[FOSS] How does one respond to this line of questioning?

Jon 'maddog' Hall maddog at li.org
Fri Apr 8 11:15:23 EDT 2011


>'Buying a solution' is how we always approach things.  We don't build 
>our own cars or houses from kits anymore - we buy them pre-built.

Sometimes "buying a solution" is one way of solving a problem,
particularly if the solution fits the problem.  However if the solution
does not fit the problem, then it creates more costs over the long run.

>While you can do your own plumbing or electrical work, you hire experts
>to take care of it for you.

Not the same issue....this is apples and oranges.  I am not asking the
managers to write the solution themselves.  I am advocating that they
hire experts to create it for them.

What you have advocated in "buying a solution" is someone who goes out
with a barrel of money and buys "any house on the market".  All houses
are the same, are they not?  All provide shelter.

But many people look at many houses to find the one that fits them best.
And some people hire architects to design one that fits them, even if
they then get professional builders to build it.

>Why should software be any different?  If you 
>need to hire a $100,000+ developer for some amount of time to design
>an application that you could license for $10,000/year.

This was the argument for closed source "manufactured software" many
years ago.  And granted the tailored solutions often started with "line
0" of code, so they were very expensive to build.

However, FOSS changed all that.  Huge amounts of code are there for the
taking.  No one says you *have* to CHANGE MySQL or PostgreSQL to use it,
just pull it down and use it.  But if you WANT to change it, either you
can or someone else can.

Unfortunately the people arguing for "professional, closed source,
packaged solutions" did not take into account the waste created by not
having the solution fit the problem.  Also, as the problems and the
solutions got more complex, it became harder and harder to solve them
without huge amounts of software that did not integrate very well.

Imagine a house where the kitchen and pantry are at the other end of the
house from the garage where all the food is unloaded from the car?

>Be honest here, how many of you built your home desktop from scratch?

I am one.  I did order a system built for me one time, but I specified
what I wanted.  I do admit that I did not put the pieces of metal oxide
on the disk surface....

>How about your parents?

Bought them an HP system....but they are "the managers of today".

>Why do you think there's a discrepancy in those 
>numbers?

I already explained that.

>Along the same lines, if you already have a staff of .NET developers, 
>why make them learn PHP and Drupal when they can just do something in 
>SharePoint?

Because they might actually know what they are doing?

>If you already have to pay for software and hardware 
>maintenance, why bother training when you can have the vendor on the 
>phone in two minutes?

You may get the vendor on the phone in two minutes, but it may take
hours or days to get the right answer.

The real question is why do people pay for software and hardware
maintenance and then don't demand good service?

Yesterday I sat with a guy that works with multiple databases, including
SQL and Oracle.  You should have heard him grousing about these closed
source "solutions".

Where are the SLA's of yesteryear? (With apologies to Joseph Heller)

md






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