Ask Slashdot: Does your Employer have an OSS Policy?

osjedi submitted this tidbit for your toughts: "I have heard from a few people that the companies they work for have issued a statements to the IT departments stating that they are forbiden to utilize any open source software. Obviously this is short-sighted. I would be interested to know from fellow Slashdoters what stance (if any) their employer has taken regarding the use of OSS. I would like to compile a list of the companies forbiding the use of OSS. It would be fun to create a "Open Source Users" stock index, and a coresponding "Open Source Refusers" index." It would be interesting to know which companies actively promote Open Source as these might be good places for those OSS Coders who are currently looking for day jobs. What do you all think?

Comments

My experience with OSS at the Workplace

[EvlG]

Disclaimer: these opinions are my own, and are not indicitive of those of my employer.

I work at Ericsson US (our design center is based in Richardson TX) and they are just beginning to understand the benefits of Linux. I installed it on my workstation, and use it here and there to get stuff done. We are split between NT and Solaris (with the NT people pusing it slowly but surely to replace Solaris), so I can't really use it for everything.

The main problem is, many people (my group included) see Linux only as a cheap way to breathe life into older hardware. While we all know that Linux can run reasonably well on older machines, we also know that it just rocks on modern stuff. However, our design center is of the belief that if we want to run Linux, lets do it on some old hardware so we can save money. They aren't really looking at Linux as an alternative to other solutions with the same hardware; rather, they are looking at Linux as a way to put off buying new hardware.

I see this as a problem in the community at large; many times we emphasize the ability of Linux to use legacy stuff. Perhaps we should put more emphasis on just how awesome Linux is on modern stuff.

On a side note, I am definitely glad that my employer sees Linux as useful. Count Ericsson among the Enlightened :)

Misc. thoughts.

[Black Parrot]

Here's some general commentary after reading most of the posts that have appeared so far.

"No Linux" /= "anti-Linux", or at least not necessarily. At the big scale it makes perfect sense for a company to limit the variety of systems its support staff has to deal with.

Also, the entire phenomenon doesn't (necessarily) have anything to do with Linux and/or OSS. I once worked for a hugemongous company where the computing was mostly split between one mainframe per site vs. many departmental VAXen at the site. There was a never-terminating feud between them what wanted to get rid of the mainframes and them what wanted to get rid of the VAXen. (Among the support staff it was mostly a matter of friendly badgering, but among management it was apparently a matter of making and breaking careers.) The policy swung back and forth every few years, apparently as a function of who was retiring and who was moving up to fill the void.

To elaborate on what another poster said: corporate bureaucracy is a pyramid. Five people want to move into that single slot above them. If you do what all the others do, you've got 1/5 chance of success. If you do something different, you can avoid the luck of the 1/5 chance, and rise or fall depending on how your decision works out. This undoubtedly accounted for a certain number of managers who pushed their company to all-NT, and will undoubtedly account for a certain number of managers who will push their company to all-Linux. In other words, sometimes it's a matter of internal politics rather than of technology.

Never underestimate the power of salesmen bearing expense accounts. I've seen some incredibly stupid decisions made by people under salesmen's thumbs.

The license worries may be based on lack of knowledge, but they aren't entirely unreasonable for all that. The Software Pwhatever Association has companies terrified about getting keelhauled over unlicensed software. (Irony is, the SPA behaves rather like pirates when they do catch an offender.) The only solution here is educating decision makers about the GPL and other OSS licenses. This should happen automatically as they start seeing their peers in other companies adopt OSS, but it would be nice to get a favorable precedent-setting court case or two behind us. (IANAL, but the good thing is, apparently, that the more companies start using OSS, the less likely it is that a court will strike the GPL down as a quirky, unsupportable document. The fact that Fortune 100 companies are buying in to it more or less gives it a Common Law status. Also, if big companies rely on OSS, it will be easier to raise money for any defense funding that may be needed in the future.)

