SUBMITTED BY:
Sandelman Software Works Inc.
470 Dawson Avenue
Ottawa ON
K1Z 5V7
mcr@sandelman.ottawa.on.ca
http://www.sandelman.ca
March 6, 2003
This document is in response to a request from Industry Canada's Claude Gagné. A feasibility study is proposed to detail the issues in establishing a Canadian software development hosting solution. The document provides a background, an outline, a timeline and a cost breakdown. The total is $10000, excluding GST.
Sandelman Software Works was formally founded in 1996 by Michael Richardson after a number of years of less formal work. Sandelman Software Works does consulting and contracting in TCP/IP networking and Unix systems.
The company has done work in network design, network security and network security products. While security is the primary focus, systems internals (specifically device drivers) and software/hardware interfaces are secondary areas of expertise.
Sandelman Software Works is an Open Source shop.
Sandelman Software Works is a federally incorporated for-profit Canadian corporation based in Ottawa, Ontario. It has Revenue Canada GST #89390 4870 RT0001.
| Date | Michael Richardson, President |
A critical component in the creation and maintenace of today's Internet has been open source software. The relationship between the development of the Internet and that of collaborative open source projects is well documented. The Internet is a powerful tool for collaboration.
For some time SourceForge.net has existed as a collaboration tool, providing standardized tools for developers to use when working on open source projects. SourceForge now has in excess of 20,000 registered projects, growing daily.
The Free Software Foundation, founder of the GNU project, has cloned the sourceforge.net service (itself an open source project) under the name savannah.gnu.org.
This provides a second hosting option for open source projects.
Both of these efforts are US based, and quite centralized. There is possible need for more such sites, perhaps based in Canada.
There are numerous issues that must be resolved in order to run such a site. The costs are not trivial, but neither are the benefits.
It is proposed to do a feasibility study detailing the costs, benefits, risks and issues around building a Canadian Open Source hosting site.
The study will begin with a backgrounder on open source hosting: what services are typically provided, which ones are essential, and which ones are considered nice, but expendable features. An overview of existing systems will be done.
The reasons for a Canadian system will be explored.
The stakeholders for such a system will be identified, and if possible consulted.
A business plan will be prepared, with input from industry experts. It will describe the possible organizational and technical architectures that may be implemented.
The legal issues surrounding such a site, including the obvious intellectual property ownership issues will be documented. Potential policies and agreements from other hosting services will be reviewed for relevance under Canadian law by legal counsel.
Finally, a series of experts will be consulted, mostly by email and telephone on the results. They will be primarily asked the simple question: ``do you find this useful?''.
The primary deliverable is a report.
The final report will be delivered on or before March 31, 2003. It will be delivered electronically in PDF and HTML formats.
A draft will be made available on March 27, 2003.
An outline of the document is included below.
* background ** what/why is open source ** what is internet based collaboration ** what is sourceforge ** what is savannah ** survey of other existing systems * why another system ** uniquely Canadian *** bilingual projects ** diversity ** legal chills * who are the stakeholders ** who is the audience for the system ** contributing volunteers ** beneficiaries *** small business *** big business *** non-government organizations ** relationship to government online ** relationship to existing hosting systems * business plan ** organizational structure ** network architecture ** costs *** capital costs *** operating costs *** coordination costs *** marketing/promotion costs ** revenues * legal issues ** acceptable use policies ** ownership issues ** legal threats * comments from consultation
The start date for the work will be March 11, 2003.
Initial contact for the consultations will begin immediately. The contacts will be asked if they would be willing to participate in a consultation on the project. (This is to identify enough respondants)
A questionnaire will be developed and will be emailed.
The following people may get consulted. This is not an exclusive list, and will be expanded as time permits.
Development of the business plan will occur during the week of March 11. An expert in business planning (James McDermott) will be engaged to review and augment the business plan during the week of March 17, 2003.
A draft version of the plan will be provided to a legal consultant during the week of March 24th.
A draft will be made available on March 27, 2003 for review.
The fixed rate cost is: $10000 (excluding GST).
The breakdown is as follows.