[ILUG] Linux not good enough......

[Rick Moen]

Quoting olearypj at rte.ie (olearypj at rte.ie):

> I had an interesting run in with a "senior IT manager" in the job
> today, he was setting up a server & some clients for a demo of some
> help desk software on monday. I asked if he had seen OTRS & he replied
> that he had not even heard of it but would bet that it would only run
> on Linux I suppose. I explained that it runs very well under Linux in
> Beaumont Hospital, but he replied that it may very well do, but the
> job he has for his software was too big & important for such a simple
> package & besides that OTRS thing, being open source would have no
> support or backup. How do you answer that kind of comment.

Senior IT managers often say generically dismissive things about
technologies they don't understand, for two reasons:  (1) They're
accustomed to other people trying to "sell" them software concepts, and
thus are waiting for the interested party to make a pitch, to overcome
their cobbled-together objections.  It's thus common for them to miss
open source entirely.

See also:  http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/User-Group-HOWTO-4.html#ss4.2

(2) It allows them to blow off whatever they're not already experienced
in, which makes life simpler for them.  Remember:  Managers don't want
to talk and think about IT; they want to talk and think about golf.

If you judge that he's actually interested, and that you wouldn't be
wasting your time and breath, you could point out to him that, "being
open source" (to borrow his phrase), OTRS makes it possible for him to
sign a support/backup contract of any sort he wants, on an a la carte
basis -- and that, unlike proprietary alternatives, he can use and adapt
it in any way he wishes, in perpetuity.

Personally, my favourite way to handle this sort of person would be to
grab a discarded, decommissioned machine (e.g., a P133), load and
configure Linux & OTRS on it in my spare time, and let him and other
managers observe it _already in operation_, and notice the astonishingly
convenient fact that (as a working prototype) it does exactly what they
say they need.  

If they object that they don't want to use it because it's open source, 
say you understand and that fortunately nobody's trying to force them
to.  ;->