Ive heard that some government agencies receive such templates from the very contractors that are responding to the RFPs. Though this may make the RFPs somewhat biased, maybe offering a good starting point to purchasing departments would make it easier for them to be able to make more open source friendly RFPs.
On Tue, May 18, 2010 at 3:13 PM, Bob Molyneux <[email protected]> wrote: > Kathy, > > Thank you for starting this most interesting thread. > > I think we all understand the rationale behind the RFP process. Open > government is more likely to be honest and many government agencies use > RFIs, RFPs, RFQs, RFwhatevers in an attempt to get the best price and > capabilities for purchases they make in an open fashion and thereby thwart > insider dealing and corruption. We hope. The problem we are having in the > open source world is not the concept of RFPs but rather their execution. > > I see a fair number of RFPs (I work for Equinox Software, Inc.) and these > documents do betray a predilection for proprietary solutions. There is just > no question about that observation, IMHO. Why? > > I speculate: > > RFP writers are now a semi-profession. God help us, we have experts. Suppose > you get hired to do the purchasing for some government agency. Every 10 > years, your department is asked to do an RFP for an ILS for the library. A > what? Bear in mind that you last did an RFP for cleaning the high school > gyms, and before that it was for coal for the hospital power plant. You know > from nothing about libraries. You meet the librarian. > ILS...MARC...circulation...*blah blah blah* > > You need help because you have to have an RFP out next week for repairing > your agency's cars which, face it, is important...the library? Not so much. > And you are going to be outta here in another to years. What do you do? > > I don't know but I bet there are sites/companies/subscription services that > will help you. [If not, I think I might start one! Sounds like a library > kinda problem.] Oh, good! An ILS template. *whew* > > Those services, necessarily, are a step behind the real world. Being a step > behind, they use the state of the art from that time. Mind, those same sites > are worried about big things like RFPs for maintenance state planes and RFPs > for buildings. Really big things come first. I bet the template for library > ILSs comes pretty far down on the update list. > > So, there you are working in Purchasing and what do you do? You grab the > most recent template which in our world is 5 years out of date and you tweak > it here or there and off it goes. Deeply embedded into the warp and woof of > that RFP is the proprietary model. I can tell you that it is beyond > frustrating to have to comment on just about *every* line about just about > every capability. We do not price by stations. Almost everyone asks that > question: how much per station? You have to answer that question with a > comment and, folks, at that point, the person reading the response is > worried about the price of pencils for the high school. He knows pencils > but..."stations?" We are in a deep hole at that point and we can't win it. > We are very chary about answering RFPs. Lots of effort but...we speak open > source..they speak a different language and our two languages are > orthogonal. > > If my speculation is correct, our approach, then is to the > folks/services/etc. that help Purchasing departments. And, too, to the > "experts" in the library field who advise. About which...enough of you have > heard me on this subject... > > Bob > Equinox Software, Inc. > > > > Bob Molyneux > [email protected] > -- Random quote of the week/month/whenever i get to updating it: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?": "who shall watch the watchers themselves?" - Juvenal
