[Herts] OSSS

[Steve Davies]

stormeagle at ntlworld.com said:
> Sorry for the long email, I thought some of you lot might be able to give
> me a hand.
>
> --
[snip]
>
> How can I fight this apathy and inability to consider change? Any ideas?
> [Particularly you Tony!].
>
> Oli
>
This is a common scenario, and I've been there several times. I usually
take one or both of the following aproaches.

1) Calculate the cost of buying a copy of Win2k3 with as many per-seat
licences as are needed to support the site in question - I don't believe
that you will actually need those per-seat licences, but certain intranet
facilities do use them - This is called "padding" ;-)

Calculate the cost of a new server to run the intranet - This can be
justified by quoting the minimum recommended spec. from the Win2k3 website
and comparing it to the "spare equipment" that you have lying around.

Then calculate any costs for upgrading the spare equipment a little bit,
and buying a copy of RedHat Enterprise server (Which you may never even
buy) to provide an equivalent service - Include the zero costs for
webserver s/w etc. on both sides. It is important that this is a non-zero
value, because "TANSTAAFL" nobody believes that you get anything for
nothing.

Present the comparison to someone who is close to the purse strings,
rather than to the source of resistance. Then wait a while...

2) The JFDI (Just F*** Do It) school of intranet.

It costs nothing except a little time to put the software you mention onto
a spare server, so do it in your own time. Once this is done, choose a
small pet project, and implement it. Then arrange for the results to be on
the screen when an appropriately influential person is walking past :-)

I applied this theory where one of the senior directors had literally
banned the use of Linux in the office. Needles to say, 6 months later the
ban was lifted :-)

Just my 2p
Steve