i was shopping for a developer company to make a public website DB thing. I was getting all sort of stupid responses. One firm bragged that they use "waterfall", which means they would sign on to do $X worth of work but would not agree to deliverables because it's fluid and agile. is this what the industry's like? lactarded.
On the other hand, I know many companies that have had huge losses on fixed bid projects because a seemingly innocent scope turned out to be a bear trap or because there's no customer incentive to ensure progress, help with clarification, dispute unspecified things such as looks or button texts or tooltips or whatever and in general avoid the most absurd and time-consuming interpretation of the requirements, not to mention all the time spent arguing over them. To compare it to the construction industry it's the difference between having a building blueprint and a few sketches to show roughly the kind of house you'd like. And then expect a fixed bid on it.
I strongly preferred time and material contracts over fixed bid projects when I was a consultant and I think my clients were generally happier about it too, basically if they figured "Hey, that's a good idea" or "Hey, I know I said X but now that I see it we should have done Y" they don't have to make a long change order process with typically inflated estimates and prices, they decide what I spend my time on but the flip side is that they only thing they can say is that they're not happy with my work and cancel my contract, there's no fixed deliverable.
I guess it's a lot harder with a big project where you can't just bail in the middle or expect someone else to take over. Besides, the government is generally not allowed to be subjective. In the private sector, if Oracle treats you like shit you can just make an executive decision to f*ck off. In the public sector you can't refuse Oracle on the next contract just because they were dicks on the last contract, you have to go with the criteria and follow the process that is to ensure your tax money isn't just funneled to their favorite partner. That's also why they can afford to be so abusive, they know this is hardly the end of government contracts in Oregon for Oracle.