4 ms·

I wonder if there's space for a kind of "open source government contract bidder" where a coalition of open source volunteers could bid on government contracts t

by madrox 4y ago

I wonder if there's space for a kind of "open source government contract bidder" where a coalition of open source volunteers could bid on government contracts that are about serving the public good. If they were about doing it at cost, they could undercut these people every time. Recreation.gov feels like the kind of thing a bunch of engineers would've loved to build and run in their spare time if given the chance as long as server costs got paid for.

atonse 4y ago
I don't think this has anything to do with open source. Booz Allen could've still charged all these fees, developed everything out in the open, MIT licensed it, and that wouldn't have changed anything about the fee structure. In fact, from my understanding, recreation.gov is built on top of tons of open source software (they use docker on Kubernetes, react, etc). Also "coalition of open source volunteers" sounds absolutely scary to me, government or not. Is there anything anywhere that runs this way? At some point, SOMEONE has to be accountable and pay the bills and receive the money.
- Brian_K_White 4y ago
  It's only partly about the source, and mostly the fact that hosting and operating a web site is something developers and other IT people can do and don't mind doing. "Is there anything anywhere that runs this way?" Co-ops exist at all levels all over the place, and even outperform traditional commercial organizations so, yes.
  - jon-wood 4y ago
    A co-op is quite a different thing to a loose knit group of volunteers. I’d love to see co-ops picking up this sort of contract, but I do think it’s important people get paid for that work, and the contract is assigned to a specific organisation, otherwise you will eventually end up with a bunch of burnt out people keeping national infrastructure running for free.
    - Brian_K_White 4y ago
      I didn't see any such proposal that explicitly described a lack of organization. I assumed the actual implimemtation details were simply handwaved in a casual high level comment. Of course there would have to be some sort of structure.
ahepp 4y ago
I think even inside the government many recognize the need to reform the acquisition process to make true competition possible. Currently there is a lot of red tape (which doesn’t even seem to be working). It is a hard issue though. Perhaps that might be a good starting point for some motivated, civic minded entrepreneurs.

by madrox 4y ago

atonse 4y ago

I don't think this has anything to do with open source. Booz Allen could've still charged all these fees, developed everything out in the open, MIT licensed it, and that wouldn't have changed anything about the fee structure. In fact, from my understanding, recreation.gov is built on top of tons of open source software (they use docker on Kubernetes, react, etc). Also "coalition of open source volunteers" sounds absolutely scary to me, government or not. Is there anything anywhere that runs this way? At some point, SOMEONE has to be accountable and pay the bills and receive the money.

Brian_K_White 4y ago
It's only partly about the source, and mostly the fact that hosting and operating a web site is something developers and other IT people can do and don't mind doing. "Is there anything anywhere that runs this way?" Co-ops exist at all levels all over the place, and even outperform traditional commercial organizations so, yes.
- jon-wood 4y ago
  A co-op is quite a different thing to a loose knit group of volunteers. I’d love to see co-ops picking up this sort of contract, but I do think it’s important people get paid for that work, and the contract is assigned to a specific organisation, otherwise you will eventually end up with a bunch of burnt out people keeping national infrastructure running for free.
  - Brian_K_White 4y ago
    I didn't see any such proposal that explicitly described a lack of organization. I assumed the actual implimemtation details were simply handwaved in a casual high level comment. Of course there would have to be some sort of structure.

ahepp 4y ago

I think even inside the government many recognize the need to reform the acquisition process to make true competition possible. Currently there is a lot of red tape (which doesn’t even seem to be working). It is a hard issue though. Perhaps that might be a good starting point for some motivated, civic minded entrepreneurs.