From the question, it is hard to ascertain the size of the "company" Below a certain size, standardization is more trouble than the benefits provide. In the middle, standardization probably depends on how willing the developers are. At the top end, where I live, some amount of standardization is a must. With 200 developers in our division alone, being hit with numeroud SOX (SarbOx to some) requirements, a need to implement massive DR plans for our systems, and a wide geographic development distribution that sometimes does not communicate well enough, treating programming languages like tools in a toolbox is unworkable. That said, you can't just quit cold turkey. At our size, you need to define a "strategic" language. In our case, many of our vendors utilize Java and J2EE, so that becomes our strategic language. However, we continue to support some older Win32 client code that demands VB6, and some vendors we use chose.NET, so we have to support that as well. That said, stuff like Python, PHP, Perl, Pascal, etc. must have serious justification before they are used for major development work (Perl is a favorite for the UNIX admins, but they are not considered development staff here)
Yes, there are times when the project gets sub-optimized by being constrained language-wise. Developers will grumble (and I am a senior development resource, BTW), but overall, the cost is less to enforce some standardization. Why?
Cross training/support. The fewer languages, the more bodies we have on staff that know it.
Integration. Not everything can be a web service. Our business users hate us telling them that we need to rewrite that chunk of code because it is in Language A and the rest of the project is in Language B
Development Machine stability: Compilers, IDEs, runtimes, etc., all have to pass through a rigorous testing matrix before they can be loaded on Development machines. Cringe if you want, but SOX and other regulations make those things necessary. Thus, more languages means more money tied to testing and certifying the components on a development box
Coding standards: The fewer languages, the fewer times we have to sanction a team to author standard for that language.
As a developer, I find the "languages as hand-tools" analogy severely lacking. Possibly, treating them like powertools is better. Once I select my Dewalt cordless tools, I am locked into a battery option, saw blades, etc. Some stuff can be bought generically, but I'm not going to go out and buy a Wilwaukee set of cordless tools just because their saw option does a better job on miter cuts. I will figure out a way to make good miters with my Dewalt. If I find myself making miters all day, I might consider buying just the Milwaukee saw, but I know I'll be forking over more bucks for extra chargers, batteries, blades, etc. I will not do that lightly.
I applaud developers who can pick up languages easily and are fluent in many. That said, language prowess does not give the developer license to create a programming Tower of Babel. If a developer can't show that kind of restraint, the company is no longer a good fit for him/her.
In the end, I think 1 is too few languages, but I think > 4 is too many for a large firm. Same goes for editors, compilers, etc. Of course, each company has to weigh the risks against the benefits. I can see a cross-platform developer needing many more compiler options, and there are no doubt firms where performance cannot ever be sub-optimized, so my comments are moot. However, for those who live in a data-processing land where I exist, there is little to gain from switching languages like a playboy switches partners.
UIUC, Champaign, December, 1990, Physics III (Quantum Theory, etc.) 3 hour final. Crammed all night for test, a bit shaky on the concepts. 8AM final at Loomis (I think that is the name) Physics lecture Hall. Arrived, started the final, which is designed to take all 3 hours. All multiple-choice, with those funky machine readable exam sheets. 15 minutes in, started feeling VERY poorly. As it is Winter, I'm coming down with something. I soon determine I am going down for the count. Cannot concentrate on exam, so start filling in ovals with words made up of A,B,C,D,E. "Finished" the exam at 8:30AM, Walked all the way down to the front (I had sat in the nosebleed section, and the lecture hall is VERY steep, you know what I mean) and handed in the exam, smiled at the TA, turned around and looked up to see LOTS of students looking at me with amazement, jealousy, or outright anger. Walked up to exits, drug myself back to Allen Hall, crashed and slept for the next 16 hours. Received a 'C' on the exam, and an 'A' for the class, if I recall.
I always wanted to hand in an exam incredibly early, but am not THAT intelligent. Still, all my friends in the class were AMAZED I was able to tackle Quantum Theory in 30 minutes, at least until I told them the complete story.
