you can now advertise this in your resume, for example.
Sure but is it a race to the bottom? I mean the whole point is to offer something for cheap now to cash in later, lots of things are about that like oh every sale in existence. But it doesn't work if people are jumping in all the time thinking they'll be the next big thing, the next time you're making a "real" bid the next guy offers $1 and so it goes on and on. I mean $1 isn't ten minutes at minimum wage, it's way below any kind of living wage even eating Ramen noodles and living in your parent's basement. I have a friend who does music on a semi-professional basis, and yeah you can almost always get a free-ish band doing it for the exposure. And they've had to man up and say if that's what you want that's fine but it won't be our band. They've practiced many, many hours both alone and together and want to see some kind of pay-off but they're constantly in competition with bands that think this is their lottery ticket to stardom and will sell themselves very cheap. Like he commented on a local festival, he'd like to play for the local community but it'd have to be almost for free and the other bands don't get play time anywhere else and it would tarnish their reputation. The price tag is mostly about perception, a big name is worth a big price and then you can't act small.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
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If they aren't paying in cash, make certain their payment to you is more valuable to you than the cash price.
Many of us know the term FOSS (Free Open Source Software). Even at $1, the government is still overpaying for open-source software.
If, in your chosen profession, you can't compete against those who do the same thing for no profit, or the same thing as a hobby, or even the same thing as "exposure", you're in the wrong profession.
It doesn't hurt to be nice.
You don't understand how this works. You sell the software for $1 as the lowest bidder to the government and sell the security holes to the highest bidder. "Open Source" makes this a bit tricky: you need to be good enough that discovering the security hole is hard.
An excellent example is elliptic curve cryptography in NSA style: you construct the security hole by calculating instead of randomly choosing the constants the method depends on. Nobody can prove that you cheated and the source code does not contain any evidence either.
Uhhhh...isn't that the same argument the multinationals make when they claim Americans should be happy to be paid the same as somebody in Bangalore or Beijing? That you should be happy to "compete" with the absolute lowest bottom of the barrel wage slave they can possibly find on the planet?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Uhhhh...isn't that the same argument the multinationals make when they claim Americans should be happy to be paid the same as somebody in Bangalore or Beijing? That you should be happy to "compete" with the absolute lowest bottom of the barrel wage slave they can possibly find on the planet?
As long as we (or at least the vast majority of Americans and Europeans) do our shopping by going to the absolute bottom of the retailer barrel (walmart / aldi+lidl) and/or online shopping barrel, I don't think "we" are in a position to complain.
(and the worst is people who go to a brick&mortar shop to browse and inspect products and get advice, and then buy the thing they selected online because it is 20$ cheaper - since they didn't have to pay the store, the stock, and the somewhat knowledgeable salesperson...)
The problem is that you'll be competing with people who have no job and can do the work for little or no money because any income is better than no income. Alternatively, they'll already be employed. Any income is additional income. I do not see anybody making any decent money from this. For better or worse, that's what it looks like is going to happen. This sort of pricing is not a one-off, I suspect. You'll find they're all low-ball bids from people for whom any additional money is a good thing.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
This is exactly what free market means. This isn't a problem.
What I've never understood about those who declare that anything that arises from a free market is good is this: why isn't unionisation considered a market force? Why is it OK for large businesses to consolidate to wield ever greater power, but workers are told that acting collectively is "interfering in the market"?
Got them moderator blues I blieve I walk out the do', With these mod-points I been gettin', I 'most never post no mo'
Even better, have a cash price in there and then have terms in which on an ongoing basis exposure may be used to offset the fees. That way if the company you're working with decides not to provide the exposure they promised (for any reason), the contract simply falls back to its default state rather than changing from a default of exposure to a new cash basis. That may have been the intent - you said "revert", but the structure can make a huge difference when it comes time to collect.
You're special forces then? That's great! I just love your olympics!
Apple is more profitable than Xiomi. The race to the bottom doesn't exist in the middle class and above. The race to the bottom only exists in the people who have the choice of the lowest quality cheapest item, or doing without. That we are growing the poor is the race to the bottom, not the ability to buy cheap things.
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