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On Mon, 2004-01-19 at 00:04, Robert Koberg wrote:
<snip>
>
> I don't know if decision makers view the software as inferior or if it
> is the religious nature of OS proponents. I tend to avoid talking about
> about OS because I have noticed the eyes rolling back when the subject
> is brought up (for those that even know OS exists...). I think they see
I am not smart enough to avoid talking about things my bosses don't
understand. Perhaps I will be when I grow up, though it seems very
unlikely that will ever happen.
> Open Source folk as people who, by their nature, look out for something
> other than the decision maker's best interest.
I agree. Since I am constitutionally unable to shut up, particularly
when it is in my best interest, I have brought up the topic of
Opensource on more than one occasion. One thing that has struck me is
that the managers at my company are completely unable to fathom why
anyone would write a piece of software and then give it away. The only
explanation they can come up with is that it must be useless, or even
destructive.
Though common, this reaction is fortunately not universal. For example,
I have seen a couple of managers at Corel go absolutely bananas at a
software demonstration. It was a joy to see, especially since I held the
demo. (I haven't quite come down from the ego boost yet, though it was
some time ago.)
The demo itself wasn't all that spectacular, I demonstrated how to do OO
development and unit testing with XMetaL, but they grokked the
implications: using XP and other agile methodologies, design patterns,
factoring out code from scripts that are usually too cluttered... I
started off by showing them unit tests running on XMetaL, and before I
got to explaining anything, they just got it. They also understood
completely why I released the system as Opensource.
Ari Nordström, the two gentlemen from Corel, and I, spent a day talking
about XML development in general and XMetaL development in particular. I
learned a lot from them. They were very well read, and I am not used to
managers who do read books.
/Henrik Mårtensson
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