Date: Tue, 7 Dec 1999 09:06:23 -0800 (PST) From: Sara Winge <sara@oreilly.com> To: lwn@lwn.net Subject: Collab.Net Officially Launches sourceXchange FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Dec 7, 1999 CONTACT Bernie Mills, Collab.Net 415-908-1722 bernie@collab.net, http://www.collab.net COLLAB.NET OFFICIALLY LAUNCHES SOURCEXCHANGE SAN FRANCISCO, CA--Collab.Net announced today that it has finished its beta test phase and gone into production with its first service, sourceXchange, a marketplace where open source developers match their expertise to committed buyers with well-defined, financially backed open source projects. With sourceXchange, software companies now have a professionally managed site where they can tap into the open source community's talent and expertise. Hewlett-Packard (HP), SourceXchange's founding sponsor and beta test partner, initially placed a set of Request for Proposals (RFPs) into the sourceXchange database. Four of those RFPs have been picked up as projects, and one has already been completed. "HP has been a great partner for us in the co-creation of sourceXchange," said Brian Behlendorf, Collab.Net's co-founder and CTO. "HP really helped us hone the development process and interfaces, and we incorporated this feedback into the site." "HP wanted to make a contribution to the open source development model," said Mike Balma, Marketing Director for HP's Open Source Solutions Operation. "We partnered with Collab.Net to ensure that a marketplace for open source software development would become a reality. HP is very pleased with the results of the sourceXchange Beta. We received high quality proposals from open source developers and were very pleased with the process and the end results." HP's first project was a test suite framework for the Apache web server. It was completed within six weeks at a cost of $5000, building on top of an existing open source testing tool. "A test suite is something the Apache community has needed for quite awhile," said Behlendorf. "Clearly it was also a need for HP as they start deploying Apache commercially. Funding this project through sourceXchange helped ensure that the test suite was not an overnight hack, but a long-term solution." "HP sees increasing use of open source technologies in commercial environments, and as a result, we are adding other open source projects to sourceXchange," Balma stated. Three other HP RFPs were recently presented to the sourceXchange development community, each of which was submitted to support HP's recently announced open source e-speak software. During the beta phase, Collab.Net made improvements to sourceXchange to streamline the project definition, bidding, execution, and communication processes, based on feedback from HP and members of the sourceXchange developer community. These changes include a completely interactive and graphical tool that guides both the sponsors and the developers through the sourceXchange process, on-line guidelines and templates for generating sponsor RFPs, context sensitive help on every page on the sourceXchange site, improved categorization of developer RFP responses, improved security access levels for the sponsor and developer teams, enhanced communication features to coordinate the sponsor and the developer communities, and a broadening of the capabilities to allow international developers to participate in the sourceXchange process. Bill Portelli, Collab.Net's President and CEO noted, "Collab.Net is providing a set of services which provide distributed, world class open source software resources to work collectively to address the needs of major corporations. Collab.Net, HP and the sourceXchange developer community have worked together to define and streamline a set of services which will accelerate the use of open source software across a wider range of markets." ABOUT COLLAB.NET Collab.Net is distilling the essential processes of the open source community and providing tools and services that facilitate predictable, well-organized, high value open source development. The company's first service, sourceXchange, is a marketplace where open source developers match their expertise to committed buyers with well defined, financially backed open source projects. Collab.Net also provides an infrastructure of hosting services and productivity tools to facilitate collaborative software development among a worldwide community of developers. In addition, Collab.Net provides an extensive array of consulting services which help guide companies into open source markets. Collab.Net was founded by Brian Behlendorf, co-founder of the Apache Software Foundation, and O'Reilly & Associates in July 1999. For more information, see www.collab.net. # # #