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Advocating Linux / OSS to Management.
An anonymous reader writes "I'm the Senior Developer at a fairly large agency, we're currently a 100% LAMP shop, but I've heard a reliable report through the grapevine that the management a few levels above our office wants to standardize our region on MS .NET. As I'm sure most of you can appreciate, to do such a thing would be... counterproductive, and I could really do with a hand conveying this to a manager whose only real knowledge of Linux is "if it's so good, why would you give it away for free"?"
The difference between a professional and an amateur is that amateurs work for the love of it and professionals work because they get paid. Sort of the difference between a spouse and a hooker. Which side does MS fall on?
.. Blub falls right in the middle of the abstractness continuum. -- Paul Graham
Don't be fooled by management's official reasons why they don't go with Linux or other open source software. It really just boils down to FUD.
There's still a prevalent image of Linux and other open source software out there as just hobbyist software. The reason I hear most often cited for not considering open source software at my company is, "There's no one to hold accountable if it breaks." Even when I point out companies that offer paid support--people to be held accountable for making sure the software works--they still chant the "hold accountable" mantra. Those companies aren't big enough, they may go out of business any minute now, blah blah blah.
It's really disgusting sometimes. I've seen software come into our environment that I know for a fact and can demonstrate is crap, and offered alternatives for it. I'm told, "That's all fine and good, but when the software we're going to use breaks, we'll have someone to sue over it." Of course, that doesn't really happen, we always just end up suffering for several years until the next version comes out or some other closed-source competitor comes in and convinces management that they're the way to go instead. Having people to "hold accountable" (which they never are) is more important to my company than having something that actually works.
I don't know what to suggest. Another trait of large companies is that they won't do something until everyone else in the world is doing it. Once a company reaches a certain size, there's no longer a culture of trying new things and trying to separate yourself from the competition; it becomes an unrelenting strive for mediocrity. Right now, everyone else is moving to .NET, so that's probably where you'll end up, regardless of what is best for your company. About the only chance you have is to put together a pretty Powerpoint presentation showing that switching to .NET will cost a billion dollars. Make costs up if you have to. The problem is that if you show it will only cost a million, they'll still do it anyway just to be on that magical .NET bandwagon, and you'll need a ridiculously large cost to justify not doing so.
If I go with open source my [insert vendor name here] won't take me out for expensive 'business' lunches and golf days anymore. Oh and I might have to give the Yacht back...
"That's all fine and good, but when the software we're going to use breaks, we'll have someone to sue over it." :-)
MS's licenses specifically state that the operating system is not guaranteed to work for any purpose. You could at least write an angry letter to Linus Torvalds and he'll usenet how stupid you are.
I like Linux, btw.
Please stop stalking me, bro.
You're forgetting the part that, after the install, he's stuck with it as a developer / sysadmin. So anyone who has MS software ordered upon them will give a fuck as it affects them in their work for as long as they'll stay in their current job. Therefore it very much is his problem and if he wants a less frustrated future he should indeed act now.
If an experiment works, something has gone wrong.
Question: Ask him if he charges his children for the parenting he gives them? Must be worthless, then, right?
Question: Ask him how it is in the company's best interests to spend money on something you can get for free?
Question; Ask him how much he thinks it would cost to convert over, and then give him an estimate of what you could do with the money on your existing LAMP platform.
My guess: FEAR. It seems to me he's afraid that *something* *will* go *wrong* and he wants to be able to Cover His Posterior. (See: Sarbanes-Oxley Act.) Address his fear by pointing out the REALITY of what happens WHEN something goes wrong.
Of course, he could mention about coding a work-around, but that holds true for either platform. It's a non-factor.
It might help to also point out that with LAMP, it is possible to be pro-active and actively search for vulnerabilities. Seeing as others would have the same interest in safety, this has already been done to a some extent, but you still have the option of doing this yourself. With MS .NET, you're screwed. It's closed source and there's no way to investigate what problems are there. Security by obscurity? Right.
Testing for vulnerabilities: There's a big difference between what is POSSIBLE with: Black Box (.NET) vs White Box (LAMP).
Still, with a bug in .NET the manager can say it's a bug with Microsoft and wave his hands around it. Sounds good, but in the meantime, his hands are tied, and
the brown stuff is still hitting the spinnie-thingie. With LAMP, he CAN do more than just wait for a fix... and any fix that can be implemented in less than a month is a win compared to Windows.
