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Bringing OSS Into a Closed Source Organization?

Posted by kdawson on from the teaching-a-stone-to-talk dept.

Piranhaa writes "At the major corporation I work for, there is currently a single person who decides what software to approve and disapprove within the organization. I've noticed that requests from users for open source Windows programs get denied, nearly instantaneously, on a regular basis. Anything from Gimp, to Firefox, even to Vim don't make the cut due to the simple fact that they are open source. Closed source programs from unknown vendors have a much better chance at approval than Firefox does. The whole mentality here is that anybody can change the source of a project, submit it, and you never know what kind of compiled binary you're going to get. I'm a firm believer in open source code, but I also know closed source has its place. So what would be the best way for me to argue, with all the facts, to allow these people to come to their own conclusion that open source is actually good? Would presenting examples of other big companies moving to open source work, and if so what are some good examples? Or can you suggest any other good approaches?"

1 of 427 comments (clear)

  1. They probably already use OSS anyway by nexu56 · · Score: 5, Funny

    At my previous job, I heard some really crazy reasons, from non-technical PHBs, for outlawing free software. All kind of nonsense up to and including Russian hackers planting backdoors/trojans in OSS apps.

    In the end, the best way to make these non-technical PHBs see sense was to simply point out all the OSS they were already using, without even knowing it.

    Those HPUX servers? Running Samba shares.

    That F5 SSLVPN network appliance? FreeBSD!

    The most priceless moment was when I discovered the main OSS opponent was an avid Firefox user. He referred to it as "Microsoft Firefox".