Who Are Those Guys?

CIO Magazine ^ | Mar. 15, 2003 | CHRISTOPHER KOCH

[NCSteve]

Late post, sorry, but I was busy!!!!

Let's say you find a bug in one of the utilities or request an enhancement, are they going to fix it? (We were discussing the two Linux automounters, I think.) Some guy in Sweden (say) is in charge of one of them, and my research shows he's stopped developing it.

If you bought into Open Source and Linux with the thought that you would rely on some corporate droid somewhere to support you, you missed the point entirely and went in for the wrong reasons.

Additionally, if you've been in the business for a while, then I would ask, how is the experience you describe so different than plodding through multi-layer corporate support structures, now mostly hosted in Punjab with people speaking some unintelligible gibberish that is supposed to be English? With the proprietary product, you're stuck. You have two choices: hack together workarounds, maybe, or begin the tedious process of finding a different vendor, most likely to end up in six months exactly where you are now. Sure open source projects occasionally vanish into thin air, but at least you have the source code and if it's that important to you, you can fix it. Best of all, you didn't pay out an exhorbitant amount for a worthless support contract

Open Source represents the ultimate market solution. Software tends somewhat naturally to monopoly (vis. Microsoft). A lot of companies and individuals are now using Open Source as a tool to create competition where many times none exists. In the end, what you end up with is superior software and reasonable producers.

[krinklyfig]

I wonder how many that aren't interested in learning are playing Solitaire or Counter-Strike on the clock. I wonder why you speculate that OSS advocates would waste time on the clock.

[Bush2000]

I wonder why you speculate that OSS advocates would waste time on the clock.

Oh, please. I'm sure that nearly everyone here has seen people "freelancing" (aka wasting time on unauthorized activities such as playing games, browsing the Web, and working on code that isn't work-related) at work. This shouldn't come as a surprise.

Company crackdown on staff who surf

"And a spate of recent research has confirmed the worst fears of suspicious employers.

According to filtering software firm Websense, the nine-to-five working day accounts for 70% of all internet porn traffic and more than 60% of online shopping purchases.

A separate survey revealed that half of IT managers estimate that employees spend at least one hour a day surfing the Internet for personal use, while two thirds think staff spend as much as an hour a day sending personal emails. "

[krinklyfig]

But why are you assuming the worst of a specific group which you don't like?

[Bush2000]

Read my original post. I made no conclusions about the number of OSS bozos who are working on open source projects without the boss's permission -- but I'm certain that it's a non-zero number.