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The IA people have attempted to use "lack of paid support" to deny me the use of tools (PuTTY is one glaring example) that are already being used on other syste

The IA people have attempted to use "lack of paid support" to deny me the use of tools (PuTTY is one glaring example) that are already being used on other systems that I have access to, and that had to go through the same sort of IA approvals. So they use the understandable business logic of "we'd like to have paid support" to some silly and pointless purposes. And yeah, my experience is not universal, but it's not uncommon, either, if the tales I have heard from all sorts of professionals in this world have any truth to them.

Jtsummers 10y ago
> The IA people have attempted to use "lack of paid support" to deny me the use of tools (PuTTY is one glaring example) that are already being used on other systems that I have access to, and that had to go through the same sort of IA approvals. This sort of thing was exhausting. It's a lack of communication/coordination between the units. I had one office that didn't want to use DOORS (everyone else in industry and DoD that was on the project had their own DOORS servers setup already). The reason: Money and time to set up. Here's the deal, though, that one unit didn't need to take on the whole burden. There were already other projects using DOORS in the organization, someone had done the server setup and license purchasing already! "All" we needed to do was coordinate with them to share the costs so we could have access to their systems. But no, they wouldn't even let me take on that task. They'd rather keep passing around excel spreadsheets and word documents. Clusterfuck. Same thing with 99% of server systems. Each unit established their own enclave, rather than sharing. So the licensing costs overall were about 5-20x what they should've been. One license/purchase for 1000 users is cheaper than 20x50-user licenses (typically).
jcrites 10y ago
Would it be useful if someone started a company that offered support for virtually any OSS? Like, you contact them, say "I need support for X", and they research it, figure out how much expertise they need to support it, and quote you a figure. Perhaps this organization would also sign up to monitor for security vulnerabilities affecting the software, on your behalf, and would be responsible for getting you information about the patch.
- krylon 10y ago
  I think several companies have started on that premise. Cygnus comes to mind, but there are probably others, too.

Jtsummers 10y ago

> The IA people have attempted to use "lack of paid support" to deny me the use of tools (PuTTY is one glaring example) that are already being used on other systems that I have access to, and that had to go through the same sort of IA approvals. This sort of thing was exhausting. It's a lack of communication/coordination between the units. I had one office that didn't want to use DOORS (everyone else in industry and DoD that was on the project had their own DOORS servers setup already). The reason: Money and time to set up. Here's the deal, though, that one unit didn't need to take on the whole burden. There were already other projects using DOORS in the organization, someone had done the server setup and license purchasing already! "All" we needed to do was coordinate with them to share the costs so we could have access to their systems. But no, they wouldn't even let me take on that task. They'd rather keep passing around excel spreadsheets and word documents. Clusterfuck. Same thing with 99% of server systems. Each unit established their own enclave, rather than sharing. So the licensing costs overall were about 5-20x what they should've been. One license/purchase for 1000 users is cheaper than 20x50-user licenses (typically).

jcrites 10y ago

Would it be useful if someone started a company that offered support for virtually any OSS? Like, you contact them, say "I need support for X", and they research it, figure out how much expertise they need to support it, and quote you a figure. Perhaps this organization would also sign up to monitor for security vulnerabilities affecting the software, on your behalf, and would be responsible for getting you information about the patch.

krylon 10y ago
I think several companies have started on that premise. Cygnus comes to mind, but there are probably others, too.