My wife doesn't think I am scrawny, and my two children appears to dispute your other theory. Nice that you have time enough to pity me. I realize I'm feeding the trolls, but I love how cowards only have black and white views of the universe. I assume you pity vintage car owners and those that fix up old homes. Sir/Madam, I pity you for having such a limited view of the world and your life. have fun, though.
1) The Commodore community has always wanted the service back. It was more than a service, it was a community.
2) The exercise was worth more than years of classes in software development and error/runtime diagnosis. In my current vocation, I am often relied on to diagnose issues that are surprisingly like trying to decipher a communication between two parties I have little knowledge of.
3) It was a nice brain (pun not intended, for those who know who this is) exercise, trying to carry on a conversation with a piece of software when you only know one half of the verbs and nouns. At work, I do things in an insulated world of HTTP, SOAP, XML, etc., and one has to have a challenge to keep the brain cells working well.
4) It was there. So be it.
5) I wanted to be on/. (well, not really, but that's what everyone may think...)
Jim
I asked testers to hold on on posting on/. for a few weeks, while the server was in heavy development. Then, when I gave the OK to submit, I knew there would be a post about "Why?" if it made/. It's almost like the poster knows it's a dumb question to ask, but can't keep from doing it anyway...
12:33AM Central, and server is handling the load OK. Thanks/. for the stress test. Pics appear to be back up, but they are not on the QLink server anyway, so they are expendable.
I've been so hard at work on the code, I don't have much docs, but you can ask away.
You can also email me (looks pretty easy to Google and find my email, so I'll let that be the test) if you are having connect issues.
Club Caribe is not too tough to reverse engineer the protocol, but you also have to implement the entire Habitat/CC server component. I have some code to do that, but implementing the basic service has been the top priority.
If you have issues, email me (can;t be that hard to figure out my email), and/or grab the rc10 drop. rc9 should work fine, but I put the newest code from my boxes here online.
The web host did, but it looks like they redirected it again. I just pulled up the pics on the site.
FYI:
www.quantum-link is running in one place: FL
the pics are online on my site: Not sure where
The server is running on another box in Texas
So, if the pics go down, just grab VICE and see the real thing and take your own pics.
Jim
Not as much stuff as before. Yeah, it may die with teh/. crush, but I am logging everything, so it's a good test.
I actually authorized it, but I moved the server to colo before I did:-). I'm a rick taker, but I ain't stupid. My home broadband connection and puny PII here with RH9 would have fried.
Jim
Huh? tcpser compiles fine for Linux... That's how I run it, and I wrote it.
Of course, Windows users need cygwin, but I can't solve all the world's problems today.
Jim
I doubt this will bubble up to be seen, but for what it is worth:
As another poster notes, too much of anything is bad. However, I read more into the article.
What comprises homework? The article touches on this. Many times, homework is repetitive and does not add much value, especially if the child easily grasps the concept. As a parent, that can present an awkward situation. Your child immediately grasps the concept and can handle the hardest problems in the problem set. The teacher has requested they complete them all. What do you do? You do not want to undermine the instructor, but you also have a responsibility to your child as well. At times, you can use this opportunity to teach commitment or work completion. But, then what?
I disagree with "Moraelin's" post about the loss of personal responsibility. To a point, a parent should foster that in his/her offpsring. However, I also wish to show my child how to better his/her lot in life. I've made quite a good life for myself by accepting responsibility for required repititious work, but also working to change my environment so said repition was no longer needed. I am a bad parent if I do not pass that desire onto my children. In my mind, the reason many/. folks tout they did not do homework is not to disclaim they would not accept responsility, but rather that the system was rigged. There was no other option. I could not change that fact when I was a child, but I can now. As an aside, I think "Einstein" being used as an insult in school is simply due to perceptions of inferiority. People aren;t mad that the person is smart, but that he/she is smarter than the rest of the group. Such happens with all kinds of excellent chilren, be it physical or mental prowess.
--------------- As a parent, I refuse to kill the natural desire for learning in my children. I want my chidren to attack books and desire to learn at all times.
As a parent, I refuse to worry so much about getting through the book in the required time.
As a parent, I refuse to worry so much about the grades. Grades do not always reflect the skills. They are but one measure.
