I have been doing some thinking on this freebay idea and came up with some things. As I said I am not against working on a complete application, however I think we should focus on an app that has potential resale value. Why? Simple.... if it can be sold developers arent working for free, and it brings something back to jboss to keep the project going. In this vein I came up with a couple ideas. Both focus on the public sector. (I knew those 16 years I spent there would pay off sooner or later :)
The premise is simple... here in the US (and probably everywhere) government spends millions on custom development. However here in the US we have a law that if a commercially available ots solutions exists that fits a need (and assuming it is less expensive) they have to purchase the ots rather than custom develop. So I have 2 ideas... 1 I know is very viable... 2 I have not researched deeply. idea 1) a grant submission application. Every agency in the US government has some form of grant or loan that they administer. some agencies administer billions every year. Until recently this has all had to occur offline. Now the government has to start accepting grants online. I know of only 2 agencies that currently accept grants online The remainder (as far as I know) are only using fillable PDF which can be emailed. So there is a tremendous opportunity for someone to come in with a solution here. idea 2) Since I live in the DC area, and spent a great majority of my adult life in the government sector I hear a lot of rumblings. One that is starting to get really big is HIIPA compliance. Now HIIPA is some health thing. I am not quite sure what kind of app would fit in this space since I havent researched it deeply, but there are an awful lot of rumblings going around about needing something to assist in this. My proposal is simple... instead of doing freebay (which sounds like a cool app by the way) why dont we consider something that has resale value, and hence the potential to earn us all a little in the long run. I have considered writing app 1 myself. Since I have been involved in one effort to write and deploy such an app i have the domain knowledge. (actually the team i led wrote the app that is used at the department of justice for this purpose http://grants.ojp.usdoj.gov - granted most of it is hidden behind a user login, but you can see the basics there on help pages) So I can come up with a quick list of requirements. Plus this one has international possibilities. Every country has some kind of grant process. To my knowledge there is only one other company playing in this area. A place out of Canada. Their solution is not directed at grant management specifically, it is more of a "we can make it fit that model" kind of app. I believe I can find us the vehicle to sell such an app. (after all I live here in the heart of beauracracy :) Now dont get me wrong... this is still a free kind of app. People could see all the source and such, but for commercial use they would buy it. If there is any interest in this kind of vein let me know.... This is not a complex app believe it or not and could probably be written in a couple months max. (Heck we wrote the one at DOJ in a month with 10 people) potentially here we have more than that. Now... if I am totally loony feel free to let me know. But I really think this would work. Plus it gets jboss into use in some really viewable places. The only thing i ask... assuming noone thinks I am loony, is please dont bother if you dont want to help out. Im with Marc on code talks and BS walks. In that vein Im still working on My first "demo" stuff for Jboss. (its harder since simultaneously I am writing an article for Javaworld on the same topic) And hope to have that ready tomorrow. So... any takers on this idea? Al _______________________________________________ Jboss-development mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/jboss-development
