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> mockery and derision of "government overspending for nothing" and a general disdain for space-based science. But nary a word from such commentators when a ma

> mockery and derision of "government overspending for nothing" and a general disdain for space-based science. But nary a word from such commentators when a major commercial software product demonstrates yet another catastrophic security failure.

BurningFrog 5y ago
You can pick another commercial software vendor. With government, you can only complain. So you do.
- harry8 5y ago
  >You can pick another commercial software vendor. With what's left of your budget, which is now very, very negative. Better to redefine abject failure as success to minimize the chances of it ending your career if you're involved in firm purchasing in any way. It's not like boards of directors have a clue. The big consulting firms will assist pulling the wool and priming the press so they can move onto the next mark. It's impossible to by cynical enough.
- cptskippy 5y ago
  Software vendors like Oracle and SAP do everything in their power to lock you into their services while doing the absolute minimum to fulfill any contract. It took our IT over 4 years to migrate away from Siebel to Salesforce and it's going on 3 years since. I just learned the other day we still have a Siebel DB lingering around as a dirty little secret. We move away from Lotus Notes over 10 years ago and we still have some Notes Apps used by our Legal Department.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- antifa 5y ago
  It's getting more common than not that they all remove the same popular features and add the same dark patterns.
renewiltord 5y ago
Well, control is more important than many things. For instance, I’m happier if I pick my couch and then I’m uncomfortable than if the government picks my couch and I’m comfortable.
- jrochkind1 5y ago
  you'd be surprised. At a former job (in IT in academia)... me: I think we can build something in-house here better than what the vendor will provide, I think the vendor's solution is likely to be a failure for us. them: Yeah, but if do it in-house and it fails, it's our fault. If the vendor's solution fails, it's their fault -- plenty of very prestigious universities are using this vendor, nobody's going to blame us for choosing them. [Ie, "nobody got fired for picking IBM" basically].
- WalterBright 5y ago
  The couch example ins't just hypothetical. My dad was on an Air Force Base when the base commander delegated to his wife picking out all the furniture for the base housing. Naturally, every serviceman's wife hated it.
  - renewiltord 5y ago
    Positively comedic! Thanks for the funny anecdote! I can imagine the whole situation.
throwaway0a5e 5y ago
Oh c'mon. Don't be thaaaat blinded by ideology. People love to shit on Oracle, IBM, etc when they bungle yet another big project that was supposed to fix something.

BurningFrog 5y ago

You can pick another commercial software vendor. With government, you can only complain. So you do.

harry8 5y ago
>You can pick another commercial software vendor. With what's left of your budget, which is now very, very negative. Better to redefine abject failure as success to minimize the chances of it ending your career if you're involved in firm purchasing in any way. It's not like boards of directors have a clue. The big consulting firms will assist pulling the wool and priming the press so they can move onto the next mark. It's impossible to by cynical enough.
cptskippy 5y ago
Software vendors like Oracle and SAP do everything in their power to lock you into their services while doing the absolute minimum to fulfill any contract. It took our IT over 4 years to migrate away from Siebel to Salesforce and it's going on 3 years since. I just learned the other day we still have a Siebel DB lingering around as a dirty little secret. We move away from Lotus Notes over 10 years ago and we still have some Notes Apps used by our Legal Department.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
antifa 5y ago
It's getting more common than not that they all remove the same popular features and add the same dark patterns.

renewiltord 5y ago

Well, control is more important than many things. For instance, I’m happier if I pick my couch and then I’m uncomfortable than if the government picks my couch and I’m comfortable.

jrochkind1 5y ago
you'd be surprised. At a former job (in IT in academia)... me: I think we can build something in-house here better than what the vendor will provide, I think the vendor's solution is likely to be a failure for us. them: Yeah, but if do it in-house and it fails, it's our fault. If the vendor's solution fails, it's their fault -- plenty of very prestigious universities are using this vendor, nobody's going to blame us for choosing them. [Ie, "nobody got fired for picking IBM" basically].
WalterBright 5y ago
The couch example ins't just hypothetical. My dad was on an Air Force Base when the base commander delegated to his wife picking out all the furniture for the base housing. Naturally, every serviceman's wife hated it.
- renewiltord 5y ago
  Positively comedic! Thanks for the funny anecdote! I can imagine the whole situation.

throwaway0a5e 5y ago

Oh c'mon. Don't be thaaaat blinded by ideology. People love to shit on Oracle, IBM, etc when they bungle yet another big project that was supposed to fix something.