Selling BSD
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I recommend that you examine yourself. Don't just dismiss this by saying, "Of course I'm respectable." Go look in the mirror for at least 60 whole seconds. One day at work, take a full 2 minutes an hour to consider the conversations you've had in the preceding 58 minutes. Do you have any hint of demagoguery? If so, your respectability just took a hit.
You're competing against an idea of "professional-grade software." Ultimately, professional software is the software used by professionals. If you are professional, your tools are considered professional. Professional recommendations carry weight. Amateur recommendations don't.
So, now that you are considered respectable, let's look at things you need before even proposing a solution.
Many software vendors provide a feature listed on no specifications sheet: deniability. Suppose you implement a BSD-based solution. If it breaks, can you fix it? Don't count on some mysterious developer on some mailing list somewhere; can you, personally, actually get bits under your fingers and fix it with the resources your community offers for immediate use? I can phone Microsoft Support and for the low price of my company AmEx number, someone will walk me through configuring or fixing darn near anything. This is a powerful argument. Fortunately, BSD support is becoming easier to find from companies such as Wasabi Systems and FreeBSD Services Limited. Still, you need to not merely be able to, but enjoy finding solutions quickly and under pressure.
In fact, most managers will happily pay for deniability in their IT infrastructure. They have enough headaches with other problems and the average solution works -- most of the time. If a server goes bad, a manager easily tell his boss "We have contacted Microsoft, and they're working on it with us." This answer gives company owners a warm and fuzzy feeling; everything that can be done is being done. That manager will have a much more difficult time saying "Our resident systems expert is debugging the source code to find the problem." Many managers are quick to find fault with others' work. You might quickly find yourself in a position where someone in authority says "The problem is obviously this 'source code' stuff. Windows doesn't have that. Get rid of it."
Avoiding this requires an honest assessment of your skills. Do you need deniability? What happens if you screw up, or outright fail? Are you willing to stake your job on unmitigated success? Because that's what you're doing.
The best thing you can do is listen to your users before you implement something. What features do they want? Can you provide all of those features with BSD? If not, then your users will not be happy. The solution you provide will take the blame. A BSD solution not only must meet expectations, it must exceed them. Remember, if a user complains about the Exchange server you have deniability -- it's Microsoft's fault. If they complain about your IMAP/exim/BSD solution, you have no deniability. It's your fault.
One of the requirements for providing services on any free Unix platform is knowing how that service works. In Windows, in a few hours I can point-and-click and set up just about any piece of software. This software might not work well. It might not handle everything I want. But it will hobble along and provide what functionality it does offer.
On the other hand, I know someone who has implemented a company-wide single-sign-on solution with OpenBSD and OpenLDAP. It is astonishingly flexible. I also know several companies who could really use this. Unfortunately, I don't know much at all about LDAP. Would I enjoy researching, testing, and implementing this? Absolutely. Should my employer pay me to spend an indefinite length of time learning the intimacies of LDAP so I can implement this with a free system? Absolutely not. Learning LDAP would be a legitimate use of my training benefits, but I must do that before proposing the solution.
These considerations can help you decide what battles to fight, and which ones to avoid, and how to equip yourself to win them. Next time we'll look at demolishing your own case before someone else can.
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Showing messages 1 through 7 of 7.
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Re: Selling BSD
2003-05-26 18:20:45 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
Great article Michael! A collegue turned me on to BSD a few months ago and it has been one wild ride. By far the easiest OS to adminster/maintain. I work for a fairly large organization and we are deploying BSD all over the place.
Tommy Bollhofer
Orlando, Florida
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Shirt Buttons, Silly!
2002-11-01 12:59:52 anonymous2 [Reply | View]
I think the author was referring to a button down shirt rather then a BSD button, aka pin. He's making the point of act and look professional and others will value your opinion as a profefssional opinion.
ps- LOVE "Absolute BSD"!
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Excellent advice! To learn more read "Crossing the Chasm"
2001-10-24 09:43:54 tjleach [Reply | View]
As previously stated professionalism is what gets technology solutions into the mainstream. I recommend reading a book by
Geofferey A. Moore titled " Crossing the Chasm" which talks about how technology moves for early adapters to the mainstream. Open Source right now is at the chasm about to move into the mainstream of business. Thanks to company like IBM Open Source is getting a big push and alot of companies and careers will be made, because Big Blue can't do it all for every company. Let Microsoft be the demagogues against open source while BSD and other open source "Professionals" provide reliable solutions.
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Excellent Article...
2001-10-23 13:45:31 plaw [Reply | View]
Thanks for an excellent article. I believe it could have been written to address not just BSD acceptability, but also Linux and Open Source generally.
The respectability vs. demagoguery debate hits close to home.
When arguing the case for one technology over another, it is important to see the "battlefield" in simple business terms. I find that open source solutions often win in the end-- especially given their affordable price tag. Managers may be reluctant to adopt new solutions quickly, especially with mission-critical functions. But, they tend to soften up with a few success stories under their belts-- and some dramatic reductions in software costs.
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I don't need to wear a button.
2001-10-21 11:22:47 rootman22 [Reply | View]
I don't need to wear buttons to promote BSD. I am frequently seen wearing my FreeBSD polo shirt at work and those driving behind me see a BSD sticker in my back window. As I stated in my article; "BSD in a Microsoft Office" that I submitted to Daemon News last March http://www.daemonnews.org/200103/adventure.html/"/Link Text "When I first started using FreeBSD, I was so amazed and taken with it that I could be heard preaching the BSD gospel almost every day. Keep in mind that most
people will continue to use whichever operating system or application they are comfortable with. Don't be such an advocate that people become afraid to even
mention the words "FreeBSD","NetBSD", "OpenBSD" or "BSD" around you. Remember, the louder you are, the harder it can be to hear you. The phrase,"Action
speaks louder than words", certainly applies here. Quietly learn about the BSDs, how to use them, and offer the amazing demonstration when the opportunity
presents itself." It's fine to wear BSD shirts, buttons and display BSD stickers but IMO, supporting BSD is more important than promoting it.
I code for both environments, sometimes using both in client/server applications.
Go Beastie!