Date: Thu, 20 Sep 2001 02:06:22 -0500 From: Rob Andrews <rob@cyberpunkz.org> To: Ted Mittelstaedt <tedm@toybox.placo.com> Cc: Rob Andrews <rob@cyberpunkz.org>, Matthew Graybosch <matthew@starbreaker.net>, Stanley Hopcroft <Stanley.Hopcroft@IPAustralia.gov.au>, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: How does FreeBSD make a difference in a government context ? Message-ID: <20010920020622.C41586@switchblade.cyberpunkz.org> In-Reply-To: <009e01c1419b$9b772e60$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>; from tedm@toybox.placo.com on Wed, Sep 19, 2001 at 11:15:12PM -0700 References: <20010919220311.F54888@switchblade.cyberpunkz.org> <009e01c1419b$9b772e60$1401a8c0@tedm.placo.com>
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--PuGuTyElPB9bOcsM Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable On Wed, Sep 19, 2001 at 11:15:12PM -0700, Ted Mittelstaedt wrote: > Let me offer my $0.02 here on this. It's kind of long, but I think that = most > people will enjoy this, and there's a lot of truth to it, even though it = may > be insulting to a few people. Ted, While I agree with most of this I do have to point out that it is far more involved than this process you've hashed over here.. I mean the ideals are sound but the structure when it comes to government and larger corperations is just not this simple to break down and attempt to change because of vast policies these companies put in place to prevent any sort of radical changes that aren't part of the company program. I take for example the fairly recent Xcel Energy handover of their IT dept. to IBM Global Services. (Keep in mind - this is just a corperation and not the government which is where this original thread is stemmed from) Let me break this down for you short and sweet. You can drop all the figures and all the cost factors and security pros and cons on the table to these folks and the fact remains fairly simple. Many of the larger corperations (Let's take for example Xcel Energy here in the Twin Cities) have taken on the outsource happy trigger finger. In order to streamline operations IBM was brought into Xcel to take over the entire IT department and set standards and network policy for how things are to be done by the remaining Xcel employees in the parts of the IT=20 department that we not under direct supervision of IBM. These companies look at the support and cost factor of having to deal with these issues and to them, the cost factor isn't nearly as important as the support factors. And the government is even less likely to care about the cost factors of these things if they can get a good support contract to go along with the hardware and software they are using. I mean they are not in the business of providing network services to the general public. So their point of view is far more reserved than a normal corperation. Point still: You can present it and say "I can't get tech support.. etc. etc. etc." And the fact is that most companies have become dependant on services or have contracts they pay thousands of dollars a month for, and they simply are not going to change something over if they can get the task accomplished within the resources available to them that they are already paying for. Not to pick on you or even insult your arguement. But its not realistic in most cases.. "We pay how much a year for support? We'll get the=20 support we're paying for else the company supporting it will answer to a breech of contract.. blah blah" and so on and so forth and so many different ways it can come out. In some cases you might get lucky to get a manager to look at what you are doing and see the vast improvements. But then comes the system of network freezes and proper times in which something could be implimented and tested and so on.. A process that could take years instead of when it was needed most. And by that time someone has come along with a=20 commericialized solution that they will support via yet another contract with the provider our an outsource agent of some sort. I've watched this in IBM, Cray/SGI, several ISP's, a medical intranet company and so on. Its the same from one company to the next. I've just basically grown tired of trying to support the freeware software in the commerical workspace because there are so many issues to overcome that it becomes more stress than just calling "Tech support" and getting the help our contracts are good for and finishing the task at hand by company spec. Not to mention feeling I've just wasted how many hours of my time trying to do something I felt could improve something we needed done virutally overnight. I can appreciate your insight however and do so wish that more companies beyond just ISP's and small business would concider these freeware software options to be a better idea. The reality will continue to be however that its a process that would take years. Not weeks or even months in most cases. And especially with the government. When it comes to IT the governments are very prone to be strict about what they will and won't use due to policy and laws and so on that they must lay out well in advance to any major changes. The history of Cray Research makes for interesting conversation on this very subject. Another time however.. :) Cheers... --=20 Rob Andrews Administrator Cyberpunk Alliance http://www.cyberpunkz.org/ Minneapolis, MN --PuGuTyElPB9bOcsM Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.0.6 (FreeBSD) Comment: For info see http://www.gnupg.org iD8DBQE7qZVuAXwJ9YLqJJURAua0AJ0VJf83zMrGy4CpPFofTZ05j8S+BwCfX7/B RHjuYGg1VTNQQvEPRg913Ck= =KN1R -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --PuGuTyElPB9bOcsM-- To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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