IT Leaders Now Expected To Be Open To Open Source (enterprisersproject.com)

StewBeans writes: Typically it's developers — not senior IT executives — who have been pushing their IT departments to adopt open source software, but the tide is beginning to turn. The Weather Company's CIO, Bryson Koehler, says if IT decision makers are not bringing up open source solutions to business problems, they will start to lose credibility as leaders. He references recent moves from major players like Apple, Google and IBM as evidence of open source going mainstream. As it continues to increase in importance, "companies that are still shying away from open are clearly being led by people who are probably not fully informed about the decisions they're making." Koehler hypothesizes that as these leaders are replaced by more informed decision makers, "expect to see a continued rise in the use of open source technology solutions, especially in modularized ways so that it's easier to replace one set of libraries or components in your stack with a new set as open source projects ebb and flow throughout their life cycles."

Comments

Bring More Solutions than just One

[bigdady92]

Which is all these Management types want is Solution(S) to problems they have and not "Well just buy off the shelf product X, it'll do" when there are alternatives available.

Open Source solutions are not always the best solution but they are A solution to the problems. Remember you need someone that can tinker around with the software unless you are buying support from a vendor.

    Nothing worse than some PHB saying "It's free! No payments! Saves us tons of money!" and completely forgets that the only person that knew how to use the software at all was some intern that left a month after the project was done for a better paying gig somewhere else.

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[JaredOfEuropa]

Don't be too scared of that intern leaving either. Just find someone else to support and maintain it. Do plan a little bit ahead, have some redundancy, and before you deploy such a solution to production, make sure the IT hygiene stuff is in place like backups that work, infosec, and some documentation. I've worked with a fair few systems that way, and it absolutely is possible to run them on a shoestring budget, even in a large corporation. One objection I keep hearing is: "How can we rely on a system with no support process and no SLA?" Answer: SLAs are cover-your-ass metrics for PHBs but they have very little to do with actual service. If you get the right tinkerers and interns, in my experience support from these guys is invariably better and faster than from the typical big outsourcing ITIL partners with CMM level 5000. Think about how much you really need that system and match that with appropriate safeguards and redundancy. And if a key guy does leave after a year, you'll have to scramble a bit to keep things going. That's when you'll often hear "How the hell can you manage a system like this, look at the mess we are in". Instead, think of the many, many thousands of dollars saved by keeping your support lean and using inexpensive, fit for purpose open source software.

Of course this requires involvement and support from managers who actually understand a thing or two about how IT works.

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Open Source solutions are not always the best solution but they are A solution to the problems. Remember you need someone that can tinker around with the software unless you are buying support from a vendor."

I'm not sure if you are being disingenuous or you really believe that, but "tinkering around with the software" is an extra option you have with Open Source. It typically isn't a requirement at all. Perhaps you could give an example of Open Source software you think needs a special class of user called "tinkerer"? Can you name a FOSS tool that requires you to know software development to use? (Excluding, of course, tools specifically for software devs, like gcc, gdb, etc.)

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you could give an example of Open Source software you think needs a special class of user called "tinkerer"?

Try compiling three year old scientific software written in academia without either a programmer or a sysadmin (either should fulfill the role of "tinkering" with software).
make
Warning
Warning
Warning
Warning
Error
Warning
Warning
Warning
Warning
Error
Warning

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[Anonymous Coward]

"many thousands of dollars saved by keeping your support lean and using inexpensive" This can also be accomplished using non-Open source solutions if the IT staff is managed correctly. It's bad management and out dated policies that really screw things up. For the larger enterprises there is also a legal liability risk when incorporating open source into their environments. This is especially true for enterprises with deep pockets. Companies have 3 choices when deciding what type of software they need to support their objectives. They can buy 3rd party closed applications, develop the needed applications using in-house developers, and using an open source solution. All 3 of these choices are viable depending on the particular situation and an enterprise can chose a combination of all 3 to achieve their objectives. Combining the first two choices are widely used because the pluses and minuses for those options are pretty well established. The open source option adds licensing that can sometimes be misinterpreted or even violated by the IT staff once the software is put into use. Open source solutions can sometimes require technical expertise that the existing enterprise IT staff may not have. Both the legal and technical concerns can be alleviated but they re legitimate concerns that cannot be ignored.

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[paavo512]

Perhaps you could give an example of Open Source software you think needs a special class of user called "tinkerer"?

Try compiling three year old scientific software written in academia without either a programmer or a sysadmin (either should fulfill the role of "tinkering" with software).

I know the sentiment. The only thing worse than open-source software from academia is closed-source software from academia. We ended up putting it in a separate background process so when it crashes we can try to run it again a couple of times.

Making some program open-source does not magically increase its quality, and being in academia does not magically turn professional scholars into professional programmers. Nothing new here.

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Try compiling three year old scientific software written in academia "

And it would be better if that software was Closed Source because ??? ...... You don't seem to be able to grasp this concept. Nothing about "Open Source" can ever make a piece of software worse; it can only make it better. To extend your analogy, there is no way to make it work if it isn't closed source. Why? Well it turns out to have problems compiling from the source, you need the actual fucking source.

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[Zero__Kelvin]

"I know the sentiment. The only thing worse than open-source software from academia is closed-source software from academia."

I actually am not convinced that you realize you just made an extraordinarily good argument for the advantages of Open Source, but maybe you do. In either case, thank you for pointing out that only a moron thinks that "I'm having trouble compiling this" is not a much better position to be in than "I don't have any frigging source to compile!!!" To state the obvious, in the former situation you might eventually be able to use the code; in the latter case you will never be able to do so.

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[jedidiah]

> Try compiling three year old scientific software written in academia without either a programmer or a sysadmin (either should fulfill the role of "tinkering" with software).

Why isn't it already compiled? Better yet, why isn't it in some form of package like DEB or RPM?

You know, it's not 1994 anymore.

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[techno-vampire]

Why isn't it already compiled?

It may be a computation-intensive program that needs to be optimized for the hardware it's expected to run on to squeeze every possible clock-cycle out of it. There are other reasons, but that's the first one that came to mind.

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[Zero__Kelvin]

Next time, remember that not everything that comes to your mind has to be perpetrated upon the masses. Thanks.

Re:Bring More Solutions than just One

[spauldo]

ABIs change much more rapidly than APIs, and there are so many platforms to choose from. If the project isn't actively maintained, source code distribution is the only way that makes sense.

Three year old .deb or .rpm files can be a pain to deal with, and it only gets worse over time. Often, they're linked to library versions that are outdated and clash with the system libraries. Yes, there's ways to solve those problems - both from the packager's point of view and the user's point of view - but why bother when you can just distribute the source code and leave it to the user to compile? If it's important enough, a distribution maintainer will pick it up and make binary packages available.

Getting reluctant code to compile on your system used to be a required skill for UNIX sysadmins. In my opinion, it still should be. The problems we had in 1994 haven't changed, and in some ways, i.e. Linux's horrible backwards compatibility compared to, say, Solaris - they have gotten worse.

Isn't this obvious?

[__aaclcg7560]

If Microsoft is going the open source route, open source must be a good thing.

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[Anonymous Coward]

Tried your comment with http://www.thesarcasmdetector.com/, got 44 (pretty high on the sarcasmometer).

Re:Isn't this obvious?

[__aaclcg7560]

And the old Reagan chestnut — "I'm from the government and I'm here to help you." — scores a -28 on the sarcasmometer. Seems busted to me.

Open Up!

[Anonymous Coward]

And swallow!

With all the surveillance BS from Windows 10...

[Anonymous Coward]

For the first time our clients are seriously considering getting rid of Windows...

Re:With all the surveillance BS from Windows 10...

[Zero__Kelvin]

I have to say that in that one respect, and only in that one respect (For the first time our clients are seriously considering getting rid of Windows..), Windows 10 has some redeeming virtue ;-)

lol...apple? open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

lol

One example at one company

[Anonymous Coward]

"OHMAHGERD, what a paradigm shift that will have earth-shaking ramifications throughout the IT world!!!!!111111"

Come on, guys...even when this sort of story promotes open source, it's still clickbait.

Re:One example at one company

[Hognoxious]

Every ... single ... fucking .. bastard thing StewBeans posts is clickbait for underpantersrejects.com

DC

[malditaenvidia]

So when is free software going to properly replace domain controllers? Because that's the only reason why Windows Server still has some manner of prevalence in server sites. That and exchange.

Re:DC

[Electrawn]

Samba 4? And to that end my company uses AWS Directory Service, which the "Simple AD" is supported Samba 4 that hooks our servers, windows laptops and AWS workspaces to one non-MS domain controller.

Whatever the cool kids are doing

[Anonymous Coward]

The IT leadership environment just follows whatever the cool kids are doing. So that is why if Google, Apple and Facebook do something then you better just accept it as axiomatically good or you could be LEFT BEHIND!!!! Oh noes!!!!!

Some open source is good and some sucks. The problem is that the PHBs treat the term "Open Source" like some kind of brand enhancer like "Gluten Free". Fools will put "Gluten Free" on pretty much anything because it has a cult following. "Open Source" is not axiomatically good.

We've lost the ability to be economically rational in IT. Its a big fashion show now. The art fags have taken over.

Re: Whatever the cool kids are doing

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh come on, some of us actually have celiac disease... It's fucking annoying when every person who notices it (no matter how subtle you try to be about it) asks with a stupid smirk on their face "what, you one of them special people, hipstrr or something?".

Re:Whatever the cool kids are doing

[chipschap]

Some open source is good and some sucks. ..... "Open Source" is not axiomatically good.

Of course this is true, and it is also true of closed source software or software in general.

But at least with open source, if it's almost but not quite good enough, and there are sufficient in-house skills, there's a chance of getting it to do what you want. (A better choice might be to find better software, but sometimes the only other option is something very expensive.) With closed source, there's nothing you can do to fix it if the vendor doesn't step up.

I've come across special-purpose "not quite good enough but promising" open-source tools/software that simply didn't exist in other forms (or in a form that I could afford to pay for). My classic example is OCR software. Really good OCR software typically runs on Windows, not Linux[1], and is very expensive for personal purchase. Open source OCR used to be vastly inferior, but the community tinkered enough and now it's quite decent, and free.

[1] This example may be dated; I'm thinking here of Abbyy Finereader, OmniPage, and competitors. I've noticed that as open-source OCR software has improved, the price of proprietary has been dropping (but still, not inexpensive). This is perhaps an interesting benefit provided by the existence of viable open-source options.

Re:Whatever the cool kids are doing

[sjames]

It's been that way for a LOOOOOONG time. Remember when everything needed to be "CORBA compliant" and CORBA was going to magically make a bunch of apps that were never designed to work together into a seamless and all powerful whole (somehow)?

Then it was Java because the JVM made it run absolutely everywhere with no effort at all and was brand new tech (as long as you don't remember p-code from the late '60s that is).

These days, it's "the cloud" (it's so fluffy!) Suddenly, companies that used to lock data behind a guarded door and you needed a password, a 10 digit combination, and a letter from the Pope just to peek at it are perfectly happy to upload it to "the cloud" where nothing can go wrong.

As for Open Source, the big change is that managers can no longer instantly disregard a potential solution just because it is Open Source. That doesn't mean it is ALWAYS the right answer, just that it isn't NEVER the right answer. It has always been malpractice to ignore a solid Open Source package on the grounds that it's not expensive enough and didn't take you golfing in Tahiti, it's just that it is now recognized as malpractice.

1) This is because IBM owns them now 2)

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

1) The CIO is saying this because they just got bought by IBM, who pushes "open source" until you look around and your whole operations is being run by H1Bs fresh off the plane who say "open source" to distract you while they Google for how to open a command prompt. http://fortune.com/2015/10/30/...

2) I agree. That's why I use a free, open API for weather instead: http://openweathermap.org/pric...

Re:1) This is because IBM owns them now 2)

[Anonymous Coward]

being run by H1Bs fresh off the plane who say "open source" to distract you while they Google for how to open a command prompt

So true.

Re:1) This is because IBM owns them now 2)

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem is that a certain computer company has changed from one-stop-shop for all technology, to trying to compete with Infosys and Tata by offshoring all they can, and using the $60,000/year loophole to get around the H-1B limits.

With human labor so cheap, it is no wonder why certain companies are choosing to waste many man-hours on half-baked solutions to make them work.

Take OpenStack for example. Liberty has gotten better, but there is no real upgrade path, and it definitely is not an environment ready for production work. Basic functionality like high availability for VMs or even fault tolerant VMs (which is an innate feature of both PowerVM and vSphere) isn't present. Instead you get a snotty attitude that your servers need to be cattle, not pets... problem is that if a server is truly production, it isn't possible to stuff what is running on it in a Docker container. Not all apps can be placed in a vacuum bed like NTP or DNS. Oracle RAC comes to mind here [1]. The main reason why OpenStack is getting attention is because it can be cheaper to throw low cost labor at getting it to work than it would be to pay the license fees for VMWare, Hyper-V, or public cloud solutions like Azure or AWS. OpenStack may eventually get to the point where it can be used in production, just because of all the people working on it, but as of now, it is a nice novelty item. (Good luck running Windows VMs on it, for example.)

Maybe it will work in our favor. MS changed the licensing for Windows Server 2016, and that OS has some major advances in it (Storage Spaces Direct, shielded VMs) that are not common now. It would be interesting seeing someone make a device driver that can take disks from a number of machines and present them as one volume, similar to how an Isilon can have 3+ nodes, and disk I/O can be easily be shunted over the Infiniband bus to the nodes which actually have the data. I would love to see open source alternatives to AD and Exchange that can scale, replicate, delegate, and expand not just up, but out.

[1]: Not saying that Oracle is superior... but it is ACID compliant, while stuff like CouchDB may cost nothing, but it trades availability for consistency, and in some environments can cause big issues.

Re:1) This is because IBM owns them now 2)

[Gizzmonic]

OpenStack? Run Windows VMs?

Doesn't look like a problem for the world's largest OpenStack installation.

As for free ACID-compliant DBs, that's what Postgres is for...CAP theorem and all that.

Re:1) This is because IBM owns them now 2)

[Gazzonyx]

[...]

Maybe it will work in our favor. MS changed the licensing for Windows Server 2016, and that OS has some major advances in it (Storage Spaces Direct, shielded VMs) that are not common now. It would be interesting seeing someone make a device driver that can take disks from a number of machines and present them as one volume, similar to how an Isilon can have 3+ nodes, and disk I/O can be easily be shunted over the Infiniband bus to the nodes which actually have the data. I would love to see open source alternatives to AD and Exchange that can scale, replicate, delegate, and expand not just up, but out. [...].

You can actually do all this at the file system, logical volume, and service levels with clustered Samba-4. CLVM(if you want to) +GFS2+CTDB+Samba-4. Bob's your uncle. There are more powerful and complex solutions, but this is pretty standard. Ref: http://www.golinuxhub.com/2014...

If you're feeling froggy, drop in OpenChange on top of Samba-4 for all your Exchange server/protocol needs. Ref: http://www.openchange.org/cook...

Support is the big issue

[acoustix]

I've always been open minded when it came to OS solutions. The big issue that I see from the management perspective is support for the product. I happen to have very limited software development experience in my crew, mostly systems management. If/when something breaks we need to be able to assure management that we have the resources or support contracts in place to get the issue resolved ASAP.

I'm assuming that most other people are in the same boat. It's all about covering your butt.

Re: Support is the big issue

[Anonymous Coward]

So you have a support from OBM (name changed). Then you find a problem from their software. You spend a lot of time creating a simplified example and tell that to OBM. After some days OBM will tell you a work-a-round which you already knew abd wnd of story. That is so much better than using something you could even fiz yourself if needed.

Re: Support is the big issue

[murdocj]

Assuming you could "fix it yourself". Just because you have source (maybe millions of lines of it) doesn't mean you can fix it.

Re: Support is the big issue

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah but there are a lot of projects you can too. I don't mean something like the Linux kernel, but it's damn awesome for being able to support web FOSS services compared to tripe like SharePoint. Being able to step through the code and fix bugs as required (and report the *fix* back upstream rather than just complain about a fault). No waiting on vendors and you actually get to make the product better for others.

We've had virtually zero downtime on such products and it means we can quickly response to adapting products to suit business needs.

Of course it helps that my management see it this way too and are very supportive.

Re:Support is the big issue

[TheRaven64]

What does 'support' mean to you? To me, it means 'if I find a bug that critically affects my business, someone will fix it'. For any given open source package, I can usually find a dozen companies willing to offer me that service, with varying cost / levels of competence. With a proprietary product, I can find at most one, and usually their 'support' option is 'please buy the next version, yes I know the UI has changed, just add it up to your retraining budget'.

Re:Support is the big issue

[acoustix]

What does 'support' mean to you? To me, it means 'if I find a bug that critically affects my business, someone will fix it'. For any given open source package, I can usually find a dozen companies willing to offer me that service, with varying cost / levels of competence. With a proprietary product, I can find at most one, and usually their 'support' option is 'please buy the next version, yes I know the UI has changed, just add it up to your retraining budget'.

Here's the problem with using a 3rd party to fix bugs: These fixes may not be compatible with updates/upgrades from the original software source. I have run into these issues before with both OS and proprietary software. It was a real pain in the butt to resolve.

I'm not saying that support contacts are 100% airtight. They're not. But when it comes to covering your butt from the less tech-minded people at the top of the company it is usually the safest option. There are always exceptions though.

Re: Support is the big issue

[sjames]

If it's proprietary, you have one choice for support, better hope they're helpful. With Open Source, you probably have several choices for support. If the one you chose isn't getting the job done, hire another.

why that is

[Jodka]

Corporations are still profit-driven, but now sometimes the financial gain from a network effect of open-source exceeds the economic rent from licensing closed-source.

THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[pecosdave]

I've been in I.T. since about 1997.

I've been pushing for Open Source acceptance almost just as long.

What has stood in my way? College grads. Turns out schools in the 90's and 00's were fed Microsoft money and free software to teach the likes of Microsoft servers and Front Page. When I mentioned the word "Linux" at a large oil company around a decade ago I was branded a heretic and nothing I said on any subject was taken seriously by project managers or developers who were on the M.S. Gravy Train during that era from that point forward - even when the subject was along the lines of electrical engineering and had nothing to do with software. Turns out I was right on that one too.

Just like web developers from that era who didn't go to college wrote the best web pages because they shunned Front Page server/network guys who didn't go to college had a leg up from not being taught bad habits. Pair that up with the modern PC (not the computer type) culture being taught at school you're pretty much guaranteed a brainwashed in multiple ways spineless slug if you hire a college grad, whereas a self starter got a real education in the school of hard knocks.

Those people like software without agendas.

Re:THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[Anonymous Coward]

The next step here, though, is that you'll be subject to the whims of the github crowd. Prepare for companies to be called to task if the programs they use do not reach an acceptable diversity quota.

Re:THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess the colleges have changed a bit since '97. Now the college grads are more into brainwashing others, especially the VC funds.

Re:THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[DogDude]

When I mentioned the word "Linux" at a large oil company around a decade ago I was branded a heretic and nothing I said on any subject was taken seriously by project managers or developers who were on the M.S. Gravy Train during that era from that point forward

Pair that up with the modern PC (not the computer type) culture being taught at school you're pretty much guaranteed a brainwashed in multiple ways spineless slug if you hire a college grad

Call me crazy, but I doubt it was "Linux" that caused you to be ignored. Sounds like you have some other social problems that might contribute, as well.

Re:THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[Anonymous Coward]

Really? In my experience uni people are a bit more open to different ideas and often bring some fresh perspective into a team. The idea is to balance craziness with experience.

Then again, I may just be targeting differently during hiring. On second thought, most of the university hires I've done are still at uni when hired. It may be that the people toughing it out until presented with credentials before looking for work might not be the most creative, driven or opinionated bunch.

Re: THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[pecosdave]

Say what you will, buy the guy who hired me bragged that I was the best hiring choice he ever made, then proceeded to look at my ISP background as what made me good. He then started pulling from the former ISP pool with mixed results.

I started out on an 8 man team that got whittled down due to structure changes and was working alone for a year at the end on that job. Say what you will about my personality but it got me employee of the month at a multinational this year as well as being featured otherwise. BTW, the tech guy at a non tech company got that title.

  No, the oil company used Front Page for their internal sites, had Microsoft nearly everything and the attitudes we're immediately changed towards me upon the first mention of replacing an NT box that only recorded and transmitted measurements but crashed all the time with a reliable simple Linux system. I am not a soft pushover but I am fair and friendly. When someone is getting kickbacks and you threaten that their attitudes change.

Re:THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[unimacs]

Pretty sure MS Front Page wasn't part of many CS curricula.

Re:THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[pecosdave]

No, but I never said CS. There are other parts of college that different software belongs to. I'm assuming the accounting students weren't walking around with soldering irons, but I'll be they were using Excel, and if we're limiting this discussion to the era I referred to Quatrro and Lotus 1-2-3 were not only viable "other" choices they were just as popular if not more so.

Re:THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[ausekilis]

I have a similar story. A few years ago there was a call from the chief financial guy in one of the military branches for ways to cut cost for the 120k desktop computers they supply to all the worker bees. Of course, I suggested LibreOffice as a replacement for MS Office, saving some $90 per desktop. I even provided the rationale that LibreOffice at the time was really a stand-in for MS Office 2k3 (no ribbon nonsense) and said that the training provided to migrate to 2k7 would have been more expensive than to just switch to LibreOffice.

I also mentioned switching to something like RHEL or Ubuntu for the OS. Each would significantly cut back on overall costs for a majority of the workers that only do email, office and web.

The response I got was from an O-4, on behalf of the O-7. "We have deemed these options to be more expensive". The wording in the email was obviously some generic crap, since there are plenty of articles of gov agencies (European or otherwise) that directly contradicted most statements in the email.

Personally, I think there is a stigma about open source for many decision makers. There's this lack of familarity, the lack of a single belly button to blame for something going wrong, and a misconception about how much control they could have over the workstations. Sure, Active Directory has a lot of easy buttons, but it's nothing all that special. As for the workers? If my mom, who can't work a VCR, can use Linux Mint... there's no excuse for anyone else that knows "the E icon is for the internet".

Re:THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[pecosdave]

There is hope.

My wife - who at 30 years old grew up during the worst of the M.S. propaganda years, that most people in her age range that realized it was B.S. propaganda went Apple (a better choice in some respects but worse lock-in and has it's own problems) has asked for Linux on her laptop. I'm going to put Netrunner Horizon on it tonight or the next night I have free time.

My daughter who is 12 was given an HP Stream laptop with Windows 8 with Bing hated it with a passion. She had a Chromebook for school (not to mention a netbook with Linux all the way back to the age of 4 for movie purposes), she asked me for Linux. Considering her Chromebook past I put Chromixium on it. She loves it, and actually uses Firefox instead of the default Chome/Chromium.

Granted being related to me they have more exposure to GNU/Linux than most people in their categories, but they also have exposure to Mac OS (the TV system is running on that, and I setup a G5 with kids games for my daughter when she was younger), and Windows from the world at large. There's hope, if they can jump on the GNU/Linux bandwagon the world at large is ready for it.

Re:THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[sribe]

Just like web developers from that era who didn't go to college wrote the best web pages because they shunned Front Page server/network guys who didn't go to college had a leg up from not being taught bad habits. Pair that up with the modern PC (not the computer type) culture being taught at school you're pretty much guaranteed a brainwashed in multiple ways spineless slug if you hire a college grad, whereas a self starter got a real education in the school of hard knocks.

Maybe you should stop thinking of DeVry as "college" ;-)

Re:THEN STOP HIRING COLLEGE GRADS!

[pecosdave]

I don't know much about DeVry itself, I remember the commercials and what have you.

I will say I think a vocational school is a better choice than a full on university anymore unless you just happen to have loaded parents. Go in, learn what you need, get a job, get out, get productive.

If you want a college education I think it's better to wait until you're actually productive in your chosen field then get the degree when you're ready to become management. It also gives some of the brain washing and cultish mandatory "training" state funded schools and universities have a difficult time penetrating your mind.

Here's my experience

[Anonymous Coward]

2 types of companies I have worked at:

1) Tells the public "We love open source!!!11" - has a successful product (LAMP stack), earning tens of millions per year. Corporate actually doesn't trust open source, ends up spending several of those millions on a new competing system (.NET/C#).. Major customers are told they are being migrated to the new system, all of them kicking and screaming, most bail, the top customer stays with the LAMP system.

2) Tells investors "We love open source!!!11" - The company openly shares its disdain for Microsoft, claims we are working on dumping Windows, yet 90% of platform is written in .NET/C#.. I work in a division under IT but not software engineering and we coded this segment in Python/Ubuntu, got absolutely lambasted by the company ("nobody here understands Linux" - meaning just the CTO) and told to rewrite it in C#/.NET

So basically the companies I've worked at talk the talk, but do not walk the walk. Kind of like when all these startups advertise that they have "Big Data". It sounds impressive but isn't an honest statement.

FOG Project

[gizmobuddy]

2 Years ago I convinced my IT manager to let me implement the FOG project for our System Imaging on site. Its been the best decision we've ever made, and because of that I was able to convince him to donate a good chunk of change to the group. Now, whenever I have an open alternative to a problem, he has no problem with saying "lets test it first, and we'll see".

Re: FOG Project

[Anonymous Coward]

Giving money to open source projects...

I buy soup when I want some tastey soup. I donate to a soup kitchen to invest in their operations, not because I expect the soup to taste better.

Honestly, I wish charging money for software use was compatible with open source. Like you have to pay to use it, but here's the product with source, do anything except give it away.

We're soo awkwardly close with stuff like jboss/wildfly, MySQL, puppet, rhel/fedora etc.

Re: FOG Project

[gizmobuddy]

Why wouldn't you donate to an open source project? We actually use this software to get business functions done, and want development to continue.

Re: FOG Project

[gizmobuddy]

Sorry, I should say, we donated to the project because its good stuff: something that we can actually use, and we wanted to support the devs. What they do in the future is totally up to them. I don't expect them to continue developing for our sake, that would be stupid.

Re:lol...apple? open source?

[Alwin Henseler]

Sure why not (fyi: that's simply the first 3 Google hits).

Yes, there's a lot that's not "open" in iSomething land. But at least they understand open source, and work with a variety of open source projects (well okay... as long as it helps their business ;-).

Re: With all the surveillance BS from Windows 10..

[Anonymous Coward]

Then they face issues from the SEC due to SOX violations... Windows is FIPS/CC/EAL certified... Most OSS is not, and those certs can mean pass or fail come audit time.

The devil in the details

[sdinfoserv]

Sounds like someone has confused the difference between bringing in open source systems / platforms and dumping your closed source project into the open ecosphere because you've lost your interest or developers.

