[Noisebridge-discuss] Open Source Software for Local Gov't, i'm a Rent Board Commissioner in Berkeley looking for help

[Kurt Grutzmacher]

Hey Asa,

I don't think this process could be best served with something like a google
spreadsheet. This would not be something you could simply pull off the shelf
software and integrate without a lot of customization -- and that's what SAG
is proposing. I think you could find a local development team in the SF Bay
area who would be be able to do the same thing SAG lists but with open
source software (Django, web2py, rails, jquery, postgresql, etc) however
they'd need to be contracted to write and support the result which could
come out to be less amounts of dough. At least it would be something that
could be picked up by another third party for support should it need to be.

As a resident of Berkeley I'd prefer see a more opened solution than the
"Business Process Model Leader because we say we are" route that SAG
recommends. The nearly $1M to provide publicly-accessible "Knowledge Base"
on the last page floored me! When did open government become so expensive?

Thanks for keeping us in the loop and look forward to hearing about the new
proposal.

--
 Kurt Grutzmacher -=- grutz at jingojango.net


On Thu, Mar 24, 2011 at 2:49 PM, Asa Dodsworth <moped45 at gmail.com> wrote:

> The Rent Boards Budget and Personnel Committee meeting will be presented
> the proposal from web methods for building a new RTS(Rent Tracking System)
> Database, http://www.softwareag.com/Corporate/products/wm/default.asp after
> this meeting I will be able to email the group their proposal..
> their tentative date for the meeting is Monday the 28th
>
> ATTN: Attached is a City Report report issued June 29, 2009, commissioned
> by the City of Berkeley's IT Supervising Systems Analyst Keith Skinner, and
> produced by Software AG, WebMethods Report.  software doc 2.pdf (*
> application/pdf*) 7866K<https://mail.google.com/mail/?ui=2&ik=b4fe5909ee&view=att&th=12ee9d416d13db7f&attid=0.1&disp=safe&realattid=f_glo1muzo0&zw> (they
> had to send it to me with Gmail because the city server wouldn't allow them
> to upload a 7.8MB file) they'd probably save tons of money by migrating
> there email accounts to sites.google.com
>
>    - the report projects the total costs at $307K, but I believe it has
>    been tentatively negotiated down to $200K..
>    - I'm not familiar with these kinda things but this looks ridiculous to
>    me. In my naivete I imagine this could be handled by a google spreadsheet
>    and and account access controlled database viewer with a page view
>    template... Security of the information being handled by paper and pdf back
>    ups of important documents etc.
>       - one valuable feature would be to have a comment section for each
>       account with the rent board/program ex: such as this landlord has been
>       delinquent before. This can't be that complicated, this has got to be basic
>       billing and customer service software.
>
>
> *This is the feedback i've gotten so far*
>
>    - Open Source Software suggestions:
>       - a robust database like MySQL or PostgreSQL will take care of
>       keeping track of access control and replication of other databases (provided
>       you can take SQL dumps, otherwise it'll have to be the same software).
>          - PostgreSQL (if some/all of the information is not for public
>          consumption or security is otherwise a concern) or SQLite
>       - front end viewer like PHPMyAdmin (a very insecure, but functional
>       PHP app --just don't make it public on the internet), or a Django project
>       (the built-in admin console has a very simple
>       Create/Read/Update/Delete functionality for each row.
>    - requests for more info:
>    - RFP
>       - numbers of fields and records,
>       - bandwidth requirements,
>       - administrative roles,
>       - platform information such as
>       - type of host(s)
>          - operating systems
>
>
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