3 ms·

The Agile Delivery Blanket Purchase Agreement is almost here

31 points by rburhum 11y ago

Zikes 11y ago
Make a working prototype AND make it public? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9797482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9797482
- rburhum 11y ago
  I am not going to say that I agree or disagree with this methodology, but let me give you some context. Traditionally, getting into the GSA schedule is a lot of work and it takes a lot of time. So much indeed, that it doesn't make sense for most startups to do this. For some startups in the Govtech space this makes more sense. It is a way to hack the procurement process. I would happily get one of our devs to put something together that uses our Open Source codebase and solves this "challenge" than to spend months navigating all the bureaucracy to get in the schedule. Somewhere around $50b/year go through the GSA schedule (http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/198473 http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/198473) so, IMHO, anything that makes this process easier is a step in the right direction against traditional vendor lock-in.
  - cjoh 11y ago
    Unfortunately the schedule 70 provision in this RFQ requires that you both get your devs to put something together using your open source codebase, AND spend months navigating all the bureaucracy to get on GSA schedule 70.
  - ewams 11y ago
    This is not open to anyone, you still have to be gsa sched 70.
rburhum 11y ago
Since the title was edited somehow, this is the interesting part: "We’re requiring vendors to submit a working prototype based on a public dataset and show their work in a publicly available git repository. "
- AustinScript 11y ago
  It is my understanding that the title on Hacker News is meant to match the actual title of the article.
- dang 11y ago
  We edited the title in accordance with the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you want to highlight the interesting part, the place to do it is by adding a comment to the thread, as you just did.
  - rburhum 11y ago
    ok. sounds good to me.
- mixmastamyk 11y ago
  Happy that they chose an open source technology, but is it necessary to force git on people that would prefer to use something else?
  - s73v3r 11y ago
    There are benefits for a large organization to standardize on a technology.
Animats 11y ago
From the requirements for the demo: "used at least three modern and open source frontend or client side web technologies" ... “Modern” is to be understood as any technology or standard released, created, initiated or finalized in the 5 years preceding the release of this RFQ." That's an amusing requirement. Do they really want vast amounts of browser-side crap? From the list of Javascript client-side libraries in Wikipedia, almost all of them are more than 5 years old.[1] JQuery is over 10 now. There's also "used at least three “human-centered design” techniques or tools". Whatever that's supposed to mean. Here's IDEO's presentation on "human centered design."[2] You can take a seven-week course on it. This document is classic Government procurement in hipster terminology. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JavaScript_libraries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JavaScript_libraries [2] http://www.designkit.org/human-centered-design http://www.designkit.org/human-centered-design
- enraged_camel 11y ago
  >>That's an amusing requirement. Do they really want vast amounts of browser-side crap? From the list of Javascript client-side libraries in Wikipedia, almost all of them are more than 5 years old.[1] JQuery is over 10 now. I don't understand your criticism. At all. It comes across as intentionally obtuse. Yes, JQuery is over 10 years old. But there have been many releases since then. Going by its release history [1], using version 1.5+ as of this writing would fulfill the requirement you quoted. Any earlier version would not qualify as "modern" (which is a definition I agree with considering how quickly this particular landscape moves). [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JQuery#Release_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JQuery#Release_history
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - miander 11y ago
    And you are making exactly the same assumption he did. It is not clear whether they meant libraries first released in the past 5 years or libraries that have seen new releases in the past 5 years. He assumed the former, you're assuming the latter. He has a valid concern.
joedavison 11y ago
This seems interesting, but I am having a hard time parsing all of the government contractor-specific terminology in order to understand what the actual opportunity is here. Can someone explain this in layman's terms? Let's say I am a regular programmer / consultant, and I can even hire / manage / scale teams of programmers. I would be happy to submit a working prototype as part of an RFQ process, in exchange for landing a lucrative and stable government contract. What exactly is being offered here for someone like me?
- Kaizyn 11y ago
  You can get a government contract. Normally this would not be available to you even if you could handle the work because of how contracting for the government works. What I will find interesting is if they solve the contract vehicle/payments problem. That is, the U.S. government isn't great about prompt payment. For a large contractor, they can afford to wait 3-6 months between payments. However for the small vendors being targeted with this, that kind of pay delay may kill their business.
lifeisstillgood 11y ago
I spent some considerable time and effort trying to hack my way into the UK equivalent, and so far have mortally failed. The most frustrating was a failure to use the correct phrasing in the 42 box of the RFQ for getting onto the digital framework for LOcal authorities. I say go for it - the field is being tilted in your favour a bit - but I am not convinced it's an easy win for a one or two person biz.

31 points by rburhum 11y ago

Zikes 11y ago

Make a working prototype AND make it public? https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9797482 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=9797482

rburhum 11y ago
I am not going to say that I agree or disagree with this methodology, but let me give you some context. Traditionally, getting into the GSA schedule is a lot of work and it takes a lot of time. So much indeed, that it doesn't make sense for most startups to do this. For some startups in the Govtech space this makes more sense. It is a way to hack the procurement process. I would happily get one of our devs to put something together that uses our Open Source codebase and solves this "challenge" than to spend months navigating all the bureaucracy to get in the schedule. Somewhere around $50b/year go through the GSA schedule (http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/198473 http://www.gsa.gov/portal/content/198473) so, IMHO, anything that makes this process easier is a step in the right direction against traditional vendor lock-in.
- cjoh 11y ago
  Unfortunately the schedule 70 provision in this RFQ requires that you both get your devs to put something together using your open source codebase, AND spend months navigating all the bureaucracy to get on GSA schedule 70.
- ewams 11y ago
  This is not open to anyone, you still have to be gsa sched 70.

rburhum 11y ago

Since the title was edited somehow, this is the interesting part: "We’re requiring vendors to submit a working prototype based on a public dataset and show their work in a publicly available git repository. "

AustinScript 11y ago
It is my understanding that the title on Hacker News is meant to match the actual title of the article.
dang 11y ago
We edited the title in accordance with the HN guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you want to highlight the interesting part, the place to do it is by adding a comment to the thread, as you just did.
- rburhum 11y ago
  ok. sounds good to me.
mixmastamyk 11y ago
Happy that they chose an open source technology, but is it necessary to force git on people that would prefer to use something else?
- s73v3r 11y ago
  There are benefits for a large organization to standardize on a technology.

Animats 11y ago

From the requirements for the demo: "used at least three modern and open source frontend or client side web technologies" ... “Modern” is to be understood as any technology or standard released, created, initiated or finalized in the 5 years preceding the release of this RFQ." That's an amusing requirement. Do they really want vast amounts of browser-side crap? From the list of Javascript client-side libraries in Wikipedia, almost all of them are more than 5 years old.[1] JQuery is over 10 now. There's also "used at least three “human-centered design” techniques or tools". Whatever that's supposed to mean. Here's IDEO's presentation on "human centered design."[2] You can take a seven-week course on it. This document is classic Government procurement in hipster terminology. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JavaScript_libraries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_JavaScript_libraries [2] http://www.designkit.org/human-centered-design http://www.designkit.org/human-centered-design

enraged_camel 11y ago
>>That's an amusing requirement. Do they really want vast amounts of browser-side crap? From the list of Javascript client-side libraries in Wikipedia, almost all of them are more than 5 years old.[1] JQuery is over 10 now. I don't understand your criticism. At all. It comes across as intentionally obtuse. Yes, JQuery is over 10 years old. But there have been many releases since then. Going by its release history [1], using version 1.5+ as of this writing would fulfill the requirement you quoted. Any earlier version would not qualify as "modern" (which is a definition I agree with considering how quickly this particular landscape moves). [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JQuery#Release_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/JQuery#Release_history
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- miander 11y ago
  And you are making exactly the same assumption he did. It is not clear whether they meant libraries first released in the past 5 years or libraries that have seen new releases in the past 5 years. He assumed the former, you're assuming the latter. He has a valid concern.

joedavison 11y ago

This seems interesting, but I am having a hard time parsing all of the government contractor-specific terminology in order to understand what the actual opportunity is here. Can someone explain this in layman's terms? Let's say I am a regular programmer / consultant, and I can even hire / manage / scale teams of programmers. I would be happy to submit a working prototype as part of an RFQ process, in exchange for landing a lucrative and stable government contract. What exactly is being offered here for someone like me?

Kaizyn 11y ago
You can get a government contract. Normally this would not be available to you even if you could handle the work because of how contracting for the government works. What I will find interesting is if they solve the contract vehicle/payments problem. That is, the U.S. government isn't great about prompt payment. For a large contractor, they can afford to wait 3-6 months between payments. However for the small vendors being targeted with this, that kind of pay delay may kill their business.

lifeisstillgood 11y ago

I spent some considerable time and effort trying to hack my way into the UK equivalent, and so far have mortally failed. The most frustrating was a failure to use the correct phrasing in the 42 box of the RFQ for getting onto the digital framework for LOcal authorities. I say go for it - the field is being tilted in your favour a bit - but I am not convinced it's an easy win for a one or two person biz.