There are days when my son needs to learn committment. On Those days, we will complete the assignment, even if it is tedious. Then, we will celebrate and talk about how to change the circumstances to better our lot next time.
There are days when my son needs to learn, period. On those days, he will guide us where he needs to go. A field trip, the library, to work, or to the park. We will not let educational boundaries stand in our way. If such means I take a day off work, it will be a day well spent. Little may be written of the day, but much will be remembered.
There are days when my son needs to think. On those days, we will discuss the options and we will weigh the options. In the end, we will make a decision. It may be good or bad, but in both lessons will be learned.
There are days when my son will teach. On those days, I will learn. I will not stand towering over my son and assume I know it all.
There are days when my son will need to rest. On those days, we will play, we will sit in the yard and eat ice cream. And we will find that you can learn while you rest and that it will present the next unkwnown for dscovery.
There are days when my son will need to play. On those days, we will play, but we will go over rules and we will follow them. And we will learn while we play.
----------------------
What I find strange (and many/. folks may agree with), is many of the same qualities that got me into trouble in school are appreciated in my workplace:
I tried my best to get out of homework (along with others here). In school, the teachers scolded me for such lack of attention to completion. Now, though, people greatly appreciate my ability to grasp concepts quickly without weeks of training, and they also appreciate my ability to see unnecessa
As the author of one of the packages listed on the site (tcpser, a Linux modem emulator/ip bridge), I wrote the software to be target machine agnostic. The software, which can be run as a daemon, simply emulates a standard recent vintage Hayes compatible modem on a ttyS of your choosing. So, any platform will work fine. The cable is a tad tricky, as you need to take a regular null modem cable, cut the target DSR line and loop it to target DTR (Some/most BBS's rely on DCD high to signal carrier detect, so the easy solution is to use PC DTR line to simulate it.) Although I doubt my very rusty C skills will stand up to./ scrutiny, I run Linux and the other app on the site is a VB app. Thus, tcpser.
tcpser has the option of emulating multiple modems on one TCP port, which would allow a multi-line BBS (the accept gets sent round-robin style to the next open modem-emu instance. Since the story hit, I suppose I need to upload newer code (since the old code is truly hideous...).
However, there is more utility in these apps than running a BBS. Old black box units expecting a real modem could now be hooked to a PC without code changes (just change the dial number to X.Y.Z.A:port)
Still, in true hacker fashion, I did it because I wanted to learn serial programming on Linux, my sockets skills are very rusty, my C skills have fallen into disuse, it was there, and although I welcome the web, I do miss a good local chat on a BBS.
For all of the strengths of OOo, AbiWord, et al, the large corporate environments have standardized on MSOffice.
When contemplating a shift from Win32 to Linux, the first thing the "cons" bring up in Productivity SW. At the top of that list is Office. Sure, OOo is getting good, but it is not perfect, and Office is a moving target, with the new Forms piece MS just rolled out, and DRM etc.
Because MSOffice is so key to business anymore, the idea of replacing it can kill many alternative OS ideas.
So, if you want to get out from under 2K/XP, your first goal is to squelch the "cons". If you cna prove Office will run in the new environment for little additional cost, they have no case anymore (Well, they will trot out other apps, but little else is as convincing a case as Office).
Later, once the switch has occurred, you can run the numbers on Office and THEN make the switch to OOo, after people have gotten used to the OS change (and I am sure OOo will be loaded on it, so they can play with it...)
Yes, it isn't a purist attitude, but only on/. do folks seriously believe big corporations will make a plunge into this arena. Corporations like low cost, but they also like comfort.
One can read into this statement from IBM something state many times over the past decade. The OS is becoming irrelevant to the masses. What matters is the apps they use.
I'm not sure I can add new ideas, but my firm just recently inked their open source policy. My company is a big 3 global life insurance firm, which implies the firm is not an early adopter.
That said, many development managers and architecture folks have seen value in open source for some time, and have utilized it in projects (below the radar). As the quality of open source increases, and the deliverable become larger (Xerces to OopenOffice), we asked that the company formalize the usage of OSS.
