Nice post :D
Sent from my iPhone
On 2010-03-27, at 11:01 AM, "Zak James" <[email protected]> wrote:
--
Zak James
Applications and Software Development
DM Solutions Group Inc.
http://www.dmsolutions.ca
http://research.dmsolutions.ca
-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Puttick
Sent: 26.03.2010 17:54:39
To: OSGeo Discussions
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Discuss] Re: Whitebox GAT (Chris Puttick)
Terribly off-topic now, so feel free to stop reading...
----- "Brian Russo" <[email protected]> wrote:
It wasn't directed at you Chris, nor specifically at anyone.
I just think the general tone of this conversation is pretty
unproductive. Sure people have reasons about "being" strategic"
everything but maybe it's just how I'm reading it but I just see the
old, familiar tones of the "Free Software Movement" which is "do it
my
way (100% free) or the highway". I don't think that helps anyone..
You can take it on faith or a Google that I'm pragmatic on the
issue. I've explained why I think .net is a poor strategic choice,
and that my motivations are strategic. I am all too well aware that
many IT decisions are based on convenience and short term outlook,
and pretty sure that's a major factor in...
It's all well and good if you're in a small organisation with 300 pcs
or whatever like Chris P and you have that sort of latitude.. but
people forget that most organisations aren't driven by cost or
ideology - they're driven by business value. Openness is no different
than being Green/Sustainable. It has to make good business sense in
order to be the right decision. I can't go to my bosses and say "we
have to do this because it's open source". They won't care and I
don't
blame them.
...not realising high or often any business value. Business value is
where what you expend money and get more in return than you spent.
Incredibly easy to measure in small businesses with few employees
and a simple business model, harder the larger the business or the
more complex the concept of value becomes e.g. in a charity or
government organisation. There is good evidence that collectively
western economies have spent more on IT than they have realised in
value.
The business case is not simple, any more than it is in marketing;
but here's my base position in simple terms. I select solutions that
maximise our future choices and reduce our costs; a further benefit
is derived if I can move any remaining costs from fixed annual
overhead to per employee or pure capital; while there may be short
term pain as people get used to the changes, any increase in costs
for that short period will be more than offset by the long term
decrease in costs and increases in flexibility for the organisation.
Luckily for me I don't have to justify to others other than in my
long term results. I'm aware that this continues to be a rare
privilege for the top of the information systems tree and that many
organisations continue to not have technical expertise at the
highest level, resulting in many decisions in that area being taken
with the wrong information and wrong motivations. I'm working on
that too.
There are other aspects to openness that may derive negative value
for some organisations e.g. opening data - great for archaeology,
bankruptcy for marketing companies, a matter for the courts for
financial companies. But open source solutions for your
organisation's IT has no downsides. Unless there are no open source
solutions that can be made to do the job.
Sorry this thread has deteriorated into a management philosophy
discussion. I'm here mostly for the open, I'm not so strong on the
geospatial...
Cheers
Chris
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