I know I waved my hands around some in the preceding, but the manager really doesn't care HOW your code works, or even WHAT your code is written in. He's just looking at an abstract "applications that do FOO". Speak to him at his level. Get him to be specific about his fears. For each one, address what could be done with either platform. Provide a reasonable time line. Keep harping on having to wait for MS to get back to you with a fix, while, with LAMP, you could have already constructed one.
You haven't been approached yet to look into it, right? Then take a small part of your infrastructure, just a few servers. Add license costs, hardware upgrades and so on. Don't forget porting and an extra admin to do the work. You'll end up with a pretty big number very quickly. Then send it up to your management chain as a proposal for a diversification. Don't mention that you heard rumors about a switch or anything. Just sell it as an idea someone in your department had and you wanted to do a small trial.
:)
Its simple. I helped a friend do it at his company. We took about 10% of the infrastructure - the cost came out to be around 250K in hardware and licenses and about 1.6M for porting. Of course it was denied. Then, a few weeks later the official directive came in and my friend responded with something like "ok, I'm confused. I just got turned down for a small portion, 10% at a little less than 2M, and now you want me to do everything?" Never heard from them again
Too bad I can't take credit for that idea - I got it from a bunch of guys that did the same where they worked and their proposal cut the whole talks about a transition short... Important thing is you show you looked at it before you were asked to on your own will. Otherwise you'll just be pushed aside as a Linux fanatic or something like that. But if they see you already looked at it and management already said it is too expensive, things look very different.
Peter.
" a manager whose only real knowledge of Linux is "if it's so good, why would you give it away for free"?"
"Because the best things in life are free - you PAY for crap like Windows."
Ask him is he things solaris or java or aix are "unprofessional" products. Versions of all those available for free downloads - heck, Sun sent me the install dvds for opensolaris for free. Then ask him why he thinks that a few thousand programmers working at Microsoft can beat out a world-wide network of programmers, many paid by industry leaders like IBM and Novell, whose work is peer-reviewed!
Would he feel confident if his doctor started recommending non-peer-reviewed cures and drugs? Does he like the idea doing away with the notion of a fair trial by a jury of his peers? Would he trust an airplane, a nuclear power plant, his fridge or toilet if they ran Windows?
Then tell him that he really needs to get with the times - his attitude is stuck in the '80s. - that's 1380, when everything was run by guilds with "secret knowledge." Lincoln freed the slaves in 1863, and since then, people want more and more of that "freedom" in all parts of their lives.
Start looking around for other jobs.
The issue here isn't about .NET vs LAMP, or proprietary vs open source. I would give the same advice if the decision had been the reverse, ie switch from 100% .NET to LAMP.
Basically your company's upper management is going to make a huge decision without any input from developers. If senior developers like yourself weren't consulted before the change, it's unlikely they have a migration plan that is more detailed than "1) Switch from LAMP to .NET 2) ???? 3) Profit!". Is this a company you want to stay in?
It all depends on how individuals see the world around them. I think managers, who are mostly business school educated, don't see the world the same way the rest of us (developers) do.
Actually most managers do not have an MBA. Many have undergraduate degrees in science and engineering. Also, I'm in an MBA program right now and there is no shortage of engineers and IT (including admins) in my class. Some of my professors who have decades of real world experience in strategy and marketing at major corporations have undergraduate degrees in electrical engineering, mechanical engineering, etc.
They probably don't understand why someone would work for free or why someone would volunteer at a soup kitchen.
That is an extremely ignorant statement. There is a lot of charitable work being performed by business schools, fund raising, volunteering, etc. Additionally, a couple classmates actually work at non-profit research or charitable organizations. I know several that made donations of their time to various charities before entering business school, and who have also continued to make such donations despite having far less spare time now that they are back in school. The school also maintains a list of local charities that could use help in some area of business.
You are engaging in the same ignorant stereotyping that many around here complain of with respect to how geeks, and technical issues/people in general, are portrayed on TV and movies.
Most of the managers would never think that work could be fun unless it payed lots of money. Manager-types chose business school just as a way to get more money, it was a pretty good shortcut -- you go to school, pick business as your major, party for 4 years with buds, and then one of their dads hires you as a manager -- the system works great
That is also a fairly ignorant statement. I have BS and MS degrees in CS. Except for 2nd year calculus and theory of computation I am routinely using more advanced math in marketing classes. Yes, I was completely shocked. Yes, I used to hold the same arrogant and erroneous opinions you now hold.
