Open Source Software in a corporate setting?

[0roo0roo]

QFT

You do not want to be the guy that chose the OSS that FUBARed something important. You want to be the guy with the phone # for the people that are supposed to fix it because you paid them.

Its not irrational to want accountability.

 

[StageLeft]

Some of it probably is blame but in any case I've never seen open source anywhere other than what developers installed on their own computers to play around/surf the net with. This goes for a bunch of companies of various sizes. As mentioned above, it's most likely because of support. And, frankly, the open source apps are generally inferior. If you can save some money on licensing but the generators of the actual money in the business are being frustrated by lack of intuitive interfaces or documentation you're going backwards.

 

[Red Squirrel]

It's actually sad that the corporate world is all about blame, but it's so true, that's how it is.

My IT manager is always blaming things on anyone he can. I don't know if it's because it makes them feel better or something, but I find it's so babyish.

 

[biggestmuff]

OP, you may have already found them, but look for articles about the guitar company Ernie Ball. They went open source after a BSA raid found unlicensed software. It may help.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

I'm a fan of some OSS but really, O? That piece of software is horrible. If you want something free have a look at Google Docs.

 

[GodlessAstronomer]

Java is slow as hell.

No.

 

[oynaz]

Google isn't Open Source.

 

[Bateluer]

The number 1 complaint about OOo that I used to get about MS Office was that it was different than MS Office. Its a hard hurdle for people to get over.

 

[sourceninja]

Open source products used by my company

1) open office (not universally, but used)
2) OpenVPN
3) Firefox (users can choose between IE8 and firefox as both are supplied and updated)
4) GIMP ( no way we were buying photoshop for people who just crop a picture now and then for a powerpoint)
5) putty - gotta have ssh/terminal support
6) pidgin - for some reason we can't get the google talk client to work on our network. Pidgin however works fine
7) tightvnc - helps watch what the user is screwing up
8) handbrake - used by professors and marketing for converting video for our web portal
9) inkscape - used by at least 3 people on campus for svg. Those people have adobe cs4, but choose inkscape for some reason.
10) git - used by developers and by marketing to track their work


On the server end we also use
1) Linux (Redhat, Ubuntu, and SuSE)
2) apache
3) mysql
4) php5
5) python
6) Tomcat
7) postgresql
8) pound proxy
9) moodle
10) bind9
11) the list goes on and on. There are probably 50+ services that run on linux. We have about 50 linux servers.

When I started we were a mix of MS servers and desktops and Novell servers. Now we are a mix of linux and novell servers and MS and Apple desktops.

 

[skyking]

I have no corporate anecdotes to tell, but I support 4 small businesses with linux file and backup servers, fax servers, security camera systems, database servers.
I set up a private school with OO several years ago, they still use it AFAIK.

 

[JD50]

can you tell me more? what particular applications? any barriers?

Well I work for Red Hat, so pretty much everything we have is open source.

 

[Kaido]

QFT

You do not want to be the guy that chose the OSS that FUBARed something important. You want to be the guy with the phone # for the people that are supposed to fix it because you paid them.

Also large one time expenditures on capital can be accounted for differently and save a company a bit of money vs. OSS + tons of problems even if the out of pocket expenses are the same

Yeah, it pretty much boils down to functionality and time. Open Office doesn't support 100% of the functions that Microsoft Office does, and you might get a lot of people complaining about it, especially the math-types (engineers etc.). Plus there's re-training time from regular Microsoft Office...people get really used to a certain version & layout; even though it sounds like a simple upgrade, for a lot of people it's a huge change in their day-to-day lives. Even upgrading regular old Office has been problematic (oh the complaints I've heard about the new Ribbon!).

The biggest thing to look at is your time investment. I'm a really big fan of OSS, but like Legendary said, ultimately you can be the guy who fixes it, or the guy who has the phone number for the people who are supposed to fix it. I switched to a large company as sys admin this year and had a whole list of OSS-type projects I wanted to implement, but I just have no time to do them - my day is all about time management. Sure it's all pretty easy, but right now my to-do list is over 3 pages long of simple things and some days I only get 2-3 things on that list done due to the length of time each project takes and the interruptions I encounter during the day for small "emergencies".

So be aware that you will have to become an expert in Open Office and start fielding phone call after phone call and email and email. OSS is a great thought, if it meets the company's needs and if it's something that is manageable.

So to recap 3 primary things to be aware of:

1. Paid products have paid support, meaning you're off the hook for support. OSS sometimes have paid support and mostly don't, which means YOU are the support, which is a time investment.

2. New, non-standard products require re-training, which is also a time investment. It may seem like a simple upgrade, but it won't be. Whenever we do major upgrades at my sys admin jobs, I usually spend the next month or two hopping around answering user questions (no companies really want to spend time/money training people on the new software, so they don't, so it's all back to you again).

3. Functionality usually isn't 1:1, which means you'll be missing features, some of them critical. So you might have small pockets of people who need Microsoft Office, so you'll have to support that too.

If you enjoy it as a hobby (i.e. don't mind investing the time to learn it at work) and you have the time to do the support required, it's a pretty sweet deal. Otherwise be aware of the time problem and the user-frustration problem.