Public procurement notice: Voluntary Ex Ante Transparency Notice
Published: 2023-06-16
Buyer: SPRIND GmbH
Country: DE
Contract type: Services
Procedure: Contract award without prior publication
CPV classification: 72268000: Software supply services | 73000000
Estimated value: 449850 EUR

Technical requirements: The Pendulum project, an initiative of Tweede golf, is building modern, open-source implementations of the Network Time Protocol (NTP) and Precision Time Protocol (PTP). The software ntpd-rs is an NTP implementation written in Rust, with a focus on security and stability. It includes client and server functionality and supports Network Time Security (NTS). NTP and PTP provide accurate time on millions of phones, PCs and servers and are vital building blocks of the Internet and other critical infrastructure: in finance and broadcasting, in our power grids and telecommunication, and in security protocols.
The milestones below will make PTP time and frequency transfer more secure by solving recognized weaknesses in current PTP implementation.
Summary: In April 2023 the early adopter release of ntpd-rs and completed a security audit was published. The final step before users can use ntpd-rs in production is to stabilize the software.
This milestone delivers that stable release including end-user documentation. Extracting timing components from codebases to enable re-use of the software.
Summary: Previous work on Statime created a PTP-compliant library. This milestone delivers a modern, memory-safe alternative to Linuxptp; a binary that enables a Linux machine to function as a PTP ordinary or boundary clock.
Summary: Contributing to the new NTPv5 standard to continue moving NTP forward. This work includes an implementation of the current draft of the NTPv5 specification, which will inform further changes to the draft specification. Further improvement of the custom clock algorithm based on Kalman filters. This algorithm already performs significantly better than the algorithm described in the NTP specification.
Summary: Improve packaging and work on visibility and communication to facilitate the adoption of ntpd-rs. Prepare for the wider adoption of the NTP and PTP projects in 2024 by conducting market research to identify users of specialized timing use cases.
Summary: Maintenance work on both Statime and ntpd-rs. This includes typical work such as responding to issues and PRs, but also the transfer of knowledge to contributors. This milestone allows for week-to-week continuity in technical work.
Summary: Exploring the creation of an NTS pool. The current NTP pool does not support NTS, which means that the adoption of NTS is low in practice. Fostering NTP adoption by making the NTS just as convenient to use as vanilla NTP.
Summary: Preparing the PTP implementation completed in 2023 for a security audit and process findings in a new release. Experimenting with the NTS4PTP draft from the IETF NTP Working Group to aid future security improvements. Supporting PTP profiles, including - at least - a profile used in the power sector.
Summary: Visibility and communiciation to facilitate the adoption of ntpd-rs and Statime. Creating a model for structural financial support from industry companies and work on signing contracts.
Summary: Maintenance work on both Statime and ntpd-rs. This includes typical work such as responding to issues and PRs, but also the transfer of knowledge to contributors. This milestone allows for week-to-week continuity in technical work.
As a research and development service, the contract is excluded from the scope of application of public procurement law (cf. Section 116 (1) No. 2 Act against Restraints on Competition).


Winner: Tweede golf
Award value: 449850