[COLUG] Re: Musing on training, another view

[Tom Hanlon]

Colug,

Excuse the top post and the deleted thread. I lost the original.

Here are my thoughts on training and business adoption of Linux.

I lost my urge to fight a battle about companies doing what I  
consider to be the right thing a few years ago.

Using Linux may be the right thing and it may seem to us that it  
makes financial sense, and it may in fact make some financial sense.  
As a computer nerd you see a lot of crazy things, and they do not  
make sense to you, and you adjust your thinking accordingly. I expect  
management decisions to not make sense to me.

I most often see the smartest person in the company get the least  
respect and a salary that is not representative of the talent they  
have. Companies do not really know what to do with smart talented  
people. Perhaps smart talented people are more difficult to manage,  
often they are. Certainly they are difficult to communicate with.

So if I was managing a company, A bunch of semi-smart, but hard  
working MCSE types might be the best. Like standard pieces in an  
assembly line they can be replaced.
Compared to a bunch of smart crafty linux nerds..

Linux vs windows...
Once again although it depends on scale, I might want whatever is  
easiest to manage. The cost difference might in the big picture be  
negligible.

The cost of training..
I think the cost of training is significant. I have delivered  
training for 7 years, it costs $500/day plus travel and hotel to  
train an employee. Assuming a 4 day class that is about $3,000 not to  
mention the lost week of work. I want to take a RHCT class $2700 base  
costs plus hotel etc. You can buy a lot of MS office suites for that  
price.

The nature of Managers..
I taught an IT class for managers and I would like to work for about  
2 percent of the folks that I trained. They do not know technology,  
they neither understand nor do they  trust their IT staff, they like  
to pay for software, not people. They really do , they understand  
that transaction. Company A pays company B and they have a  
relationship and it is all good and fine. Oracle may cost thousands  
of dollars but if it streamlines the payroll process... then they are  
getting value out of that investment and they could care less about  
the details.

I would say that many of them had no accounting in place to assess  
the costs and benefits of desktop investment and software investment  
per machine, the big shops can put a value on that, but most can not.  
The big shops may not be paying standard rate for MS products either.  
How do you tell a company like this that linux saves them money?

If you hire temp workers or expect flexibility in your labor pool  
then you are best if you go with the flow.

So things may or may not be changing and they may or may not change  
fast.

The other thing to consider is once Linux is adopted into the  
corporate environment it is no longer the fun rebel outsider hacker  
toy that we know and love. Sure we can get to bash shell and play  
around but corporate/enterprise software is dull and boring not  
because it is MS, (although that helps) , corporate/enterprise  
software is dull and boring because it is in the corporation.

Setting up a jabber server for your friends to have private chat is a  
lot of fun. Setting up a jabber server so that Mead Paper products  
INC. can chat is boring.

You could argue that the linux kernel itself went corporate about 4  
years ago. Becoming mainstream means just that we become them, they  
do not become us.

All of the above said that is why I prefer to work with smaller  
companies on small projects where I get the opportunity to be  
creative, to save money, to learn and explore.

I do not expect companies to change and I do not expect managers to  
agree with my opinions, they do not understand linux, I do not  
understand business, although I once thought that I did, and I am  
sure that I could learn it. I find my niche and stick to it.

Do not get me wrong, Linux rulz.. Companies... suck. So start your  
own, find your niche, do not expect companies to behave as you would  
expect.

Regards,

Tom