During discussions we argued that OSS should not be treated differently than other purchased and/or developed SW. We did see a few exceptions:
In OSS, you play the role of vendor in acquisition of the SW (With vendor SW, you trust they shipped the correct and uncorrupted version. And we know they do mess that up, but then you yell at them. There's no one to yell at for dloading the wrong OSS version except ourselves...)
Paid Support may not be available, which adds some risk.
However, once those have been met (i.e. the risk issue is mitigated), we saw no difference between vendor code and OSS code.
Legal and Security drafted a policy, and it recently became official. In essence, the policy states the few additional risks that must be mitigated, and then states that OSS must go our normal software acquisition procedures.
I know some purists (zealots...) may disagree with the exceptions above, but we decided they were acceptable, were good business practices (remember, business could care less about the OSS philosphy, they are interested in lowering costs and/or raising quality while not raising unmitigated risk...), and were not worth the fight to remove. We decided this policy would allow us to utilize open source where appropriate, and time will pass. As the fight shifts from components (MSXML versus Xerces) to applications (MSOffice versus OpenOffice et al), business will become more comfortable with OSS, and the policies will change to reflect that (I remember in 1994-6 when companies resisted WWW, because they saw no value in it).
In the end, though, resist the urge to make the policy a political statement. I agree OSS needs help to thrive in a corporate environment, but not that much help. If OSS can't lower prices and/or increase quality while not raising unmitigated risk, then it truly is not appropriate for business.
As for the other items you mentioned, I don't think TCO is best done globally. Quite frankly, in some areas, OSS has lower TCO, in others it does not. Risk can be generally reviewed at the global level, but risk really depends on usage (Writing reports with OOO is low risk, calculating agent commissions with OOO might be high risk).
I agree with others that if you are looking for a "why use OSS", Call IBM or RedHat or some other places, there is plenty of material like that out there. Coupled with Gartner and Giga/Forrester, you should be set.
Slashdot Mirror
From the question, it is hard to ascertain the size of the "company" Below a certain size, standardization is more trouble than the benefits provide. In the middle, standardization probably depends on how willing the developers are. At the top end, where I live, some amount of standardization is a must. With 200 developers in our division alone, being hit with numeroud SOX (SarbOx to some) requirements, a need to implement massive DR plans for our systems, and a wide geographic development distribution that sometimes does not communicate well enough, treating programming languages like tools in a toolbox is unworkable. That said, you can't just quit cold turkey. At our size, you need to define a "strategic" language. In our case, many of our vendors utilize Java and J2EE, so that becomes our strategic language. However, we continue to support some older Win32 client code that demands VB6, and some vendors we use chose .NET, so we have to support that as well. That said, stuff like Python, PHP, Perl, Pascal, etc. must have serious justification before they are used for major development work (Perl is a favorite for the UNIX admins, but they are not considered development staff here)
Yes, there are times when the project gets sub-optimized by being constrained language-wise. Developers will grumble (and I am a senior development resource, BTW), but overall, the cost is less to enforce some standardization. Why?
Cross training/support. The fewer languages, the more bodies we have on staff that know it.
Integration. Not everything can be a web service. Our business users hate us telling them that we need to rewrite that chunk of code because it is in Language A and the rest of the project is in Language B
Development Machine stability: Compilers, IDEs, runtimes, etc., all have to pass through a rigorous testing matrix before they can be loaded on Development machines. Cringe if you want, but SOX and other regulations make those things necessary. Thus, more languages means more money tied to testing and certifying the components on a development box
Coding standards: The fewer languages, the fewer times we have to sanction a team to author standard for that language.
As a developer, I find the "languages as hand-tools" analogy severely lacking. Possibly, treating them like powertools is better. Once I select my Dewalt cordless tools, I am locked into a battery option, saw blades, etc. Some stuff can be bought generically, but I'm not going to go out and buy a Wilwaukee set of cordless tools just because their saw option does a better job on miter cuts. I will figure out a way to make good miters with my Dewalt. If I find myself making miters all day, I might consider buying just the Milwaukee saw, but I know I'll be forking over more bucks for extra chargers, batteries, blades, etc. I will not do that lightly.
I applaud developers who can pick up languages easily and are fluent in many. That said, language prowess does not give the developer license to create a programming Tower of Babel. If a developer can't show that kind of restraint, the company is no longer a good fit for him/her.
In the end, I think 1 is too few languages, but I think > 4 is too many for a large firm. Same goes for editors, compilers, etc. Of course, each company has to weigh the risks against the benefits. I can see a cross-platform developer needing many more compiler options, and there are no doubt firms where performance cannot ever be sub-optimized, so my comments are moot. However, for those who live in a data-processing land where I exist, there is little to gain from switching languages like a playboy switches partners.
UIUC, Champaign, December, 1990, Physics III (Quantum Theory, etc.) 3 hour final. Crammed all night for test, a bit shaky on the concepts. 8AM final at Loomis (I think that is the name) Physics lecture Hall. Arrived, started the final, which is designed to take all 3 hours. All multiple-choice, with those funky machine readable exam sheets. 15 minutes in, started feeling VERY poorly. As it is Winter, I'm coming down with something. I soon determine I am going down for the count. Cannot concentrate on exam, so start filling in ovals with words made up of A,B,C,D,E. "Finished" the exam at 8:30AM, Walked all the way down to the front (I had sat in the nosebleed section, and the lecture hall is VERY steep, you know what I mean) and handed in the exam, smiled at the TA, turned around and looked up to see LOTS of students looking at me with amazement, jealousy, or outright anger. Walked up to exits, drug myself back to Allen Hall, crashed and slept for the next 16 hours. Received a 'C' on the exam, and an 'A' for the class, if I recall.
I always wanted to hand in an exam incredibly early, but am not THAT intelligent. Still, all my friends in the class were AMAZED I was able to tackle Quantum Theory in 30 minutes, at least until I told them the complete story.
Jim
On the contrary, unless it died this morning, it weathered the storm well. I think the 1200 bps thorttle on connections was the reason.
Jim
Max 128 chars, CRC16 set up as 4 bytes:
data[1]=(byte)(((c&0xf000)>>8) | 0x01);
data[2]=(byte)(((c&0xf00)>>8) | 0x40);
data[3]=(byte)((c&0xf0) | 0x01);
data[4]=(byte)((c&0xf) | 0x40);
This prevents disallowed chars from being sent
Structure is:
0x5a C C C C RS SS CMD
CCCC is padded checksum, RS is the sequence number of the last received packet, SS is the next sequence number from the sender. CMD is one of:
0x21 - My window is full, ack something
0x22 - Window Ack
0x26 - Ping
0x23 - Reset Link (or start link)
0x24 - Reset/Ping Ack
0x25 - Sequence Error. (incoming packet RS was not consecutive)
0x20 - Layer 3 command
For 0x20 packets, bytes 9 and 10 were the two char command, which are too numerous to list here.
Depending on the command, 0x0d (end of packet) was replaced by 0x7f, 0xff, or 0x0e (in Chat, all seats above 12 were shifted up by one).
Jim
The server is running off-site at a hosting facility. I will let them know that their admin stuff is open. Jim
My wife doesn't think I am scrawny, and my two children appears to dispute your other theory. Nice that you have time enough to pity me. I realize I'm feeding the trolls, but I love how cowards only have black and white views of the universe. I assume you pity vintage car owners and those that fix up old homes. Sir/Madam, I pity you for having such a limited view of the world and your life. have fun, though.
Jim
1) The Commodore community has always wanted the service back. It was more than a service, it was a community. 2) The exercise was worth more than years of classes in software development and error/runtime diagnosis. In my current vocation, I am often relied on to diagnose issues that are surprisingly like trying to decipher a communication between two parties I have little knowledge of. 3) It was a nice brain (pun not intended, for those who know who this is) exercise, trying to carry on a conversation with a piece of software when you only know one half of the verbs and nouns. At work, I do things in an insulated world of HTTP, SOAP, XML, etc., and one has to have a challenge to keep the brain cells working well. 4) It was there. So be it. 5) I wanted to be on /. (well, not really, but that's what everyone may think...)
Jim
I asked testers to hold on on posting on /. for a few weeks, while the server was in heavy development. Then, when I gave the OK to submit, I knew there would be a post about "Why?" if it made /. It's almost like the poster knows it's a dumb question to ask, but can't keep from doing it anyway...
Jim
12:33AM Central, and server is handling the load OK. Thanks /. for the stress test. Pics appear to be back up, but they are not on the QLink server anyway, so they are expendable.
I've been so hard at work on the code, I don't have much docs, but you can ask away.
You can also email me (looks pretty easy to Google and find my email, so I'll let that be the test) if you are having connect issues.
Jim
DMCA is for copy protection. There is none in QLink. I would know :-)
QADMIN jim
Club Caribe is not too tough to reverse engineer the protocol, but you also have to implement the entire Habitat/CC server component. I have some code to do that, but implementing the basic service has been the top priority.
Jim
If you have issues, email me (can;t be that hard to figure out my email), and/or grab the rc10 drop. rc9 should work fine, but I put the newest code from my boxes here online.
Jim
The web host did, but it looks like they redirected it again. I just pulled up the pics on the site. FYI: www.quantum-link is running in one place: FL the pics are online on my site: Not sure where The server is running on another box in Texas So, if the pics go down, just grab VICE and see the real thing and take your own pics. Jim
Not as much stuff as before. Yeah, it may die with teh /. crush, but I am logging everything, so it's a good test.
I actually authorized it, but I moved the server to colo before I did :-). I'm a rick taker, but I ain't stupid. My home broadband connection and puny PII here with RH9 would have fried.
Jim
You'll to be content with PEOPLE CONNECTION for a while. SuperQ required a while new set of commands, which we have not completely figured out. Jim
Huh? tcpser compiles fine for Linux... That's how I run it, and I wrote it. Of course, Windows users need cygwin, but I can't solve all the world's problems today. Jim
I doubt this will bubble up to be seen, but for what it is worth:
/. folks tout they did not do homework is not to disclaim they would not accept responsility, but rather that the system was rigged. There was no other option. I could not change that fact when I was a child, but I can now. As an aside, I think "Einstein" being used as an insult in school is simply due to perceptions of inferiority. People aren;t mad that the person is smart, but that he/she is smarter than the rest of the group. Such happens with all kinds of excellent chilren, be it physical or mental prowess.
/. folks may agree with), is many of the same qualities that got me into trouble in school are appreciated in my workplace:
As another poster notes, too much of anything is bad. However, I read more into the article.
What comprises homework? The article touches on this. Many times, homework is repetitive and does not add much value, especially if the child easily grasps the concept. As a parent, that can present an awkward situation. Your child immediately grasps the concept and can handle the hardest problems in the problem set. The teacher has requested they complete them all. What do you do? You do not want to undermine the instructor, but you also have a responsibility to your child as well. At times, you can use this opportunity to teach commitment or work completion. But, then what?
I disagree with "Moraelin's" post about the loss of personal responsibility. To a point, a parent should foster that in his/her offpsring. However, I also wish to show my child how to better his/her lot in life. I've made quite a good life for myself by accepting responsibility for required repititious work, but also working to change my environment so said repition was no longer needed. I am a bad parent if I do not pass that desire onto my children. In my mind, the reason many
---------------
As a parent, I refuse to kill the natural desire for learning in my children. I want my chidren to attack books and desire to learn at all times.
As a parent, I refuse to worry so much about getting through the book in the required time.
As a parent, I refuse to worry so much about the grades. Grades do not always reflect the skills. They are but one measure.
There are days when my son needs to learn committment. On Those days, we will complete the assignment, even if it is tedious. Then, we will celebrate and talk about how to change the circumstances to better our lot next time.
There are days when my son needs to learn, period. On those days, he will guide us where he needs to go. A field trip, the library, to work, or to the park. We will not let educational boundaries stand in our way. If such means I take a day off work, it will be a day well spent. Little may be written of the day, but much will be remembered.
There are days when my son needs to think. On those days, we will discuss the options and we will weigh the options. In the end, we will make a decision. It may be good or bad, but in both lessons will be learned.
