Interesting article on outsourcing OSS support

[Christopher Browne]

http://searchopensource.techtarget.com/originalContent/0,289142,sid39_gci1215240,00.html

The part that is particularly heartening is thus:
======================
Q: So are you saying that every IT organization using open source
should have open source liaisons that are hands-on with the technology
at all times?

Zachary: Yes. Resources should be designated as the primary points of
contact for each open source component within the user organization.
While an organization may not have internal 'experts,' there is value
in taking ownership of this process, as opposed to deferring entirely
to a provider.

It would be a mistake for an organization to fully outsource support
for open source. Instead, consider it an augmentation of internal
expertise. In that case, if an organization needs help with Apache Web
server, it can go to a vendor like Covalent, which provides 24/7
support for Web services. If you have no internal leads on managing
and supporting open source deployments today, then an organization
must educate itself in this regard or it will not gain the ability to
have flexibility and vendor independence down the road.
======================
-- 
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/linux.html
Oddly enough, this is completely standard behaviour for shells. This
is a roundabout way of saying `don't use combined chains of `&&'s and
`||'s unless you think Gödel's theorem is for sissies'.
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