Developers became developers because they like to write software. Most found ways to get payed for it, but they didn't dream of reaches first, then thought that becoming a developer would get them there and chose 'computer science' as a major in college (those that did do that, probably ended up switching to 'communication', 'business administration' or 'comparative literature' before the 2nd year.)
Bull. The vast majority of CS graduates that I have interviewed basically got into it because someone told them it was a good career path. It is difficult to wade through the applicants and find those truly have an interest in the work. Also, donating time to an open source project does not necessarily identify those with an interest. Some of the more savvy career path types realize that this is an easier way to get something on the resume outside of classwork.
Also, some individuals donate time to FOSS for non-altruistic reasons such as ego, improving credibility/reputation, getting some experience in an esoteric area before applying for a job, etc. I'm not saying there is anything wrong with this. Just that your are romantically naive about FOSS developers.
Only three things are certain; death, taxes, and apocryphal quotations - Ben Franklin.
That's a lousy argument in a business environment.
The theory that big busineses are all about reducing costs is an oversimplification. Some small businesses worry about keeping costs as low as possible, but generally this is not a major issue for the big ones because they essentially control their markets and can charge whatever they want. The consumer is picking up the tab, so who cares about costs. Take the US telecoms market for example. Does anyone honestly think they're trying to control costs. If so, then why is the US so pathetic in comparison to the global market. Large corporations are just as wasteful as the large governments that they've taken over for in so many industries like telecoms that used to be heavily regulated. There's no efficiency added in this transition, just a new social model. What big businesses do is not to cut costs at every corner. No, what they do is whatever is best for the business ecosystem that they are a part of.
To know what that is, you need to understand some of the core principles of business. There are two particularly important categories of costs from a business perspective regardless of size and those are labor costs versus capital costs. Theses costs are not of equalent from a business management perspective. Labor costs are under constant pressure because they drag businesses down. Labor costs are the enemy of business and as a manager you always look for ways to reduce labor costs so as a worker you might get the idea that cost controls are what business is all about. But that's only half the picture. The other side of the coin is capital costs. Capital costs, on the other hand, are actually a good thing if you run a business. If you understand this you understand that there is a genuine fundamental resistance to open source in business for reasons that are much more complex than simply whether or not it costs more. Open source cuts capital costs and empowers labor which is not a good thing from a business leader's perspective.
And I'm not blaming the managers here. The people who make decisions in a company are just as much trapped in the game as the lowest level janitorial employees. They have to compete against other companies using the rules that companies play by and thus they need to make their decisions according to the laws of capital and not according to what makes sense or what they think is right or wrong. Often times business decisions do not make the slightest bit of sense from a practical perspective and yet they work from a business angle.
So arguing about whether Microsoft costs more is really not going to make much of a difference. The point is: even if Microsoft does costs more, it can cost a thousand times more and still make sense from a business perspective because it is counted as a capital cost and capital costs are good from a business perspective. Look at how US telecoms are still committed to an extremely costly ATM infrastructure in an on-going effort to block out VoIP. Clearly, reducing costs, especially capital costs, is not a major goal for large corporations. Labor costs, on the other hand, those make sense to cut. Ask your boss if he would like you to take a cut in your wages and I'm sure he'll totally see your point.
Air is free, and it seems pretty good to me.
I suspect upper management is more concerned about basing a business on software that has no support, and that seems like it could go off in any direction on the whim of its authors and the company would be left in the dark unable to do business.
Most corporate types want assurances. they want to know that they will be able to get supply of the things they need (in thise case: OS, computers, developers).
From their limited knowledge they aren't certain that Linux will support computers that come in next year, then what do they do, base their business on older stuff and try to migrate over to something else at the last minute. The aren't sure that the guys working on Linux might just decide it's boring and quit working on it, suddenly there is no more free OS anymore. again they have to adapt the business at the last minute.
none of this is true of course, but this is the sort of impression I have gotten talking over with business types that didn't want to adopt linux or wanted to switch away from it.
There is a feeling that Microsoft will always be there, and that they will always be ready to sell you the software you need for your business. which is somewhat true, but not entirely so.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire