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

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.