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Of course the lowest bidder is supposed to win, as all bids are supposed to fulfil the requirements laid out in the contest and these requirements are assumed t

Of course the lowest bidder is supposed to win, as all bids are supposed to fulfil the requirements laid out in the contest and these requirements are assumed to be fully sufficient for the task at hand. Theoretically speaking, of course.

makomk 12y ago
Practically speaking, what requirements would you put in a contract to ensure that a company delivered maintainable software?
- claudius 12y ago
  Hm. I’m obviously not a lawyer and also not a software engineer in an enterprisey setting. But some ideas might be: - all internal data storage formats have to be completely specified - an open data format (RTF, PDF, txt?) has to be supported for import/export - the source code has to be licensed suitably, e.g. GPL - open/platform-independent toolkits (say Qt, GTK) have to be used As I said, I’m not a lawyer and not a software engineer, so these are likely entirely unsuitable. And while they not ensure maintainable software, I think they certainly would not be detrimental.
  - dredmorbius 12y ago
    I'd make damned sure that a format in the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it be specified. PDFs can be modified, but you really don't want to do that. Far better to get source in LaTeX, DocBook, RTF, Markdown, or some similar format. Better: insist that the tool not only be capable of outputting the chosen format, but that it do so by default, as a matter of course, and without any error, warning, or other dissuasive dialog (e.g., "some formatting changes may be lost") in the process. While it's not the only company to do so, Microsoft's gaming of file formats for lock-in advantage is legendary (and yet another reason I avoid the company's products where at all possible).
- scott_karana 12y ago
  Off the top of my head... Monetary consequences for failing to meet Service Level Agreements; contract-mandated maximum time periods for patches; support for the both oldest and newest OS-vendor supported versions within the window of the contract.

makomk 12y ago

Practically speaking, what requirements would you put in a contract to ensure that a company delivered maintainable software?

claudius 12y ago
Hm. I’m obviously not a lawyer and also not a software engineer in an enterprisey setting. But some ideas might be: - all internal data storage formats have to be completely specified - an open data format (RTF, PDF, txt?) has to be supported for import/export - the source code has to be licensed suitably, e.g. GPL - open/platform-independent toolkits (say Qt, GTK) have to be used As I said, I’m not a lawyer and not a software engineer, so these are likely entirely unsuitable. And while they not ensure maintainable software, I think they certainly would not be detrimental.
- dredmorbius 12y ago
  I'd make damned sure that a format in the preferred form of the work for making modifications to it be specified. PDFs can be modified, but you really don't want to do that. Far better to get source in LaTeX, DocBook, RTF, Markdown, or some similar format. Better: insist that the tool not only be capable of outputting the chosen format, but that it do so by default, as a matter of course, and without any error, warning, or other dissuasive dialog (e.g., "some formatting changes may be lost") in the process. While it's not the only company to do so, Microsoft's gaming of file formats for lock-in advantage is legendary (and yet another reason I avoid the company's products where at all possible).
scott_karana 12y ago
Off the top of my head... Monetary consequences for failing to meet Service Level Agreements; contract-mandated maximum time periods for patches; support for the both oldest and newest OS-vendor supported versions within the window of the contract.