The Appropriate Software Foundation provides both professional and software application services. Please direct your inquiry via the Contact Us page.
Professional Services
Professional services fall within four areas: process analysis and improvement; software development; application service provision; and club hosting.
SLA #1: Analysis
- To agree block(s) of time within which process analysis work will be performed as a service.
- To negotiate an appropriate fee rate and terms of payment for the service.
- To pay for the agreed time at the agreed rate within the agreed terms.
- To cooperate in the development of a scope of the work document and a requirements specification document.
- To receive a scope of the work document and a requirements specification document for your process.
Process Analysis and Improvement
Deliverables: Scope of the Work, Requirements Specification
Requirements analysis connects with working processes and helps any subsequent developments to be directed towards the greatest benefit.
Descriptions of the events to which useful work responds and the outcomes that are desired of the work are recorded.
Consideration is given to how each working response is made, and whether any improvements are desired. A description of the resulting response is recorded, with acceptance requirements for any supportive system are established.
Working in iterations supports incremental process development, where each working response can be mostly considered, prioritized and strengthened independently of the others.
SLA #2: Development
- To agree block(s) of time within which software development work will be performed as a service.
- To negotiate an appropriate fee rate and terms of payment for the service.
- To pay for the agreed time at the agreed rate within the agreed terms.
- To cooperate in the development and acceptance testing of the working software.
- To receive working supportive software under an open-source license.
Software Development
Deliverables: Working Software, Documentation
We offer an excellent agile software development capability, generating reliable supports for working processes.
Following the agile approach, we offer variable-scope software development contracts. We address a prioritized backlog of stories, and work for agreed durations on top-priority concerns.
We release new working software for acceptance testing early and often, and work for as long as necessary to obtain adequate support.
We generally work in multiple-iterations of 2-4 weeks. Clients have commented that our estimates for proposed changes are remarkably accurate.
We normally produce software with very low error rates. Clients have commented that our software is remarkably reliable.
We usually license as free and open source software to protect users.
SLA #3: ASP
- To agree block(s) of time within which application service provision work will be performed as a service.
- To negotiate an appropriate fee rate and terms of payment for the service.
- To pay for the agreed time at the agreed rate within the agreed terms.
- To cooperate in supply and usage of software application services.
- To access software services which satisfy agreed expectations.
Application Service Provision (ASP)
Deliverables: Software Service, Provision Process
We offer a reliable service execution management (SEM) process for providing software application services.
We can assist with local application service provision, where the software is deployed on a local area network (LAN) and accessed as part of an intranet.
We can also provide software application services as simply structured and cost-effective service plans to be accessed remotely over the internet.
Service execution management aims is to satisfy the service level agreement (SLA) that applies to a service.
A service level agreement (tacit or explicit) is the collection of expectations users have of a service. Service level agreements aren't legal contracts, but may form part of contractual agreements.
Service level agreements can be determined either by service users, or by service suppliers, or within partnerships of users and suppliers such as software clubs.
SLA #4: Club
- To agree block(s) of time within which club hosting work will be performed as a service.
- To negotiate an appropriate fee rate and terms of payment for the service.
- To pay for the agreed time at the agreed rate within the agreed terms.
- To cooperate in the development and operation of the club.
- To grow a software club of active sharers.
Club Hosting
Deliverables: Membership Process, Service Level Agreement
We offer a special service for hosting software clubs.
We can advise on researching and qualifying a proposal for a new club, on developing an operational cycle for the club, on initiating and expanding the membership of the club, on identifying and communicating common proposals of the membership, and on coordinating member resources to address their common concerns.
We can also initiate and run a software club on behalf of an existing network or association.
One way a software club can sustain the generation of common proposals is by establishing and continuously refining common service level agreements and enhancing common services that support the shifting concerns of its members.
When combined with our analysis, development and application services, clubs hide the full complexity of the process development cycle from service users - presenting continuously improving services capable of responding effectively to feedback.
Software Application Services
We provide a number of software application services.
- Mailing Lists (offline)
- Desire
- Appropriate Development
- Eternity
- Demonstration of ScanBooker
- Civil Society Wiki
- Buildbot (offline)
Please direct your enquiry via the Contact Us page.
Mailing Lists
Status: being restored
We sometimes discuss our work on our public mailing list. You are welcome to subscribe. We also host a number of other mailing lists.
Desire
Status: online
A software application service supporting process analysis and requirements specification.
There are processes, products, stories, requirements, goals, events and more.
Appropriate Development (KForge)
Status: online
A software application service supporting software development.
There are projects, with members and services to help with the project.
Eternity
Status: online
A software application service supporting unified tracking and planning across different development projects.
Eternity reads backlogs from KForge projects, and presents aggregated personal backlogs.
Demonstration of ScanBooker
Status: online
A demonstration of the ScanBooker software system.
Login details available on the ScanBooker project website.
Civil Society Wiki
Status: online
The Civil Society Wiki is a nice place to record effective practices as named patterns.
To discuss patterns, please consider joining our mailing list.
Buildbot
Status: being restored
We run frequent presence tests on all the application services we provide and depend on. We also regularly test the software we have released, by downloading and installing, and then running the systems - just as normal users do.
We test all these things at least once every day, and since this increasingly becomes a lot of things to remember all the time, we develop and maintain a foundation development test suite of automated tests which repeat the necessary manual steps involved.
To support the work of running these tests and recording their results, we maintain a buildbot service. The buildbot service just acquires and runs the latest foundation development test suite, and records and presents all past test results, and also what testing is happening and what will be happening next.