You missed the point. THE point is that they never really had a budget in the first place. They thought it could be done for nothing, by next Tuesday.
Much of what geeks do, and I see it a lot here on/. is that we tend to be DIYers. We see a high end server and say things like "I can build it for less". And people begin to expect that we can do things for less than to do it right, with engineered pieces.
Yes, we can build a off the shelf server to hold terabytes of storage for cheap. Too bad it is in a mini tower case instead of a rackmount chassis, and using SATA drives at 7200 RPM, instead of SAS drives at 10,000 (or 15,000), using onboard or cheap RAID rather than battery backed up RAID controller, etc and etc.
I can build two of those cheap ones for the cost of an expensive one. But that doesn't mean it is better.
There are three ways to build a system.
1) Cheap. 2) Expensive. 3) Right.
Right includes things like proper design, engineering, and build out, and planning for things that non-professionals would never think of. It is often more expensive that even #2. But in the long run the actual cost is less (time, effort, maintenance, performance, upgrades etc).
Doing things right is not easy, or else people would do things right the first time.
The point is to get them to the point of asking "what do we need in order to do _______", rather than assuming we can do it, for nothing, by next Tuesday.
Just the other day, we had a server motherboard die. Wouldn't even POST properly. The director of the dept the server is used for said that was unacceptable that they would be down for a couple of days while the server was being repaired.
I said that if this were truly the case, they would have a standby server, with a current backup of the database ready in stand by mode at all times, for fail over.
The problem is, they don't want to pay for a standby server, or the systems infrastructure to make sure that the DB can failover gracefully to the standby hw in the RARE event like this.
It costs money to do things like this, and sometimes lots more than it is actually worth. I find out all the time how much things are worth to people when stuff breaks, and when I quote a system setup that will work in the event of failure like what I described.
When they found out how much it would cost for a redundant system, even after the failure, they didn't pony up the $$, while maintaining that it was unacceptable to be down for any length of time.
How does one break that mentality, I'll never know.
We the few, have done so much, with so little for so long, we are now attempt the impossible with nothing.
I don't say "no" any longer. I ask them what their budget is for accomplishing the task they want.
me: "How much do you have budgeted for this project"
them: "Budget? You mean it costs money? I thought you could do this for free"
me: "We can't do that for free" (laughing to myself the whole time).... later they come back...
them: "We have $400 for the project"
me: "Does that include the licensing? Does that include ongoing support? Does that include setup, training, and installation of new infrastructure needed to support your project?"
them: "Uh, no. What do you mean?"
me: "Well, when you want a project... say for a new building, do you just present $400 and say can you build the building for that?"
them: "Well, no, we have professional architects design the building, then we have professional contractors bid on the project, then we included additional maintenance in the budget for the new building and.... "
me: "So, what you are saying is that you don't view IT as being professional"
them: "No no no no! That's not what I mean at all."
me: "So, how come you just expected us to do what you wanted without asking us what it would take to do it?"
them: "Because it is too expensive when I do ask that"
me: "It is more expensive to do things right. If you want to do it wrong, any non-professional can quote you a lower price. You can get a building and have it built a lot less expensive if you don't hire Architects and Contractors to design and build a building, and it will get built, but it will be missing things you probably want and need. But you know this, and that is why you trust those professionals."
them: "yes, but you are too expensive"
me: "Then the answer is no"
---
Sometimes it is just easier to say "NO". The sad fact is, people don't respect IT professionals AS professionals. We often don't deserve it either, but that is another topic.
There is a reason why Ethernet was such a revolution
Hate to break this to you, but Ethernet runs on 10base/2 which is daisy chain thin coax cables.
You may not remember Ethernet over 10base/2 but I do.
A hub is basically used for turning 10base/T into 10b/2. It was with the advent of things Switches. There was a brief stint made by HP and a couple other companies that used a combination of Twisted pair Ethernet and token passing (the name escapes me at the moment) that surpassed for a brief period 100base/t hubs in performance.
The real advent was the star controller which was before switches, but brought network segmentation to keep congestion down.
I'd mod you troll, if I had mod points. If you want universally bad health care, don't make me buy into it. If you see "free", it isn't. The best health care is not free, and free healthcare isn't the best.
But the reality is, humans make mistakes, and any system that tries to eliminate mistakes is itself error prone, and can be and usually is worse than the system it replaces.
No system is perfect, because humans are not perfect, and we are part of that system.
you can't just buy everyone pizza and sit them down and tell them to get to work.
Have you seen the job situation? Nearly 10% Unemployment!