Closed source is like a stim drug

[John Allsup]

In the short term, doing the closed source thing can benefit you vs your market competitors. Most of the time, however, the needs of market economics force design decisions away from what is technically optimal. Dosing up on stims gives you a short term boost, but eventually you have to pay the price. Heres to the hope that business leaders learn to kick this habit.

Re:lol...apple? open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

One of the nice things about OS X is that most OSS stuff works on the platform. Only items like eCryptFS, btrfs, and other items which are Linux kernel specific tend to be tough to port. Deduplicating backup utilities like attic, borgbackup, obnam, and zbackup all work to some extent on OS X, and can be fairly easily installed using Homebrew.

Is OS X truly OSS? Not really. However, it is a decent desktop OS, a nice mainstream alternative to Windows.

Not at my company

[plazman30]

Open source software is completely forbidden.

Even existing open source products are being replaced. Apache and Tomcast servers are being replaced with Websphere servers. Mediawiki is being ripped out and replaced with Confluence. Virtualbox replaced by Vmware. MySQL by Oracle or MS SQL.

I even had to uninstall Notepad++ and replace it with a commercial text editor. If we use any perl or python, it needs to be ActiveState with a valid commercial license.

The only thing we still run that is open source is Linux. But we ONLY run Red Hat or SLES. Even our dev boxes are RedHat, and not CentOS.

Re:Not at my company

[Anonymous Coward]

I have seen that before at companies which had special legal requirements (indemnification for example, so if the software violated a patent, the customers couldn't be sued by the patent-holders.) One company I worked for (and this was a while back) even required the Intel compiler be used on the Linux machines as opposed to gcc.

Barring special EULAs, it is likely GPL 3.0 licensing that can cause this. If one has an embedded process (perhaps six axis mill or 3D printer), used GPL v3.0 code like busybox or GnuPG, then all the recipes that are used on the mill have to be made public, or else lawsuits can be filed. Which doesn't help with trade secrets.

Re:Not at my company

[Anonymous Coward]

Open source software is completely forbidden.

Even existing open source products are being replaced. Apache and Tomcast servers are being replaced with Websphere servers. Mediawiki is being ripped out and replaced with Confluence. Virtualbox replaced by Vmware. MySQL by Oracle or MS SQL.

I even had to uninstall Notepad++ and replace it with a commercial text editor. If we use any perl or python, it needs to be ActiveState with a valid commercial license.

The only thing we still run that is open source is Linux. But we ONLY run Red Hat or SLES. Even our dev boxes are RedHat, and not CentOS.

Mind telling us which company you work for so we can short the stock?

Re:Not at my company

[freeze128]

Why?

Re:Not at my company

[illogict]

I just checked https://busybox.net/license.ht...: it seems that BusyBox is still GPLv2.

Re:Not at my company

[david_thornley]

Output from GPLed programs isn't GPLed, unless it copies stuff from the GPLed program (such as a compiler would), and most Gnu software has special permissions for that. Moreover, the CNC machine code I've seen just runs on the mill, without obfuscation, so if you're producing gcode and shipping it to others they already know what you're doing. If you use it in-house, there's no distribution requirement.

Did such companies get indemnified from the vendor? If not, GPL2ed software isn't going to add any additional risk.

Re: With all the surveillance BS from Windows 10.

[Anonymous Coward]

How can that be possibly true though? How is RedHat making its money selling open source operating systems, if some audit is going to cause a problem?

heh

[Anonymous Coward]

finally fucking shills learned the value of source code... when it's not only NSA that can access it. Good.

Hasta la Vista

[Anonymous Coward]

He references recent moves from major players like Apple, Google and IBM as evidence of open source going mainstream.

Microsoft Windows Spyware was so 2015 anyway.
http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=8445845&cid=51078199

Decades late, indeed

[THE_WELL_HUNG_OYSTER]

What an idiot. How did he get that job?