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18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

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Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#121

Post by phaemon »

FF76 wrote: post #95
hamburglar wrote: post #74

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The ethics and morality of giving is kind of complicated. No, it's really quite simple. It's the ethics and morality (and circuitous justification) of being upset by others giving that's complicated. I built a friend of a friend a billing system for his fledgling business. Didn't charge a dime. I even got sucked in to support for much longer than I really wanted, since no good deed goes unpunished. Was it unethical…

> Should plumbers be upset about their work being devalued? The problem stems from contributions that have a big impact. Big impact can be achieved by one person contributing a large amount, or many people contributing small amounts. Another comment referred to this article where a Florida business man donated a million t-shirts to Africa that resulted in the textile industry bankruptcy: http://content.time.com/time/…

> Another comment referred to this article where a Florida business man donated a million t-shirts to Africa that resulted in the textile industry bankruptcy

I didn't result in any such thing, nor does the linked article suggest it does. A million t-shirts dumped in Africa would have less effect than the same number dumped in the USA.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#122

Post by iaw »

Kalium wrote: post #110
iaw wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This individual didn't volunteer to help the government. He undercut all competition in a competitive bidding process because his costs are $0 for the project. This is one of the known failures of free markets, regardless of the actors intent the effect of his behavior is negative for those trying to participate in the market as a means of sustenance. I'm not mad at the guy, he can do whatever he wants. It's just kin…

> I'm not mad at the guy, he can do whatever he wants. It's just kind of a crappy thing to do knowingly to other people and, if widespread, could have some strange externalities. I'm confused by this. According to this logic, it's a crappy thing to do to undercut anyone, ever, in any circumstance. Is that what you think?

No, I think under most circumstances it's completely fine to undercut someone. I think it's a crappy thing to do when someone is trying to participate in the market as a contractor and someone else as a volunteer.

This individual could have volunteered on any project but instead chose to participate in a bid based market for contractors at an effective $0 rate. Presuming those contractors will only contribute to Open Source projects if paid then, on net, the world would have been better served if the guy had volunteered on a project not open for bid.

I hope that makes a bit more sense. It's a nuanced issue to dance around via text without a long issue, the guy has every right to do whatever he wants but I think it's kind of rude and inconsiderate towards the contract market participants.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#123

Post by neltnerb »

noahkunin wrote: post #117
bicknergseng wrote: post #101

18F/USDS peeps... would you consider bounty or reward style programs that reward all open source contributors? Eg instead of bidding for a contract, keep an open list of tasks/bugs/full projects and reward contributors whose PR's are merged in some way? Yes, I know this monetizes what used to be free in a way and maybe goes against the "spirit" of open source, but practically speaking it feels like it'd be a huge win…

@bicknergseng - 18Fer here. The main issue here is how the Gov actually gets $ to that entity. There are lots of laws and rules that we need to obey about who we pay $ to - Gov doesn't have a ton of flexibility here. There was a reason why bidders had to be pre-registered. That said, many of us want to continue to expand our engagement with the community. When it comes to bounty/reward style programs, the one I'm per…

I'm sure you've thought of this, but is it impossible to subcontract this out to a non-profit to increase flexibility in the details of how the work is done? I.e. same requirements, same constraints, but the non-profit is formally registered with GSA and handles payments to subcontractors rather than the sub getting it straight from the government?

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#124

Post by sailfast »

tvanantwerp wrote: post #116
mtanski wrote: post #115

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Has our legislative branch behaved rationally in the last few years? Recently they threatened forcing a default for unrelated (to budget) issues. And in the not to distant past they voted a law that prohibits Medicare from to using it's bargaining power to negotiate for lower drug prices. You know something that would save every tax payer quite a bit of money since Medicare is one of the larger budget line items. Bas…

Fortunately, 18F is under the GSA, which is the executive branch. It's entirely likely that most Congressmen don't know 18F exists.

