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

[Thomas Charron]

On Fri, Apr 8, 2011 at 11:15 AM, Jon 'maddog' Hall <maddog at li.org> wrote:
> 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.

  But to the original posters comments, the right solution isn't, by
default, 'FOSS'.  The decision about the right path to be taking is a
larger issue then just one developer galavanting on his own,
completely and utterly ignoring the decisions of the larger company as
a whole.

> 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.

  And, again, going back to the original post, they also don't expect
one of those experts to go ahead and implement it in a completely
different way then the REST of the experts are doing it.

> 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.

  We're off track from the original question.  No one was hired to
write a language here.

> 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.

  And then the rouge guy goes ahead and designs a part of the garage
in a COMPLETELY different way then the rest of the house.  For
example, using metric as the standard unit instead of english.

> 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.

  Which 99.99% of users *never do*.

> 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.

  Same problem exists with open source.  I would go further that the
general attitude of zaelots leads to even WORSE integrations.  The
problems *are the same* in these regards.  Not better, not worse.

> 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?

  Hey, it was simply more efficient *for the contractor building the
garage* to build it that way.  (Again, going back to the original
posters comments).

>>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?

  Not all engineers are created equal.  I have a 50% developer burn
rate, *trying* to find engineers who *understand* the bigger pictures.
 Not all engineers are good engineers.  Some are simply ok, with a
limited subset of skills.

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

  As opposed to 5 days while desperatly *hoping* that *someone* will
answer your technical questions.

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

  The use of FOSS doesn't resolve that issue.

-- 
-- Thomas