Re: [tlug] Is Linux Helping MS to make Windows better?

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

>>>>> "Graham" == Graham Briggs <grbriggs@example.com> writes:

    Graham> The way management look at the purchasing and deployment
    Graham> of systems is that they're hardwired to expect a certain
    Graham> level of cost, and if something doesn't reach that they
    Graham> tend to think it's poor quality. I know this isn't true,
    Graham> and obviously so do most tech people, but to a manger with
    Graham> a budget, strangely it does.

Try managing for a while.  You'll discover that what the techs know is
also often dangerously wrong.  Fred Brooks is great on this.  The main
point is that there is no such thing as pure technology; it always has
to interface with people, or it can't be part of the organization.

    Graham> I guess where I'm driving this is how can companies move
    Graham> away from MS to Linux.

Eric Raymond (Cathedral and the Bazaar, Homesteading the Noosphere,
etc) has written tons on this.  http://www.opensource.org/ has a lot
on it.  There's a book by a guy at HP (try searching for "open source"
and "business" on Amazon) that's quite good on the kinds of things you
need to be able to tell People Who Wear Ties For Fun.

It's always easier to do things in a smaller organization.  Maybe you
can team up with some of your organization's smaller clients to get
some demand for OO compatibility going.  A lot of extra work, but
remember, Revolution is not your day job, and the overtime is always
unpaid.  :-)

It sounds like you already know most of this stuff, but it's always
worth rereading; once you've tried something and it didn't work, you
may be more receptive to ideas that didn't make sense the first time
around.

The other strand of the literature to read is the "Peter Principle"
stuff (this is actually mostly tongue in cheek, but insightful), and
of course Robert Townsend's insanely great "Up the Organization".  The
"In Search of Excellence" style literature is mostly ignorable.  (It's
like macroeconomics, the question is always the same---who do we
emulate, and what about them is important?  It's just that the correct
answers change from year to year, driving the frat boys with their
historical records of every test with answers ever given at Homongus
State U to drink).

-- 
Institute of Policy and Planning Sciences     http://turnbull.sk.tsukuba.ac.jp
University of Tsukuba                    Tennodai 1-1-1 Tsukuba 305-8573 JAPAN
               Ask not how you can "do" free software business;
              ask what your business can "do for" free software.