More to the point, 18F is supposed to be a self-funded organization that shouldn't draw much from the overall GSA budget. (Not sure if that applies to standing up the organization / hiring and other investments). It would be a hard argument to kill it. That said, The US Digital Service is out of the White House Office of Science Technology Policy (a distinctly political / appointed office) and USDS / 18F interact quite a bit so momentum could be a challenge if there was executive-level antipathy.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#126

Post by gertef »

ksk wrote: post #38
brownbat wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> don't want the money you're willing to pay You could run this same critique against any bid after the first bid, because it's lower than the amount they were willing to pay. The consequence of your argument is that all auctions are immoral. In reality, prices are negotiated between a field of willing suppliers and purchasers. There will almost always be some "producer surplus," some amount producers get beyond thei…

No, you could not. I can do it cheaper is distinct from I can do it for free.

$1 is not free, so fret not.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#127

Post by fineman »

fineman wrote: post #69
anm89 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is. If you want to donate your time there are a million non profits that will gladfully take the donation. There is no reason this process has to devalue everyone else's work on a paid job.

Then get another job. We don't owe you your line of work. If you literally can't compete with volunteers maybe you should see what they says about your niche and then find a new one. Once when replacing a server (and fixing the wiring, etc, etc) I also replaced a router and dual-homed the company's site as a freebie because it made my job easier (the new router had diagnostics, managed-switch features, etc). It was a…

btw, I'm a supporter of unlimited (ie, not limited - I would try to encourage you to not need it though) welfare to let society say "tough" things such as "Oh well, I guess we don't need many buggy whips."

And as to why I didn't charge anyways - the change actually made my other work faster.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#128

Post by pimlottc »

orless wrote: post #65
ksk wrote: post #20

Working for free is a luxury for the people not struggling to ends meet. "Oh, I already got paid elsewhere, but let me work for free and outbid others who are doing this as their primary job" is the unstated context and it feels a tad bit smug and elitist. Personally, I think that the goal should be to get paid while you work on open source. But, I know that its not an option for everyone. >I use open source technolo…

> Working for free is a luxury for the people not struggling to ends meet. Not necessarily, this may be also a valid profit-oriented strategy. My wife worked for ca. 8 month almost for free (for lowest rate allowed by the law) to get an entry in her CV which landed her on her next real money job.

Whether it's a good strategy is besides the point; it's still a luxury in that your wife had the means to live for 8 months without a substantial income. Some people don't have the safety net to be able to do that, even if they knew it would put them in a better position in the long run.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#129

Post by USNetizen »

neogodless wrote: post #19
USNetizen wrote: post #6

The problem with this isn't that the bidder wanted to do something noble, it's that it set a precedent that the government is going to expect on future bids moving forward. "Buying a contract" is nothing new - companies do it all the time (i.e. deliberately dramatically underbidding just to get the past performance). However, reverse auctions are a lose-lose for the government and commercial sector. This approach ass…

> but for IT you get what you pay for > It will help avoid those failure-prone $100M+ acquisitions that are doomed from the start Clearly, you don't always get what you pay for. The price is not always the value.

Hence why they call it "best value" which was my point. What this person did is called "LPTA" or, essentially, lowest bidder. Not sure if you want every lowest bidder making your mission critical applications.

Re: 18F's Micro-Purchase Experiment: Why I Bid $1

#130

Post by wslack »

neltnerb wrote: post #123
noahkunin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@bicknergseng - 18Fer here. The main issue here is how the Gov actually gets $ to that entity. There are lots of laws and rules that we need to obey about who we pay $ to - Gov doesn't have a ton of flexibility here. There was a reason why bidders had to be pre-registered. That said, many of us want to continue to expand our engagement with the community. When it comes to bounty/reward style programs, the one I'm per…

I'm sure you've thought of this, but is it impossible to subcontract this out to a non-profit to increase flexibility in the details of how the work is done? I.e. same requirements, same constraints, but the non-profit is formally registered with GSA and handles payments to subcontractors rather than the sub getting it straight from the government?

18Fer here. Is this in regards to a bounty program or putting out specific microtasks?
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