The glamor days of the DOTCOM era are long ago gone. I know a few code monkeys who'd code for free if it meant getting a chance at a real paying job, and to get a pizza for dinner.
If it were all chance and luck, then everyone would be equal. It isn't chance and luck, there is a great deal of skill required. Math and People skills.
The average math geek can play well, if he can calculate odds, implied odds, pot odds etc. And a People person can know what a person has by looking at them. The great ones, the truly great players can do both, and it is very rare.
If you count on luck, and chance, I'd love to play with you.
There is a reason why people still want vigilante justice today, because when someone who is obvious guilt of something like child rape, gets one year in jail, it pisses even the most level headed of us off.
No, it doesn't make it right, I'm just saying.
Suffice it to say, justice in this world is not perfect. And it will always be imperfect.
There you go again, with your well reasoned and experienced logical thinking. This is/. where Wild Ass Hair Speculation and Wotan Guessing is the norm. Please leave now!
Eyecandy is nice, but I prefer fun games to play. I play Wii more than PS3, PS2, and the Xboxes combined. Only PSP gets more playtime, and that is because I can actually take it with me.
Very often companies do not do that - instead they are maintaining their fork of code internally, failing to integrate changes from the outside into their own fork, and binding valueable development ressources inside the enterprise in reproducing changes from the outside indepently. The reason for that is usually that there is an intellectual property regime which requires clearance of code before it can leave the company, but insufficient staffing for the actual clearance process.
If you've forked a piece of software, and haven't contributed back up because it takes too much in the way of staffing, but you have enough staffing to maintain a forked project, then you're not looking at this right.
Eventually, what will happen is that the forked project will stagnate and not get the proper patches from upstream, because it is too hard to integrate the patches back into the forked project.
And when a project goes from 1.33 to 2.03 version change, the forked project will end up withering on the vine.
The cost is not necessarily economic, either directly or indirectly, for not submitting patches upstream. There is opportunity cost to have a community test and improve the forked product, often not in ways foreseeable.
The problem with most techies is that they don't know how to speak in financial terms. I happened to be trained in finance, and chose IT because I was good at it.
I would love to promote FOSS in corporations like yours.
I give back. I support, test, evangelize, promote, install, use, help others use FOSS.
I use FOSS because it is FREE (Libre AND Gratis). Because of Linux (and other FOSS), I've helped change the minds of many people to the benefits of FOSS.
Just recently, My Father-in-law had to reset his laptop (unfortunately XP) and had to re-install Adobe CS Suite. Well Adobe said he had too many installs already, and to call in. He called in, and they said "We don't support that version any longer".
We all know to expect this behavior, but this was completely the last straw for my FIL, and he told the support person he will never use Adobe ever again.
After I put in a Linux Server for him (Document Backup), and he saw how well it worked, he asked if Linux would work on his laptop.:-D
So, we take Linux to one person at a time. We all work towards this.
And while it may not look like we are making much progress, we are. I can recall back in the early days of Linux, how much of a "joke" it was. Well, slowly and surely it is starting to make real impact into the world.
That impact is not because of corporate support for FOSS, it is because FOSS is being worked into corporate, just like when PC's started to sneak into corporate 35 years ago.
One day, corporate is going to wake up and realize that FOSS is in the workplace, because the tools they have provided are not sufficient.
It is going on right now, everyone sees it, nobody cares. All over the place.
Tell me, is it not a watergate scandal that GM is going to be run by the US government, rather than let fail because of poor management and unions run amok? (I blaming both the board and UAW).
Why should I, as a tax payer, who has never owned a GM product, be required to prop up GM? Give me ONE reason?
And how much $$ to keep it running is enough? WHEN is Enough going to be enough?????
Sometimes the hardest thing do to is take the shotgun to Old Yeller, is also the best thing to do.
they'll start seriously blending advertising inside news content. I don't want that to happen!
What makes makes you think they don't? News is slanted, and there is bias and advertising. Lets just admit it, and get it over with and move on.
I don't use traditional news media any longer, too slow and filtered as it is. We can now get news raw and streaming, with as much detail as we want, without the reporter's and editors putting in their particular slant now.
I'd give example of what I mean, but I would instantly be modded "-1 Troll", because truth hurts. The problem is, there is too much Political Correctness and group think getting in the way of real news reporting.
If news gathering organizations can't make a product worth buying, then they shouldn't exist.
Slashdot Mirror
You missed the point. THE point is that they never really had a budget in the first place. They thought it could be done for nothing, by next Tuesday.
Much of what geeks do, and I see it a lot here on /. is that we tend to be DIYers. We see a high end server and say things like "I can build it for less". And people begin to expect that we can do things for less than to do it right, with engineered pieces.
