Globe & Mail article on FOSS use by Cdn gov't

[bob 295]

On Saturday 20 June 2009 07:32 am, Darryl Moore wrote:
> Evan Leibovitch wrote:
> > http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/time-for-canadas-governmen
> >t-to-open-up/article1185932/
>
> Excellent article Even. Thanks. You are most definitely right about the
> potential of government contracts for custom software. Does your
> definition of inertia in the article, (and this list previously) include
> the cost of vendor lock in? That is a pretty big hurdle to change for
> larger companies

Depending on the type of custom software you build from open source tools,  
we've found that the critical resource shortage is skilled programmers.   
Those that are kicking around are getting decidedly grey haired.   In Malcom 
Gladwell's book Outliers,  he claims that it takes 10000 hands on hours to 
gain expertise in any field.    Custom open source is no exception.

It will take a mindset change on the part of the largest consumers of custom 
software (banks,  government) before we can once again attract new young 
talent into the open source custom developer field.    I've been involved in 
custom software efforts with both,  and I don't hold out much hope for that 
mindset change.

While it might sound illogical to us,  the money saving argument carries very 
little weight with these organizations.    I was involved with a municipal 
government proposal a few years back.    We had identified an existing open 
source project which would have nicely formed the nucleus of what they 
wanted.   Our proposal was for them to kick in a few $100k to fund developers 
to extend and customize that project.    We suggested that they band together 
with neighboring municipalities and share that developer cost.   Instead that 
municipality elected to go it alone for a $5M product which only did 50% of 
what they wanted  ... but offered them an "entity to sue".    To my knowledge 
they still don't have that system working.

bob
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