On Sun, Mar 30, 2008 at 7:51 PM, K.G. Schneider <[log in to unmask]> wrote:
> Sorry, Alexander, I disagree.

What, is that allowed!? :)

> Gartner may sound creaky but under the starchy
>  language, this is pretty revolutionary advice.

I can't agree with the "revolutionary advice" part; business leaders,
firms, advisers and abusers have been saying this already for years.
That Gartner now is on the field saying it too shows nothing except
how conservative they are; this is an old message, and certainly not
aimed at people who's doing the actual work in their organisations.

I've been in the "enterprise" for most of my life as a high-flying
consultant (except my non-enterprise last few years in the library
world), and currently work as both manager, developer and advisor to
the largest enterprise organisations around. We've always recomended
and / or used OSS, integrated the very ideal into the fabric of
enterprise software development.

The only people that Gartner now is playing to are the business
people, who will be surprised to learn that their organisations
already use (and many fully embrace) OSS, and have done so for years.
(How they'll cope with that news is another story, and maybe Gartner
is their coming safety blanket) Even big guys who think that only the
Oracle business stack is good enough for them will be surprised to
find the odd OSS project supporting their infrastructure.

OSS is already successful, and it's already working great even if the
MBAs don't know it. And because Gasrtner now is playing to those
people, that's why the porridge litmus test works so great; in
reality, nothing will change, which for many is the perfect advice.


Alex
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