A number of posters have indicated that their management has swallowed the FUD hook, line, and sinker. This is another problem that should evaporate as more and more companies publicly acknowlege using OSS. How will the PHB reconcile "hacker's toy" with "Boeing uses it to design airplanes" ? (I'm sure the true PHB will pop his head into the Management Zone, but lots of other bosses will undoubtedly snap out of it.)

BTW, thanks to everyone who has posted. This discussion has been a really interesting peak behind the curtains.

Open Source OK for Flight Management

[WSH]

I work for a medium size engineering firm, Smiths Industries Aerospace in Grand Rapids, MI.

We develop Flight Management Systems for various types of aircraft (if it's bigger than a Cessna, odds are the pilot isn't really flying the plane, after all). We've been a VAX/VMS shop for a long time, and we still do a fair amount of devel on that platform, but with the decline in PC prices and the increase in PC power, we've been searching for a new approach.

Of course, the powers that be decided the future was in a Microsoft solution, but a number of us lowly engineer types were too revolted not to try and find something else. Solaris was the first choice, but since we write the majority of our code in Ada (no comments from the peanut gallery), we were limited in our choice of compilers between one by Rational and one by VADS. Well, neither of these produce very good code on the PowerPC considering how expensive they are.

Too hasten to the point, someone had the bright idea of trying a GCC cross-compiler with NYU's Ada front end, GNAT. You wouldn't believe how much better code it produces (30% - 50% better) on our benchmarks. Now we're looking at a linux based development environment to go with it.

I just goes to show how sneaky you have to be to get management to even try open source stuff sometimes. First you let them spend a pile of money on a poor solution, then you step in and replace it with a vastly better solution for -- what was that price again? -- oh, yes, for FREE. The suits are usually in such hot water at the time, they can't do anything about it anyway.

All right so I said more than I had too, but it's a kind of interesting story, isn't it?

wsh

Solution to the problem

[TheInternet]

This is a quite disturbing idea, but is also quite easy to solve -- in concept, at least. Compile a blacklist of anti-OSS/Linux companies. Give the list a prominent position on Slashdot. Mail the list around to opt-in participants on a weekly basis. Encourage mirroring and reposting of the list. I'm sure open source developers would be willing to participate -- Apache, PHP.net, OReilly.com, Perl.com.

What this will do is prevent talented inviduals from applying to the blacklisted companies. This scares the heck out of recruiters. They ability to attract new talent is based largely on how well the environment will suit their needs. And something this drastic would certainly attract mainstream media attention in fairly short order.

Perhaps even Microsoft-only shops (no Solaris, Mac, Apache etc) would get dinged even more.


But there would be some things to consider:

1) Need to verify and rate the claims of anti-OSS situations. Moderators would be a must. Abuse of power could potentially be a problem.

2) Make it clear that this is a positive thing. Explain how companies can take advantage of the benefits of open source, and get themselves un-blacklisted at the same time.

3) Make it clear that you don't have to use /only/ open source software.

4) Possibly inform/advocate OSS software that has commercial software qualities -- support contracts, shrinkwrapped packages, established support sites, sample code. Anything to ease the transition.


I would be willing to lead this charge. If anyone is interested, contact me. Maybe we can start a list to discuss our options.

Finally, I wonder how many of these companies are using open source software and don't realize it? If they're using Apache, Perl, Sendmail -- they're at least part of the way there, right?

More statements on company sites noting the use of open source software couldn't hurt, either, could it?

- Scott

------
Scott Stevenson

My cat likes cat food

[coredog]

I look at the thread, and the subject appears
to be why would a company have a "no OSS" policy?

However, the thread quickly degenerated into
"I use Perl and it works, NT sucks, blah blah blah"

There were a few posts that mentioned what is the probable reason (IMHO) for the no OSS policy. A no OSS policy means that you have to get approval to install software. This lets legal check the license and avoid any problems where someone installs something that is not freeware in a corporate setting (Applixware anyone?).

BTW, the subject was a poke at those who quickly
took this thread off topic. Why not post some relevant comments about how to create a business case to get OSS software approved?