Yes, we can build a off the shelf server to hold terabytes of storage for cheap. Too bad it is in a mini tower case instead of a rackmount chassis, and using SATA drives at 7200 RPM, instead of SAS drives at 10,000 (or 15,000), using onboard or cheap RAID rather than battery backed up RAID controller, etc and etc.
I can build two of those cheap ones for the cost of an expensive one. But that doesn't mean it is better.
There are three ways to build a system.
1) Cheap.
2) Expensive.
3) Right.
Right includes things like proper design, engineering, and build out, and planning for things that non-professionals would never think of. It is often more expensive that even #2. But in the long run the actual cost is less (time, effort, maintenance, performance, upgrades etc).
Doing things right is not easy, or else people would do things right the first time.
The point is to get them to the point of asking "what do we need in order to do _______", rather than assuming we can do it, for nothing, by next Tuesday.
Just the other day, we had a server motherboard die. Wouldn't even POST properly. The director of the dept the server is used for said that was unacceptable that they would be down for a couple of days while the server was being repaired.
I said that if this were truly the case, they would have a standby server, with a current backup of the database ready in stand by mode at all times, for fail over.
The problem is, they don't want to pay for a standby server, or the systems infrastructure to make sure that the DB can failover gracefully to the standby hw in the RARE event like this.
It costs money to do things like this, and sometimes lots more than it is actually worth. I find out all the time how much things are worth to people when stuff breaks, and when I quote a system setup that will work in the event of failure like what I described.
When they found out how much it would cost for a redundant system, even after the failure, they didn't pony up the $$, while maintaining that it was unacceptable to be down for any length of time.
How does one break that mentality, I'll never know.
I don't say "no" any longer. I ask them what their budget is for accomplishing the task they want.
me: "How much do you have budgeted for this project"
them: "Budget? You mean it costs money? I thought you could do this for free"
me: "We can't do that for free" (laughing to myself the whole time) .... later they come back ...
them: "We have $400 for the project"
me: "Does that include the licensing? Does that include ongoing support? Does that include setup, training, and installation of new infrastructure needed to support your project?"
them: "Uh, no. What do you mean?"
me: "Well, when you want a project ... say for a new building, do you just present $400 and say can you build the building for that?"
them: "Well, no, we have professional architects design the building, then we have professional contractors bid on the project, then we included additional maintenance in the budget for the new building and .... "
me: "So, what you are saying is that you don't view IT as being professional"
them: "No no no no! That's not what I mean at all."
me: "So, how come you just expected us to do what you wanted without asking us what it would take to do it?"
them: "Because it is too expensive when I do ask that"
me: "It is more expensive to do things right. If you want to do it wrong, any non-professional can quote you a lower price. You can get a building and have it built a lot less expensive if you don't hire Architects and Contractors to design and build a building, and it will get built, but it will be missing things you probably want and need. But you know this, and that is why you trust those professionals."
them: "yes, but you are too expensive"
me: "Then the answer is no"
---
Sometimes it is just easier to say "NO". The sad fact is, people don't respect IT professionals AS professionals. We often don't deserve it either, but that is another topic.
Hate to break this to you, but Ethernet runs on 10base/2 which is daisy chain thin coax cables.
You may not remember Ethernet over 10base/2 but I do.
A hub is basically used for turning 10base/T into 10b/2. It was with the advent of things Switches. There was a brief stint made by HP and a couple other companies that used a combination of Twisted pair Ethernet and token passing (the name escapes me at the moment) that surpassed for a brief period 100base/t hubs in performance.
The real advent was the star controller which was before switches, but brought network segmentation to keep congestion down.
Ethernet itself wasn't all that revolutionary.
I'd mod you troll, if I had mod points. If you want universally bad health care, don't make me buy into it. If you see "free", it isn't. The best health care is not free, and free healthcare isn't the best.
But the reality is, humans make mistakes, and any system that tries to eliminate mistakes is itself error prone, and can be and usually is worse than the system it replaces.
No system is perfect, because humans are not perfect, and we are part of that system.
Have you seen the job situation? Nearly 10% Unemployment!
The glamor days of the DOTCOM era are long ago gone. I know a few code monkeys who'd code for free if it meant getting a chance at a real paying job, and to get a pizza for dinner.
If it were all chance and luck, then everyone would be equal. It isn't chance and luck, there is a great deal of skill required. Math and People skills.
The average math geek can play well, if he can calculate odds, implied odds, pot odds etc. And a People person can know what a person has by looking at them. The great ones, the truly great players can do both, and it is very rare.
If you count on luck, and chance, I'd love to play with you.
