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Gentlemen, I thank you all again for your input. A disclosure that I should have made, and I apologize for the omission: I was a Contracting Officer as a member of the military until my retirement in 2014. I now work as a Contracting Officer for a Public Transit provider in a large city and as such, we are a quasi-governmental organization. We are subject to the FAR when we are incorporating Federal Grant money into a project, but covered by the Uniform Commercial Code and "contracting by negotiation" otherwise. It is an interesting situation in that we have to navigate between the strictness of the FAR and the somewhat murky and as I see it, "unmapped" world of commercial contracting as covered loosely by the Uniform Commercial Code. This particular solicitation did not incorporate any Federal monies and although not covered by the FAR, it does have many of the same principles. Thanks again for the input!

Gentlemen, The solicitation was written as "Brand name or equal" and all bidders were on equal footing. I was just a little "conflicted" as I believe in making all clarifications available to all, but I also believe in the right to a certain "competitive advantage" in that realm. I greatly appreciate your input!

I agree that the Q&A's should be made available to all bidders to a solicitation. My question pertains to a construction solicitation. One of the prospective quoters asked me to approve of an alternative material for the project. The material was acceptable to the project engineer. I hesitate to answer the question to all prospective quoters because the awareness of the alternative material (although commercially available), would possibly destroy the competitiveness of the quote if others are not aware of that alternative material. Would you agree? Is it appropriate to answer directly to the quoter in this case?