[PLUG] Loca lBlog: Portland looking at open source

Tim Wescott tim at wescottdesign.com
Tue May 11 21:04:49 UTC 2010


Jim Karlock wrote:
> from: http://bojack.org/2010/05/portland_city_hall_computers_e.html
>
>
> Portland City Hall + computers = endless fun
>
> <http://cityofportland.ebidsystems.com/public/solicitationdetail.asp?solicitation=OMF059>Here's 
> <http://cityofportland.ebidsystems.com/public/solicitationdetail.asp?solicitation=OMF059> 
> an odd one out of the Portland fire bureau. They're going on a 
> fishing expedition to see if they can find somebody to convert the 
> bureau computer system from some homegrown products created using a 
> now-obsolete Microsoft program to open source software. But they're 
> not even offering a contract at this point -- they just want some 
> free advice in the form of "information" to be submitted by potential 
> future contract bidders.
You, of course, never go into Sears or Fry's, look at their stuff, talk 
to their sales people, use their restrooms, then go buy something from 
someone else entirely.

Of course they're fishing for info!  They probably have absolutely no 
clue about how hard the job is, or where they can find someone who knows 
Visual Basic (eugh!) well enough to convert it to Python or whatever is 
appropriate, or what the rough magnitude of the task is, or anything.

Whenever I'm in that situation the first thing I do is call up 
salespeople and consume their valuable time looking for rough order of 
magnitude estimates (which can be hard to get: "gimme a ballpark 
estimate" "I'm sorry sir, but we have to come out and look at your house 
and..." "tell me if it's going to be $1000, $3000, $10000, etc." "Oh! 
you can expect it to be between X and Y, then").

I wish them well.  I wonder how ugly the code is?

-- 
Tim Wescott
Wescott Design Services
Voice: 503-631-7815
Cell:  503-349-8432
http://www.wescottdesign.com





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