The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
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Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
#2The problems with opening up big government contracts to multiple bidders is there is then a race to the bottom. However, outsourcing it one component at a time is definitely an interesting idea. Deliverables!
Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
#3I'm curious if this really surprises anyone here that the entire process for the government purchasing three mobile applications (Android, iOS, and BB) was ~200k. This seems pretty ordinary/normal to me.
Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
#4And people wonder why the US has a deficit problem.
Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
#5The problems with opening up big government contracts to multiple bidders is there is then a race to the bottom. However, outsourcing it one component at a time is definitely an interesting idea. Deliverables!
Yeah, but if each component is outsourced, there's the potential that the entire system becomes a huge, disorganized, unmaintainable mess with no consistency in coding standards or even technologies. When something breaks, who debugs the system? Who do you call to fix it?
Then again, just look at this app. How could it get any worse? lol
Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
#6The problems with opening up big government contracts to multiple bidders is there is then a race to the bottom. However, outsourcing it one component at a time is definitely an interesting idea. Deliverables!
Isn't a race to the bottom on price the desired outcome?
The presence of a race to the bottom on functionality is independent of whether or not the contract is open. If they don't have anyone competent who is vetting the proposals or evaluating the progress and deliverables, then they will wind up with shit no matter how they arrange the contracting. But if it's open to normal software shops, then at least they probably won't wind up with $200,000 shit.
Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
#7Brilliant article. Couple of key takeaways:
1. "The shocking part about this isn't even that it happened, but rather that it is incredibly routine. This is just one FOIA request to one tiny department for one tiny, single use application that will perhaps be used by, at most, five hundred people.. and it cost as much as a house. You can imagine what the waste must be like in other government run sectors..."
2. "The other issue is the source code. In my opinion, since we taxpayers paid for the development of this piece of shit, we should at least be able to modify and redistrubute the code. Apparently though, the Government doesn't have to supply any information which it considers to be a "trade secret," and OSHA has determined that this crappy source code is somehow a privileged secret. "
I wonder if the denial of showing source code was because they really DO think it is a trade secret. Or they are too embarrassed to show it?
Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
#8I'm curious if this really surprises anyone here that the entire process for the government purchasing three mobile applications (Android, iOS, and BB) was ~200k. This seems pretty ordinary/normal to me.
Great... how can be one to help the government with such requirements?
Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
#9I'm curious if this really surprises anyone here that the entire process for the government purchasing three mobile applications (Android, iOS, and BB) was ~200k. This seems pretty ordinary/normal to me.
Great... how can I be one to help the government with such requirements?
Re: The Government's $200,000 Useless Android Application
#10I'm curious if this really surprises anyone here that the entire process for the government purchasing three mobile applications (Android, iOS, and BB) was ~200k. This seems pretty ordinary/normal to me.
Actually, me and a team of two other developers recently applied for a government contract for the NIST that would have had us fixing a bug in OpenSceneGraph that was causing it to perform worse when more graphics cards were added.
Due to what they were asking for and the amount of time we thought it would take to accomplish it and provide the documentation they were asking for, we bid in at $60,000. We did not get the bid. I believe it was given to a university in Florida (damn grad students!) for a bid of $42,000.
In regards to the Android app in question, I think they just didn't have enough bidders. It's also possible they bogged them down in paperwork and status reports / updates (tends to happen with government contracts) which drove up the cost. I am a bit bothered that the bidding system does not favor companies based in the US that are not owned by foreign companies.