Joseph Dal Molin wrote:
> One hidden cost:
>
> Requests for Proposals or tender etc. are very expensive and time consuming
> activities. I have both inflicted them on vendors when I was a customer and
> have replied to them as a vendor.
>
Having done a few myself, I concur.. Vendors typically
don't want to respond unless they thing they have a real chance.
However, I have been thinking that we need to find a way for
OSS projects to able to respond to such requests.
1) It's a trusted way of doing business.
2) Public sector almost demands it as a way of lowering
costs and proving fairness.
3) You can't change such embedded business practices
overnight, even it was a good idea. Just look at double
entry bookkeeping.
So how to do it. I am trying to arrange such a thing right now.
First pass: Form a consortium to respond, each member of
the consortium might be both an orginator and a responder to
an RFP. Issues: how to ensure fairness, how to get money to
prepare the response.
Second pass: Find an organization with capital already,
willing to front for a consortium. This organization can be
a services company, who will build the consortium, respond
to the rfp's and front end the development costs.
