A lesson for free software advocates?
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| dinotrac Nov 15, 2006 6:44 AM EDT |
Free software is the greatest thing since sliced bread, especially for the public sector. Seriously. But that's not enough to succeed with it, any more than than Beta's superiority over VHS could guarantee it's success in the marketplace or the supreme idiocy of using a humongoloid SUV built on top of a truck for a luxury ride could guarantee its failure. The best stuff, like the best candidate or the best team, doesn't always win. Life is harder than that. Always has been. People set up fiefdoms, people get used to what they know, network effects become very powerful. Ken Starks recently shared some of his experience replacing Microsoft systems with free software -- in a situation where the company's top management was aggressively -- vehemently -- supportive. He succeeded, but had some very interesting bumps -- including a call to the police -- along the way. Imagine going through that same scenario with management that was not so motivated to see you through. Imagine going through that same scenario in the public sector with civil servants who can't easily be fired, have set up their own little kingdoms, and who do not want their boats rocked. People, not technology, determine success. Politics matter. If the right people aren't on board, you likely to fail, no matter what your uptime is, not matter how standards-compliant your are, no matter how well your stuff works. It might pay to remember how Linux first got into many of the major corporations using it today. It got in because network administrators needed to improve network performance and/or capacity without a corresponding budget. Spare machines got pressed into service as Samba servers, flying under the radar by masquerading as Windows boxes. From little steps like that, many a larger project has been born. Nothing can stop you in your tracks like people who don't buy in. There is not bigger pry bar than proven in-house success using in-house resources. That, by the way, is not unique to free software. It's a fact of working with human beings. A friend recently told me that something like 60% of all large IT projects fail in one way or another. I would guess that technology has very little to do with the difference between success and failure. There is no bigger lesson for any advocate than to place ears before mouth and to understand what is important to the people you need in order to achieve your goals. |
| dek Nov 15, 2006 7:26 AM EDT |
>>A friend recently told me that something like 60% of all large IT projects fail in one way or another. If the percentage isn't higher than that, I will gladly eat my shoes! In my relatively short time working in IT, I've seen some colossal failures and relatively few successes. Most of the failures were/are because of very bad upper level project managment. Thiink CIO and senior director level. One time the company bought in a contracting company to work with us, knowing that the contractors were going to turn around and sell our work combined with their work as a prebuilt software package. To be sure, it was specialized software but still that did not go over well with the employees. Then they decided "ok well we'll make some the employees direct reports to the contractors." This was a Bell off shoot BTW. I won't say which one. CRAP! Don K. |
| jdixon Nov 15, 2006 8:24 PM EDT |
> In my relatively short time working in IT, I've seen some colossal failures and relatively few successes. In general, the larger the project, the greater the chance of failure. This is true of all projects, since complexity increases with size, but seems to be especially true of software. |
| dek Nov 16, 2006 11:18 AM EDT |
True, however, clueless CIO's don't enhance the prospect of success. Especially "seagull" CIO's hired for 5 years. |
| galeru Nov 16, 2006 7:53 PM EDT |
I thought VHS succeeded over Betamax because VHS had a longer record time, and the porn industry liked that, used it, and the video industry followed. ...I love history. |
| dinotrac Nov 16, 2006 7:56 PM EDT |
galeru - Betamax record times were extended to keep up, but betamax was more expensive than VHS. Of course, if you compared the two pictures side to side, you would always pick the Betamax. Kind of like Mac v Windows 3.x. |
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