There are days when my son will teach. On those days, I will learn. I will not stand towering over my son and assume I know it all.
There are days when my son will need to rest. On those days, we will play, we will sit in the yard and eat ice cream. And we will find that you can learn while you rest and that it will present the next unkwnown for dscovery.
There are days when my son will need to play. On those days, we will play, but we will go over rules and we will follow them. And we will learn while we play.
----------------------
What I find strange (and many
I tried my best to get out of homework (along with others here). In school, the teachers scolded me for such lack of attention to completion. Now, though, people greatly appreciate my ability to grasp concepts quickly without weeks of training, and they also appreciate my ability to see unnecessa
tcpser has the option of emulating multiple modems on one TCP port, which would allow a multi-line BBS (the accept gets sent round-robin style to the next open modem-emu instance. Since the story hit, I suppose I need to upload newer code (since the old code is truly hideous...).
However, there is more utility in these apps than running a BBS. Old black box units expecting a real modem could now be hooked to a PC without code changes (just change the dial number to X.Y.Z.A:port)
Still, in true hacker fashion, I did it because I wanted to learn serial programming on Linux, my sockets skills are very rusty, my C skills have fallen into disuse, it was there, and although I welcome the web, I do miss a good local chat on a BBS.
When contemplating a shift from Win32 to Linux, the first thing the "cons" bring up in Productivity SW. At the top of that list is Office. Sure, OOo is getting good, but it is not perfect, and Office is a moving target, with the new Forms piece MS just rolled out, and DRM etc.
Because MSOffice is so key to business anymore, the idea of replacing it can kill many alternative OS ideas.
So, if you want to get out from under 2K/XP, your first goal is to squelch the "cons". If you cna prove Office will run in the new environment for little additional cost, they have no case anymore (Well, they will trot out other apps, but little else is as convincing a case as Office).
Later, once the switch has occurred, you can run the numbers on Office and THEN make the switch to OOo, after people have gotten used to the OS change (and I am sure OOo will be loaded on it, so they can play with it...)
Yes, it isn't a purist attitude, but only on /. do folks seriously believe big corporations will make a plunge into this arena. Corporations like low cost, but they also like comfort.
One can read into this statement from IBM something state many times over the past decade. The OS is becoming irrelevant to the masses. What matters is the apps they use.
That said, many development managers and architecture folks have seen value in open source for some time, and have utilized it in projects (below the radar). As the quality of open source increases, and the deliverable become larger (Xerces to OopenOffice), we asked that the company formalize the usage of OSS.
During discussions we argued that OSS should not be treated differently than other purchased and/or developed SW. We did see a few exceptions:
However, once those have been met (i.e. the risk issue is mitigated), we saw no difference between vendor code and OSS code.
Legal and Security drafted a policy, and it recently became official. In essence, the policy states the few additional risks that must be mitigated, and then states that OSS must go our normal software acquisition procedures.
I know some purists (zealots...) may disagree with the exceptions above, but we decided they were acceptable, were good business practices (remember, business could care less about the OSS philosphy, they are interested in lowering costs and/or raising quality while not raising unmitigated risk...), and were not worth the fight to remove. We decided this policy would allow us to utilize open source where appropriate, and time will pass. As the fight shifts from components (MSXML versus Xerces) to applications (MSOffice versus OpenOffice et al), business will become more comfortable with OSS, and the policies will change to reflect that (I remember in 1994-6 when companies resisted WWW, because they saw no value in it).
In the end, though, resist the urge to make the policy a political statement. I agree OSS needs help to thrive in a corporate environment, but not that much help. If OSS can't lower prices and/or increase quality while not raising unmitigated risk, then it truly is not appropriate for business.
As for the other items you mentioned, I don't think TCO is best done globally. Quite frankly, in some areas, OSS has lower TCO, in others it does not. Risk can be generally reviewed at the global level, but risk really depends on usage (Writing reports with OOO is low risk, calculating agent commissions with OOO might be high risk).
I agree with others that if you are looking for a "why use OSS", Call IBM or RedHat or some other places, there is plenty of material like that out there. Coupled with Gartner and Giga/Forrester, you should be set.
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