Introduction
The Document Foundation (TDF) is the charitable entity behind the world’s leading free/libre/open source (FLOSS) office suite LibreOffice.
The main activity of the Foundation’s Membership Committee (MC) is to administer membership applications and renewals following the criteria defined in the Foundation’s statutes.
Tender description
We are looking for an individual or company to implement the new TDF Membership Committee’s web-based tooling.
The tasks consists of developing and implementing this tooling. All of the mentioned features and requirements are explained in detail in the provided document “MC tooling specifications”, which is to be considered a part of this tender. The document lists which items are a part of the deliverables and therefore have to be part of the bid.
Note that this tender also contain some optional items, which are marked respectively. All items that are not explicitly marked as optional are to be considered mandatory.
The solution we seek, and as such the scope of this tender, is to implement the new TDF Membership Committee’s web-based tooling that will support the Membership Committee during the daily business.
Decision criteria
All technology standards of relevance, as well as their targeted versions for this tender should be declared or defined in the offer’s description of implementation.
Amongst the decision criteria for the bids are qualification, references, price, and completeness of fulfillment, as well as documentation. We expect bidders to provide documentation on the code, optionally also on the system administrator part.
Requirements
We prefer the use of a secure programming environment. As such, we strongly prefer Python/Django or Ruby on Rails over PHP. The use of server-side Java has to be discussed with TDF’s infrastructure team before bidding. In order to do so, please get in touch with us using the e-mail address below.
We strongly prefer the use of FOSS software and libraries, i.e. for DBMS, crypto and mailing.
The delivered software, code, documentation and all associated parts shall be published under an OSI approved license (see https://opensource.org/licenses) with TDF as owner of the copyright as well as all transferable rights. TDF intends to make the deliverables available to the general public.
Proposed milestones
Milestone #1 – Defining of the architecture; initial prototype with testing and knowledge sharing (with the Membership Committee) about the new solution; usability improvements. Main process elements like voting are tested and work fine. Implementation of the database and the management back-end user interface to interact with it. Import of member information from the old database.
Access to the current production database can be granted to the successful bidder after signing a privacy and non-disclosure agreement. Otherwise, and less preferred, a database with anonymized sample data will be provided.
Milestone #2 – Handling of a new request to become a member of TDF.
Milestone #3 – Have the membership renewal process working.
Milestone #4 – Move the full daily work of the membership committee to the new platform; all voting can be done directly with the new platform. The implementation of reporting and mail system must be completely functional for:
- Receipt of application
- Mail for accepted applicants
- Mail for denied applicants
- Mail for pending applicants
- Quarterly report on accepted members in English
- Quarterly report on accepted members in German
Milestone #5 – Implement and test:
- Reminders for MC members
- All time-triggered jobs
- Quarterly report as CSV file
- Database integrity check by checking the signature and re-reading this file
- Deleting of obsolete records cleanup
Required skills
- Extensive knowledge of Python/Django or Ruby on Rails
- Extensive knowledge of front-end and back-end development of web-based applications
- Extensive knowledge of design and implementation of accessible web-based applications
- Experience in working on open source projects
Other skills
- English (conversationally fluent in order to coordinate and plan with members of TDF)
TDF welcomes applications from all suitably qualified persons regardless of their race, sex, disability, religion/belief, sexual orientation or age.
Bidders will get a preference for including a partner or independent developer who has not been involved in a successful tender before.
As always, TDF will give some preference to individuals who have previously shown a commitment to TDF, including but not limited to certified developers and/or members of TDF. Not being a member, or never having contributed before, does not exclude any applicants from consideration.
The task offered is a project-based one-off, with no immediate plans to a mid- or long-term contractual relationship. It is offered on a freelance, project basis. Individuals and companies applying can be located anywhere in the world.
TDF is looking forward to receiving your applications for the aforementioned tasks, your offer in form of a fixed-time, fixed-budget approach, and the duration period for the implementation in calendar weeks of the mentioned milestones after the final awarding of the tender, via e-mail to a committee at tender20210501@documentfoundation.org no later than June 23, 2021.
Applicants who have not received feedback by July 21, 2021 should consider that their application, after careful review, was not accepted.
All bidders are invited to ask their questions on this tender until June 11, 2021. Questions can be sent informally to the above e-mail address, and answers will be made public in a collected and anonymized form.
The Annual Report of The Document Foundation for the year 2020 is now available in PDF format from TDF Nextcloud in three different versions: low resolution (4.7MB), medium resolution (18MB) and high resolution (24.7MB). The annual report is based on the German version presented to the authorities in April.
