On Sun, 2002-07-07 at 22:54, [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > What it basically boiled down to was that corporate IT staff has to > support and maintain corporate IT systems -- including all production > networks and computers that connect to them -- and, in such an enviornment, > with IT staff rightly being held accountable for it all, the IT staff should > have every right to insist you run things "their way". Now that "their way" > and "your way" are not mutually inclusive, you suddenly change your tune.
There is one major point being excluded here, and I'm sure that it is just an oversight ;-) The people saying that they should be able to run whatever they want *ARE* the IT department. If someone in IT has the job of administering mostly *NIX servers/systems, than it makes sense that they will be less productive if they are forced to use Windows. It also stands to reason that since they are the ones that have to support everything anyway, that they can support themselves. > Don't give me the "I'm more productive on Unix" line, either. :) The > productivity argument was put forward during the "root access" debate, and > your position was that reliable corproate operations trumped that, even in > cases where root access was not just a matter of productivity, but being > able to do your job at all. Your position was that, if root access was well > and truly required, a special lab enviornment, carefully isolated from the > production enviornment, was the only acceptable approach. Reliable corporate operations are very important, and most times they will win out over user comfort (unless that user is Sr. Mgmt, and then their ego wins out over stability ;-). However, corporate stability relies heavily upon the productivity of the IT department. So, it would stand to reason that there are slightly different rules for the IT department then there are for ordinary users. Of course, another solution is to install VMWare and have it running all the time in a minimized window. When a manager or other self-important type walks by, just maximize the window. I for one was never much for rules to begin with ;-) > So, Paul, I'm curious: Is there a real difference here, or is it just that > you were getting your way before, and in this semi-hypothetical situation, > you're not? :-) I think that the difference is *who* the user is. If a sales or marketing person wants to do their own thing, you know that only bad things will happen. If an IT person wants to do something, chances are that either 1) there is a really good reason for it, or 2) it's really cool ;-) > (For those wondering, I personally see both sides as having valid > arguments (in both debates). I think the issues cannot be simplied to a > blanket statement that works everywhere.) I don't think that there is a blanket answer. It needs to be a case-by-case basis. C-Ya, Kenny ***************************************************************** To unsubscribe from this list, send mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the text 'unsubscribe gnhlug' in the message body. *****************************************************************
