N00014-17-S-B010_Amendment_0003.pdf

N00014-17-S-B010 Amendment 0003 1

N00014-17-S-B010 Late-stage Software Customization and Complexity Reduction S&T for Legacy Naval Systems

Amendment 0003

The purpose of Amendment 0003 to BAA N00014-17-S-B010 is to respond to questions submitted prior to 29 March 2017 and to provide the presentation materials and attendee list from the Industry Day held on 29 March 2017.

1. The following provides questions and responses:

Q1: Does functionality identification and reduction of mobile apps (those for Android and iOS) and web applications fall into the scope of TA1?

A1: Yes. Proposals can address other operating systems relevant to Navy requirements.

Q2: Are we [submitters] always supposed to work on binary code only or can we take advantage of availability of the source code for at least some of the system, for example that from shared library on

GitHub?

A2: Offerors are encouraged to look at unique approaches for addressing the BAA technical areas.

Q3: Your proposal call on software customization. I am wondering if by visualizing the underline function calls and variable assignments, we could inspire some innovative robustness measures and coding practices.

A3: Offerors are encouraged to look at unique approaches for addressing the BAA technical areas.

Q4: Can we go for just one TA or multiple of them in one proposal?

A4: Each solution proposed by an offeror must be its own separate proposal. However, proposals may focus on a single TA or incorporate multiple TAs as a part of the proposed solution. Offerors are not limited in the number of proposals that they may submit.

Q5: Are you interested in binary hardening as applied to Linux, or do you have other OSes targeted?

A5: Yes. Proposals can address other operating systems relevant to Navy requirements.

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Q6: We are interested in adding other [Instruction Set Architectures] ISAs, e.g., the Navy is a heavy user of PPC. Would this be in scope?

A6: Proposals should give priority to advancing fundamental scientific knowledge of the BAA technical areas over broadening the application of previous research.

Q7: TA4, Paragraph 4, last sentence: “The tools could use the original test suite, original code, and the transformed code as input to automatically produce the new test suite.” Does the term “code” mean source code?

A7: In order of preference, the tools may use executables, intermediate representation, or source code.

Q8: There are no stated instructions on how to respond to multiple technical areas. I’m assuming each response must be its own full proposal. Is that correct?

A8: Correct, each solution proposed by an offeror must be its own separate proposal. However, proposals may focus on a single TA or incorporate multiple TAs as a part of the proposed solution.

Offerors are not limited in the number of proposals that they may submit.

Q9: The solicitation states we need to submit five (5) hard copies and e-mail. Do we have to do both or we can pick one of them in order to suffice the submission requirement?

A9: Both the five (5) hard copies and soft copy are required by the proposal due date. The soft copy may either be e-mailed or included in an envelope along with the hard copies, as per the instructions in the BAA.

Q10: [The solicitation] states that Offerors should submit five hard copies of their proposals. Can you please confirm:

- The five hard copies are to be submitted to you by 3:00 pm, EDT, on Monday, May 1, 2017?

- The address that we would mail these hard copies to is:

Office of Naval Research

One Liberty Center

875 N. Randolph Street

Arlington, VA 22203-1995

- That delivery via FedEx is delivered before 3:00 pm each day?

- If delivery via FedEx is delivered before 3:00 pm on Monday, May 1, 2017, that it will be delivered to the appropriate person(s)/office(s) before 3:00 pm?

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A10: The five hard copies of the proposal (along with the soft copy) are due on 1 May 2017 by 3:00 PM (Local Time, Washington, D.C.). Please refer to page 12 of the BAA for the required mailing address and envelope markings. It is the responsibility of the offeror to ensure that the proposals arrive to their specified destination before the closing date/time. ONR cannot guarantee the delivery times of FedEx or other delivery services.

Q11: In the BAA, it states that all files sent via Grants.gov must be in PDF format (page 24). It goes on to say that other files like spreadsheets are not permitted via Grants.gov. However, I recall in the talk today that the budget proposal must be in Excel format. Could you clarify this?

A11: The contracts presentation from the Industry Day (see Attachment 2) was focused primarily on contracts, not grants. Please note that the grant submission process and relevant documentation differ significantly than those of contract proposal submissions. As such, please follow all instructions in the BAA regarding grant submissions.

2. The following attachments are included with this amendment:

1.) Industry Day Slide Presentation (Technical) – Attachment 1

2.) Industry Day Slide Presentation (Contracts) – Attachment 2

3.) Industry Day Attendees List – Attachment 3

3. All other terms and conditions remain unchanged.