[OPEN-ILS-GENERAL] ***SPAM*** RFPs for system development

[Bob Molyneux]

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most recent template which in our world is 5 years out of date and you 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
drdata at molyneux.com