[Toolserver-l] WMDE offers a contract for implementing GraphServe (part of next-gen CatScan)

[Daniel Kinzler]

Hi all!

Wikimedia Deutschland is offering a contract for implementing the GraphServ
component for our Graph Processor project. Anyone interested is invited to
apply, the official call for bids is at
<http://wikimedia.de/wiki/Ausschreibung/GraphServ>.

The Graph Processor project aims to develop an infrastructure for rapidly
analyzing and evaluating Wikipedia's category structure. It's supposed to become
part of the Toolserver infrastructure (and eventually, the WMF search cluster)
that allows CatScan-like queries to run in under a second instead of minutes.

The contract offered here covers the implementation of the GraphServ component,
which is to function as a service by which applications can access the category
structures of different wikis, similar to the way a database server would
provide access to information stored in databases. Technically, GraphServ is a
server that manages TCP connections and attaches them to instances of GraphCore,
which do the actual processing of the category structures
<https://github.com/jkroll20/graphcore/blob/master/spec.rst>. The server will be
accessed by applications via client libraries written in PHP, Python, etc, which
are not in scope of the contract but will be developed in parallel by Wikimedia
Deutschland.

A rough specification of the GraphServ component along with requirements for the
implementations can be found at
<http://wikimedia.de/wiki/Ausschreibung/GraphServ/Spec>.

Note that GraphServ will be released as Open Source Software. While Wikimedia
Deutschland will be the copyright holder for the software developed under
contract, we will include the name of the actual authors in the copyright notice.

Applications should include the following:

* The applicant's prior experience with designing and implementing client/server
software, as well as any other relevant qualifications
* An overview of the intended architecture of the implementation and the
technologies used, along with a rationale for choosing this architecture and
technologies over others.
* A rough road map of the implementation, documentation and testing phases, with
the appropriate mile stones.
* Estimate of working hours needed
* Time frame for the implementation (calendar weeks)
* Total expected cost, including taxes

Please send your application to <technik at wikimedia.de> by April 29.


Cheers,
Daniel


PS: please forward this to anyone you think could be interested. thanks!