[OT] TV, Internet, and Democracy

[Evan Leibovitch]

Christopher Browne wrote:

> I have to take exception; my father used to be a senior bureaucrat (in
> Ottawa, of course), and if you regard yourself as *so* different from
> them that they seem like a different species, I have to wonder who's
> the oddity.
Indeed, this is part of the challenge that advocates face sometimes, is
even helping the rest of the community understand that there _are_
certain people who have greater influence on FOSS adoption than others,
and that given limited resources we should concentrate on them. The
problem is that the culture difference is so vast sometimes that it's
easier to dismiss (and dehumanize) the targets than figure out the tough
task of what to say to them and how.

One does not need to go very far in the world of open source projects to
see utter contempt for promotion and marketing. There is a widespread
belief that "if you build it (well enough), they will come", which of
course on its own is sheer bunk.

> Reality is that they are people of importance, notably to the desire
> to see OSS software more widely deployed.  Some may sit in Bill Gate's
> pocket, although that's unlikely, as they are people who, due to their
> political importance, find *many* people trying to curry favour with
> them.
In my own experience, I find that Microsoft is not a very well liked
company. It is widely _admired_ for its ability to succeed in raw
economic terms, but that admiration vanishes when the speaker talks as a
consumer of their products.

Where there is rabid defence of Microsoft, I find that it is not based
on the same kind of affinity that Mac, Unix and Linux users tend to
have. Rather, I find that more often than not the issue is one of
inertia and fear. Managers -- especially those deep into their careers
-- have much to lose in the corporate politics by choosing technology in
which they are far less skilled than their subordinates. Fear of
Microsoft/SCO attacks on open source have had an effect on the truly
timid, but that FUD pales next to the negative consequence of sheer
simple fear of the unknown.

> I did my bit today; had a chat with some technical sales folk at IBM
> on how they might position pSeries + PostgreSQL against some
> alternatives :-).  They may or may not win the sale; there were a few
> key spots where they simply failed to understand how to sell OSS, and
> I hope I helped with that.
I don't think that IBM has a problem selling open source solution
components. I do believe that the company probably balks at suggesting
FOSS alternatives to its own DB2 product offerings. It may simply have a
hard time wrapping its head around non-DB2 solutions. But it could lead
to higher sales fof them..

> Pointedly, they were very worried about PostgreSQL service offerings,
> and thought it seemed risky when I suggested that the customer ought
> to have some "budding experts" in house.
Well, IBM makes a lot of money on support and outsourcing. They don't
want to hear about customers having in-house experts, that cuts into
their own model.

> I told them:  If you pick OSS, having some local expertise is part and
> parcel of it.  You want a "total product" where you need NO expertise?
> That's why you should buy DB2, Oracle, and such.  The customer
> already said they weren't interested in that, so they've already
> committed to drawing in some OSS expertise in house.
So the message to IBM is "work with a FOSS database or lose the sale"...
Hmm, that'll get their attention...

> Finding strategic people to talk to is of value.  Most of the time, it
> will fail, but that doesn't mean the effort was necessarily wasted.

Then part of the preliminary research is finding out those who will be
more inclined to listen, further increasing the chances of success given
limited budgets,

- Evan

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