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.

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