Encouraging F/OSS in a Microsoft enterprise environment

I would tell Joel to sit down, STFU, Linux on the Desktop is never going to be A Thing, and here’s a Mac. Enjoy.

I would tell Bob, hey Bob, stop installing crazy shit on your laptop, here’s a t2.micro AWS EC2 instance, go nuts.

But then again, I’ve sat all day hacking on AMI backup scripts and UWSGI Python API deployment shenanigans in auto scaling groups while narrowly averting the loss of a domain name asset due to bouncing inbound registrant verification mails (fuck you, [MSP REDACTED], fuck you), so I’m allowed to be grumpy.

Seriously, Joel, I had to hand roll a kernel for your stupid graphics driver yesterday, piss off and make sure that High Sierra security update gets installed! Vamoose!

Sounds like you’re describing a 2-in-1, or a convertible. I bought one of those on a whim last year, a Lenovo Yoga 700-11ISK. It’s crap. Underpowered Core m3, the trackpad is complete garbage compared to my Macbooks Pro and Magic Trackpads, blah blah blah [INSERT LAUNDRY LIST OF “IT’S A FUCKING WINDOWS LAPTOP” ISSUES HERE].

But look: it’s GORGEOUS.

Seriously, it’s clementine orange.

image

Even underneath. The surface is like rubbery grippy stuff, but not in a horrible rubbery way.

It’s got bits of carbon fibre-like stuff in it. Why, yes, that is a combo USB/PSU port.

It’s got a really nice keyboard, except for backspace being a bit weird and tiny. And I bought it with my heart rather than my head. And I love it.

But it’s a Lenovo.

And my employer doesn’t buy Lenovo, only Dell or Apple. Same with my last employer. And the one before that was Dell or nothing.

Sometimes you can’t always get what you want. I think someone wrote a song about that. I guess that’s what I’m saying, but also: never give up, never surrender. MAK’TAR STEALTH HAZE!

It’s almost like we’re a respectable community who cares about what other people think, or something! :wink:

I haven’t slept in approximately two days. So right now, I’m laughing because I’m trying to figure out why I’m smoking a hand-rolled orange notebook.

Thanks for that.

Good night. :slight_smile:

Ok, so I gave the presentation yesterday. The FOSS component was 15 minutes out of an hour-long presentation. It was more or less dismissed, admittedly, but not without some consideration.

I did sell the concept on the idea that open source tends to align itself very much with key ide as which we consider to be at the core of “good government”, emphasizing the importance of not unnecessarily making ourselves beholden to private interests. The point was hardly lost on my audience, but the idea of implementing FOSS, I’m afraid, is a bit too undefined at the moment. That said, I think they’re generally amenable to the concept, and I certainly plan on bringing it up as opportunities present themselves in the future. Changes in government don’t happen overnight, after all (coups d’etat excepted :slight_smile: ).

That said, the more interesting problem involves taking on our traditional approach to managing technology (and, by extension, our staff and their productivity). We’re very centralized in our approach and the idea of decentralizing the control, and allowing the staff across the state to have more direct control over the technology and how it’s used was, naturally, met with some resistance. The push back was generally, “but how are you going to keep control of the rogue staff?” I had a moment of clarity on that particular point and mentioned that the goal, here, was to foster collaboration rather than dictate control and that, done correctly, the two can coexist quite nicely. Strangely, those most concerned didn’t have much argument against my proposition.

Although FOSS is not going to be an active part of our culture in the near term, what makes it work - community and collaboration - seem like a valuable way to answer the challenges we’ve faced for a long time as an organization driven on centralized control structures.

Better still, there is an opportunity being afforded which may allow us to demonstrate this idea in action in the coming months. I don’t exactly know what role I’ll play in any of this, but if nothing else, I want to give us the chance to see what we can do when we stop looking at our challenges in terms of who has control and primary responsibility and start looking at them as opportunities to collaborate across work units and geographic groups.

I apologize for my vagueness in the details, but the opportunity and the conversations have been real, and it is a unique position I’ve found myself in to make a change that I don’t think has really ever been seen, at least in our organization. It’s a little exciting, though I admit I walk around a bit sick to my stomach, convinced I’m making a terrible mistake, somehow.

We shall see.

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Without knowing the context of the entire presentation, I’m thinking that maybe 25% of the presentation being focused of FOSS should be an encouraging start?

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Well, it’s the first time any serious presentation of it has ever been made in our organization, I think. I invited a guy to the meeting who’s a fellow Linux user. He thought it was well presented. Everyone else said that one part was way too technical. Compared to the rest of the presentation, it really was. Though, I think the most technical word I used was “kernel”, but whatever. :slight_smile:

Really, the meeting was too high-level for the material - I was selling to the wrong crowd. But I didn’t fully appreciate that until I got into it and sort of realized I was losing them.

That said, I did push to get us to open source some of our key development projects. I saw nodding heads among some of the IT staff, so I know I was hitting home there. :slight_smile:

I cannot listen anymore - when you’re not alone try PMing the rockstars, or have you already tried that ?

No. I haven’t tried that.

TBH, I’m a small fish in a big pond. I don’t have great expectations that anything I do will have any significant impact on the way we do business - that’s not to say it won’t… I’m a bit jaded, I’ll admit. Once a different administration comes in, they can unravel a lot of work that the previous one had established. Further, I have to push against the traditional sense of control that, I think, is bred into all of us - government or otherwise. I’ve had a few control freak moments myself… But whatever the outcome, it’s really about seeding an idea and proving that it’s of value and trying to codify it into the way we do business - something that will survive changes in political administrations and other things like that.

Okay @joe , I shall send you a long email abou ignorin’ spooks on here, thanks.

CIA or MI6? :smile: