Journal Journal: First post. Ack
I just saw that a reply I has written about some upgrade I did a while back had been modded up to a +4 comment. What a joke. It was a flippant remark about how a friend and I bowed to pressure from having no money and just build a new IT infrastructure from the ground up using open source technologies. Bind, ntpd, Sendmail, Apache, and Openswan (formerly freeswan) replaced an aging hulk of an NT domain controller. Not only that, but it gave us a chance to move beyond what was possible to the so-called IT managers. Whatever. I'm a fan of whatever works, and Microsoft hasn't "worked" for some time. Gates said himself that users don't pay for bug-fixes, and he's right. Users pay for shiny paperclips that help you type a letter. Users pay for a dog that helps you find files on your computer. Users pay for a helpful "Wizard" that somehow can allow other people to "help" you through remote desktop, but keep the "bad" people out. I don't care about any of that garbage. I want something that bloody works. Sendmail isn't by any means flashy, sexy or "high-technology". It is fast, reliable, and hardened, though. That's what I want: something that works well. I'll worry about the flashy stuff if I have the money to throw away. That's a really big IF. In our case, we had some time to kill, so we threw a bone to our users by giving them the ability to use secured web mail through Apache and Squirrelmail, a couple of brilliant projects. Squirrelmail is fast and lean, and it also just works.
So why do I care? Here's my main point: companies should be responsible for what code they write. The code needs to bloody work. That's what Open Source is all about. You're not judged by your paycheck, you're judged by your peers. If you write a ridiculous hack, are people going to laugh at you for it? That depends. Is it useful? Does it do what it is that you need it to do, and reliably? For the most part, I don't care where I get my software from. I just care if it Works, and for now, the market of Free Software fits the bill better than nicely. Scott Out.
So why do I care? Here's my main point: companies should be responsible for what code they write. The code needs to bloody work. That's what Open Source is all about. You're not judged by your paycheck, you're judged by your peers. If you write a ridiculous hack, are people going to laugh at you for it? That depends. Is it useful? Does it do what it is that you need it to do, and reliably? For the most part, I don't care where I get my software from. I just care if it Works, and for now, the market of Free Software fits the bill better than nicely. Scott Out.
