Werner:
One of the activities that occupies much of our time here at OSSI is
matching up the needs of commercial and government entities with the
appropriate resources in the open source community. Usually the
sponsor
requirements are pretty clear cut ("obtain FIPS 140-2 validation for
X", "add support for platform Y to product Z", etc.).
This situation is a little different in that the prospective
sponsor, a
large U.S. government research laboratory, appears to just want
JuiCE to
be a viable actively maintained product. Apparently they want to
use it
extensively but are concerned about the lack of activity and
unpolished
state.
Here specifically is what my contact there asked for: "Besides
work on
supporting FIPS mode, I'd like to see money put towards more
documentation, tutorials, and a more collaborative project home
page to
attract wider adoption."
The only actual functional enhancement they're asking for, FIPS mode
support, is relatively simple, as most a few day's work. This
contact
went on to ask me to write a Statement of Work ("SOW", a
description of
tasks to be performed for specified payment) which would be the basis
for a contract.
If you're interested, here's how we can work it. If you can give me
some details along the following lines...
1) Cost to implement FIPS mode support (see
http://www.openssl.org/docs/fips/UserGuide-1.1.1.pdf for details,
it can
be as simple as adding a FIPS_mode_set() call.
2) Some elaboration on the "documentation, tutorials"
objective, and
what you and/or your collaborators would expect to be paid for same;
3) Brief description of what the "project home page" would look
like; ok to just reference an existing project as a model, and
cost to
implement;
4) Any other enhancements that have been contemplated that
would be
of interest to the general end user community, and cost for same
...then I will prepare a formal proposal for our prospective
sponsor and
see what funding they will commit to.
Note we can host the project web site on OSSI hardware, if
appropriate,
but are not in a position to generate or maintain much content.
For funding think in terms of thousands of dollars (or euros), not
hundreds. I believe that if they feel they are receiving value that
they would be willing to fund this effort on a long term basis to the
tune of thousands or even tens of thousands per year. We won't
know for
sure until they are presented with a formal contract, of course, and
there will undoubtedly be some back-and-forth negotiation.
As many project contributors or collaborators can contribute as
appropriate. We prefer to work with a projects original contributors
and their circle of collaborators where possible. We'll want a
single
point of contact with OSSI, but end results that please the
sponsor are
all that really matters.
Speaking of which, I don't want to step on any toes at Apache. If
we do
succeed in securing financial support for JuiCE we would not want to
disturb the relationship with the Apache Incubator. Is there
anyone at
Apache I should sound out for permission/participation? OSSI has not
had the opportunity to work with the ASF yet, but we expect to in the
near future for other initiatives so I don't want to offend anyone
there.
Oh, I take it that http://svn.apache.org/viewvc/incubator/juice/
is the
latest and greatest source, and that there is no JuiCE project
page per se?
