4 ms·

What's sad is that it wasn't so long ago we were treated to breathless articles regarding the software that was used as part of the President's re-election camp

What's sad is that it wasn't so long ago we were treated to breathless articles regarding the software that was used as part of the President's re-election campaign, which apparently was well-tested and well-engineered enough to actually do its job when the time came: http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-the-nerds-go-marching-in/265325/ http://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2012/11/when-t... It seems today's politicians are (at least in some cases) familiar with what it takes to build reliable software. Perhaps the problem is that they are only willing to see that it's done when it benefits them directly, but not when their constituents need it.

Pxtl 13y ago
The requirements for working with the USGov are restrictive enough that only specific companies are capable of participating in the bidding process. The Democratic party itself and Obama's re-election are, by contrast, private organizations that are not limited by these rules. Basically, it seems like the government sourcing process has shrunk the pool of potential bidders too small to provide a properly competitive marketplace for software for USGov customers.
- dclowd9901 13y ago
  > Basically, it seems like the government sourcing process has shrunk the pool of potential bidders too small to provide a properly competitive marketplace for software for USGov customers. And don't think for a second that this is unintentional.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    > And don't think for a second that this is unintentional. Okay, what if I do?
    - stcredzero 13y ago
      It was probably intended as something else, but it has probably become a way for discouraging competition through mechanisms like regulatory capture.
      - rayiner 13y ago
        It's not really enough to just handwave the word "regulatory capture." What's your evidence that the acquisitions process has been captured.
        stcredzero 13y ago
        I'm obviously speculating here.
    - dclowd9901 13y ago
      Lobbying exists and is legal. Corruption is ever-present and well-documented, from 3rd to 1st world countries. Contracts are widely regarded by private industry to be obscenely overpriced at best, and highway robbery at worst. Senators are regularly known to block necessary bills to write in pet projects that will benefit their campaigns/constituents directly, even at the detriment of everyone else. Want an example? Northrop Grummond is hardly a scrappy small company, but they lost out to Boeing, even though Boeing was going to create a worse, more expensive aircraft, because senators in South Carolina didn't want their state to lose the jobs. If you are anything but cynical regarding the government contract bidding process, you're asking to be made a fool of.
  - elicash 13y ago
    The INTENT is to limit corruption. If they could give contracts to anybody they want, then they could reward donors. I think it's actually achieved that goal. It comes at the expense of competence, however, as those with the best lawyers (not best developers) win contracts.
    - vonmoltke 13y ago
      Except it hasn't. The current system has turned what is left of the pool of potential bidders into key donors.
    - shawkinaw 13y ago
      So we have a choice between corruption and incompetence ... I'm pretty sure that corruption would actually be better, at least shit would work.
      - thebulge 13y ago
        We only have a choice of which we want to start with. Eventually we end up with both.
jchung 13y ago
Harper Reed (CTO of Obama for America, who can be credited for those articles you're referring to) and Clay Johnson (CEO of the Dept for Better Technology) wrote an op-ed addressing what they see as the root cause for this kind of failure: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bot...
anigbrowl 13y ago
Well, think this out a bit farther. Let's say the SNAFU coefficient of a piece of software is 5%. If you're using the software to manage your election campaign, you lose 5% of your digital premium (over traditional electioneering using posters and TV commercials and other one-size-fits-all mass communication media), most of whom will presumably vote for The Other Candidate - that's bad, but you can just as easily lose the same or larger with a careless remark (eg Mitt Romney's casual dismissal of 47% of the electorate as 'takers' at the last election which ended up alienating an awful lot of swing voters even though he was obviously pandering to his audience of wealthy donors at the time he said that). But put that in the government, and you're potentially disenfranchising 5% of the citizenry which is not only politically foolish but quite likely illegal, given constitutional requirements about equal treatment and so forth. If you have to provide universal service of some kind, then your marginal costs go way up. Suppose 99% correctness were the acceptable standard, such that Social Security, Medicare, VA etc. could just ditch that 1% of claimants that caused the most administrative problems; the administrative savings would probably be far more than 1%, I'm guessing more like 10-15% because once the administrative burden of dealing with a given citizen rose above 1 or 2 standard deviations you could just dump them from the system and cut your losses.