The government hates competition.
Nobility is often at odds with the truth. Truth is often far too inconvenient to be noble.
There is a reason why people still want vigilante justice today, because when someone who is obvious guilt of something like child rape, gets one year in jail, it pisses even the most level headed of us off.
No, it doesn't make it right, I'm just saying.
Suffice it to say, justice in this world is not perfect. And it will always be imperfect.
I'm reminded of the saying ...
There you go again, with your well reasoned and experienced logical thinking. This is /. where Wild Ass Hair Speculation and Wotan Guessing is the norm. Please leave now!
Quick, patent the idea.
I always knew that Anonymous Coward was the BOFH, now I finally have proof!!!!
You sir, are my hero!
Idiot. She didn't have a Bionic eye. She had Bionic Hearing. It was Steve Austin that had the Bionic Eye.
Oh, and you're sick!
sounds remarkably like our IT department.
Eyecandy is nice, but I prefer fun games to play. I play Wii more than PS3, PS2, and the Xboxes combined. Only PSP gets more playtime, and that is because I can actually take it with me.
If you've forked a piece of software, and haven't contributed back up because it takes too much in the way of staffing, but you have enough staffing to maintain a forked project, then you're not looking at this right.
Eventually, what will happen is that the forked project will stagnate and not get the proper patches from upstream, because it is too hard to integrate the patches back into the forked project.
And when a project goes from 1.33 to 2.03 version change, the forked project will end up withering on the vine.
The cost is not necessarily economic, either directly or indirectly, for not submitting patches upstream. There is opportunity cost to have a community test and improve the forked product, often not in ways foreseeable.
The problem with most techies is that they don't know how to speak in financial terms. I happened to be trained in finance, and chose IT because I was good at it.
I would love to promote FOSS in corporations like yours.
I give back. I support, test, evangelize, promote, install, use, help others use FOSS.
I use FOSS because it is FREE (Libre AND Gratis). Because of Linux (and other FOSS), I've helped change the minds of many people to the benefits of FOSS.
Just recently, My Father-in-law had to reset his laptop (unfortunately XP) and had to re-install Adobe CS Suite. Well Adobe said he had too many installs already, and to call in. He called in, and they said "We don't support that version any longer".
We all know to expect this behavior, but this was completely the last straw for my FIL, and he told the support person he will never use Adobe ever again.
After I put in a Linux Server for him (Document Backup), and he saw how well it worked, he asked if Linux would work on his laptop. :-D
So, we take Linux to one person at a time. We all work towards this.
And while it may not look like we are making much progress, we are. I can recall back in the early days of Linux, how much of a "joke" it was. Well, slowly and surely it is starting to make real impact into the world.
That impact is not because of corporate support for FOSS, it is because FOSS is being worked into corporate, just like when PC's started to sneak into corporate 35 years ago.
One day, corporate is going to wake up and realize that FOSS is in the workplace, because the tools they have provided are not sufficient.
Then ... you win.
It didn't matter. I was Modded down anyways.
I said that all news has bias, so lets just admit the bias and get it over with.
HAHAHAH. We are NOT self sufficient. WE depend on so many imports right now to survive it isn't even funny.
Try this, for one month. Buy only products made 100% in the US with 100% US made components. If it doesn't say "Made in USA" you can't buy it.
You're in for a huge surprise.
Yeah, to hell with rules! ANARCHY BABY!!!
It is going on right now, everyone sees it, nobody cares. All over the place.
Tell me, is it not a watergate scandal that GM is going to be run by the US government, rather than let fail because of poor management and unions run amok? (I blaming both the board and UAW).
Why should I, as a tax payer, who has never owned a GM product, be required to prop up GM? Give me ONE reason?
And how much $$ to keep it running is enough? WHEN is Enough going to be enough?????
Sometimes the hardest thing do to is take the shotgun to Old Yeller, is also the best thing to do.
What makes makes you think they don't? News is slanted, and there is bias and advertising. Lets just admit it, and get it over with and move on.
I don't use traditional news media any longer, too slow and filtered as it is. We can now get news raw and streaming, with as much detail as we want, without the reporter's and editors putting in their particular slant now.
I'd give example of what I mean, but I would instantly be modded "-1 Troll", because truth hurts. The problem is, there is too much Political Correctness and group think getting in the way of real news reporting.
If news gathering organizations can't make a product worth buying, then they shouldn't exist.
I abhor the "church" of Atheism. Take Your arrogance and go away.
The funny thing about most Atheists is that they fight against that which they don't believe exists.
I don't fight against the FSM for that very reason, he/she/it doesn't exist (I know, heresy here on /.)