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Trust and Zeal in Open Source Advocacy (O'ReillyNet)

[Posted April 22, 2005 by ris]

Jono Bacon discusses advocacy in this O'ReillyNet article. "The important difference between an evangelistic zealot and a consultant is the authenticity of the advice; a zealous evangelist may advise you to go the open source route irrespective of whether it is right for you, yet a consultant is far more likely to identify what your needs are and determine how--and if--open source can help you. The latter is most certainly the approach you should seek. It is the only path I try to advise."

(Log in to post comments)

Posted Apr 22, 2005 18:23 UTC (Fri) by allesfresser (subscriber, #216) [Link]

From the article:
"Although evangelism is perfectly acceptable and often desirable when applied to that of unbending faith in God, the same approach applies less often to a business culture where logic, politics, and doing lunch rule."

From my experience, business culture applies the last two liberally and generally dispenses with the first one. Also, the 'illogic of evangelism' sure doesn't seem to stop most executives and managers from genuflecting toward Redmond each day... it reminds me very much of laws in certain countries that make it illegal to switch religions.

Trust and Zeal in Open Source Advocacy (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Apr 23, 2005 7:51 UTC (Sat) by nurhussein (guest, #16226) [Link]

Legitimizing the concept of community and the community-driven open source process partially involves trying to persuade the business culture that being competitive does not require having absolute control of the process, developers, and final product.

Having talked to some managers and business-oriented folks, they seem to be particularly hostile towards the concept of not being able to control the techies. They view techies as "commodities" that should be able to be replaced, outsourced and fired at their whim. Hence the fear of open source. Not every manager, but the more control-freak-inclined ones.

Trust and Zeal in Open Source Advocacy (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Apr 25, 2005 17:55 UTC (Mon) by mchristensen (guest, #4955) [Link]

"The more control-freak-inclined ones." -- I know this is an off the cuff remark, but it struck a nerve with me.

Forgive me if I am using this as an excuse to rant, but I think this is a very important theme for those who want to advocate anything.

Perhaps the folks you were talking to were actually control freeks, but playing the villain/victim game is very rarely helpful. In my experience it is better to ask yourself, what would make a reasonable person do what that manager did? What was she trying to accomplish? What assumptions about the world would lead a reasonable person to try to reach those goals by doing what she just did?

If you can think your way out of villainizing someone, you've taken the first and most important step to having a productive dialog with them.

Sometimes tech people do things wrong, sometimes managers get the wrong idea about what tech people should be doing, and sometimes lack of communication turns into poorly informed decision making on both sides. The only answer is better communication between the two groups, and villainizing management just makes that harder.

--Mark Ramm-Christensen

Trust and Zeal in Open Source Advocacy (O'ReillyNet)

Posted Apr 23, 2005 16:23 UTC (Sat) by neoprene (guest, #8520) [Link]

"Ever since the seedling that was free software and open source began to propagate through the early tunnels of the internet, extensive sociopolitical analysis has been aimed at defining the open source community."

The essence of Linux/FOSS is the POWER of choice, and not to be ruled by the whims of Corporate Interests.
Common Interests and Corporate Interests stand diametrically opposed.
The Common Interest have no use for Corporate Profits, they are source of them. Corporations, if they are smart, can use Linux to enhance their profits and as a side-benefit also release GPL code for Common Use. While Linux has grown up to be a useful business tool lets not get sucked into thinking that the Linux/FOSS community are the servants to the Corporate Interests. Telling other people of the benefits of Linux/FOSS is much better than getting Corporations to adopt it.

These pundits wishing "the Linux community" to "do this" or "do that" forgets this all the time. Yes, commercial operating systems and applications can be better, they absolutely should, for what they charge. Linux/FOSS sets a lowest bar for minimum acceptable performance, [i.e. pay only for apps (and OS) whose performance respectably exceed Linux/FOSS, which of course will be a moving target].

What's the old saw?

Posted Apr 25, 2005 7:06 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433) [Link]

"yet a consultant is far more likely to identify what your needs are and determine how--and if--open source can help you."

A consultant will borrow your watch to tell you the time...

In an ideal world, Jono might be right. In the real world, an open source evangelist is more likely to tell you the truth - a consultant will tell you what you told him to say!

Cheers,
Wol