Pxtl 13y ago

The requirements for working with the USGov are restrictive enough that only specific companies are capable of participating in the bidding process. The Democratic party itself and Obama's re-election are, by contrast, private organizations that are not limited by these rules. Basically, it seems like the government sourcing process has shrunk the pool of potential bidders too small to provide a properly competitive marketplace for software for USGov customers.

dclowd9901 13y ago
> Basically, it seems like the government sourcing process has shrunk the pool of potential bidders too small to provide a properly competitive marketplace for software for USGov customers. And don't think for a second that this is unintentional.
- rayiner 13y ago
  > And don't think for a second that this is unintentional. Okay, what if I do?
  - stcredzero 13y ago
    It was probably intended as something else, but it has probably become a way for discouraging competition through mechanisms like regulatory capture.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      It's not really enough to just handwave the word "regulatory capture." What's your evidence that the acquisitions process has been captured.
      - stcredzero 13y ago
        I'm obviously speculating here.
  - dclowd9901 13y ago
    Lobbying exists and is legal. Corruption is ever-present and well-documented, from 3rd to 1st world countries. Contracts are widely regarded by private industry to be obscenely overpriced at best, and highway robbery at worst. Senators are regularly known to block necessary bills to write in pet projects that will benefit their campaigns/constituents directly, even at the detriment of everyone else. Want an example? Northrop Grummond is hardly a scrappy small company, but they lost out to Boeing, even though Boeing was going to create a worse, more expensive aircraft, because senators in South Carolina didn't want their state to lose the jobs. If you are anything but cynical regarding the government contract bidding process, you're asking to be made a fool of.
- elicash 13y ago
  The INTENT is to limit corruption. If they could give contracts to anybody they want, then they could reward donors. I think it's actually achieved that goal. It comes at the expense of competence, however, as those with the best lawyers (not best developers) win contracts.
  - vonmoltke 13y ago
    Except it hasn't. The current system has turned what is left of the pool of potential bidders into key donors.
  - shawkinaw 13y ago
    So we have a choice between corruption and incompetence ... I'm pretty sure that corruption would actually be better, at least shit would work.
    - thebulge 13y ago
      We only have a choice of which we want to start with. Eventually we end up with both.

jchung 13y ago

Harper Reed (CTO of Obama for America, who can be credited for those articles you're referring to) and Clay Johnson (CEO of the Dept for Better Technology) wrote an op-ed addressing what they see as the root cause for this kind of failure: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bottom-of-healthcaregovs-flop.html?_r=0 http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/25/opinion/getting-to-the-bot...

anigbrowl 13y ago

Well, think this out a bit farther. Let's say the SNAFU coefficient of a piece of software is 5%. If you're using the software to manage your election campaign, you lose 5% of your digital premium (over traditional electioneering using posters and TV commercials and other one-size-fits-all mass communication media), most of whom will presumably vote for The Other Candidate - that's bad, but you can just as easily lose the same or larger with a careless remark (eg Mitt Romney's casual dismissal of 47% of the electorate as 'takers' at the last election which ended up alienating an awful lot of swing voters even though he was obviously pandering to his audience of wealthy donors at the time he said that). But put that in the government, and you're potentially disenfranchising 5% of the citizenry which is not only politically foolish but quite likely illegal, given constitutional requirements about equal treatment and so forth. If you have to provide universal service of some kind, then your marginal costs go way up. Suppose 99% correctness were the acceptable standard, such that Social Security, Medicare, VA etc. could just ditch that 1% of claimants that caused the most administrative problems; the administrative savings would probably be far more than 1%, I'm guessing more like 10-15% because once the administrative burden of dealing with a given citizen rose above 1 or 2 standard deviations you could just dump them from the system and cut your losses.