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Is Fear Reducing the Publicity for Open Source?
sebFlyte writes "Are companies deliberately keeping quiet about moves to open source because they are afraid of the reactions of proprietary vendors they still have relationships with? ZDNet raises and tries to answer this question in a two-part special report, 'Open source behind closed doors'. It comes to the conclusion that, in all probability, companies are keeping quiet to avoid reprisals of one sort or another. One part of the fear of publicizing migrations is nicely summed up in the second part by Tristan Nitot of Mozilla Europe: 'Guys are really shy -- it's the Munich Linux thing. They start talking about it and suddenly Ballmer comes in and twists your arm until you cry.'"
And of course, when it comes to doing a big deal, companies can always try and get a discount by offering to be a case study for the vendor. So their adoption of the vendor's technology gets some press. When a company adopts an open source solution, there's never going to be the same PR push behind it. You are always going to hear more about things that someone can sell than you are about things you can just download for free.
Drag n' Drop DVD Recommendations
You live in fear of the 100% markup that you will pay if you go against MS (for all Windows based software, not just MS's). MS has a long history of penalizing those that do not do exactly what MS wants. Yes, MS will offer 80 % off of this years prices to keep you. But they expect high prices next year, and they expect that you will not even toy with OSS anymore. Simply read what Dell had to say at the MS monopoly trial.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
They don't understand it and are afraid of things they don't understand.So there is little incentive to inform them. We only really need the managers when we need their approval to buy something. So they only ever hear about things that costs money and gets a distorted view of things.
TCAP-Abort
Oracle Continues Warming Up to Open Source
Intel Begins Support for Debian
IBM Turns to Open Source Development
IBM And Sony Form Linux Alliance
Linux Tablet to be Released in Two Days
There are only few of the many stories. Does it sound if companies are keeping mum about open source adoption ?
And why is it you're not validating user input? Bad data should never have a chance to get to the database in the first place.
I disagree with the implication that the application layer is the only layer responsable for data intgrety.
Maintaining a constant database is as important as maintaining a secure network.
You wouldn't simply install a firewall on your network, ignoring all other security measures and saying "but it's the firewalls job to do that..."
The same applies to data integrity. Both the app layer and the data layer should do their own validation.
their internal tech moves because nobody really gives a damn. It would be the height of arrogance for a company to assume that the world cares whether it moves to open source or any other tech for that matter. Most companies aren't in the business of announcing to the world what their internal tech moves are.
I don't know what internal tech McDonalds uses, and don't care. McDonalds knows that I don't care, and therefore doesn't waste time bothering to make irrelevant declarations to the world regarding their internal tech.
-- "I never gave these stories much credence." - HAL 9000
In 1996, I was working at a Fortune 500 company, and we were planning to migrate many of our systems from Big Blue to Microsoft. I was in charge of choosing the best C++ tool, and after some meetings with programmers I chose Microsoft Visual C++. We had a conference call with some Microsoft sales people one day, and while there were only 2-3 of us speaking with them, the move to Microsoft was a really big deal in the company, and a lot of people were opposed to it, so there were several big wigs in the room just listening in. Microsoft got on the line, and they immediately started shouting. They asked me questions and then cut me off before I could answer them, they swore at us, and they said that if we didn't choose their product that they were going to go to our managers and show them how daft we were, etc. We were buying the product! After a couple minutes of this, we just sat in stunned silence. It was my meeting, so I said "Alright, I think we're done here." and hung up. I was completely flustered and terrified, and my hands were shaking. We all filed out of the room, and I tried not to look at anyone in the eye. A year later, I was writing Java code.
There is another explanation. I worked for an expert systems company when it was "the next big thing". There were very few reports in the press about companies developing expert systems, though people in the field knew a lot was being done.
The major reason was that the possibility of getting a competitive advantage by producing something that nobody else had.
The same may be true here but in a different way - you just removed a large amount of your cost base, but you don't want your competitors to know about it because they might start doing the same thing.
My business customers don't seem to give a crap. If it works, they'll use it. MSFT can whine all they want and it'll get them nowhere. On the other hand if MSFT offers them a compelling deal they're not going to have any more loyalty to OSS.
Ballmer is engaged in an endless game of whack-a-mole. And the moles are popping up faster than even the mighty MSFT can keep pace with. The fact that Ballmer has to waste his time to personally strong-arm organizations is the highest compliment he can pay to those of you involved in OSS projects. Not only can you change the world for the better, you can get under Ballmer's skin and make him burn some avgas in that expensive plane he flies around in. Hehe. Bonus.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage