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The average large organization uses over 100 SaaS products https://www.statista.com/statistics/1233538/average-number-saas-apps-yearly/ https://www.statista.co

The average large organization uses over 100 SaaS products https://www.statista.com/statistics/1233538/average-number-saas-apps-yearly/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1233538/average-number-s... I would love to see you replace all 100 of those with open source software. Have you ever dealt with large technology migrations?

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
clairity 4y ago
not sure that it's relevant and 'large' is subjective, but yes, i stewarded the technology migration of a core product suite for a prior employer, which incidentally had government agencies as a prominent customer segment. i'm not suggesting that governments can only use internally developed or open-source software, i'm saying corporate interests should be firewalled away from goverment. so a locally-installed office suite incorporating no surveillance tech doesn't have the ancillary corporate interests attached to qualify it for being firewalled.
- scarface74 4y ago
  You migrated a product. Were you involved in migrating the entire infrastructure of an entire state? Yes, I speak from experience, migrations and modernizations are kind of my job.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
quantum_magpie 4y ago
And if no one does anything, in 5 years it will be a 1000, in 10 years 5000. As it is right now, the only voice governments hear is that of corpos, and corpos want to preserve the influence of corpos. That's why we need to force the ban on corpo influence. I'd rather pay 1% gdp for a one-time migration to open and free software than pay .01% gdp per corp per year.
- scarface74 4y ago
  Are you going to also train staff to use the new open source software? Where is the open source SalesForce equivalent? Workday? Concur? Device management? Email service? ServiceNow? Time tracking? Photoshop? Are you going to also force every employee to use Linux instead of Mac and Windows? Are you going to tell them to rewrite all of their software and business processes written on top of Oracle and SQL Server? Should they also rewrite all of their bespoke mobile apps to support open source mobile operating systems? Are you going to migrate all of their Office documents and SharePoint? Are they going to move all of their project management processes from Microsoft Azure DevOps (aka Visual Studio Online)? Are they going to move all of their call center software to open source? For school systems are they going to move their fuel procurement software? Many education systems are partially funded by the lottery. Are they going to move their backend systems from GTech? Their lunch programs payment systems for students use a third party, are they going to move that too? Their ATS? LMS? Grade tracking software?
  - abarwick 4y ago
    Simply training government workers to use open source tools would shut down governments for weeks.
    - mensetmanusman 4y ago
      Then this is a good argument to help convince Republicans to get on board.
  - Dylan16807 4y ago
    How long have they been using each one of those products on average? How about migrating off at the same speed?
    - scarface74 4y ago
      So let’s take the lottery systems. Most states including mine has been using the same back end for the lottery since 1991. Who is going to write the replacement? Who is going to audit it? How much is it going to cost to replace literally thousand of lottery terminals? And what benefit would it be? I can’t think of the name of the company now. But there is one company that manage the school lunch programs. Who is going to write the software and you have to replace all of the hardware throughout the state.
rapind 4y ago
100 SaaS products in one org sounds like a security and logistics nightmare.
throw827474737 4y ago
so just assuming you have an overpriced stinking pile of sh*t, is this an argument to stay with it forever?
- scarface74 4y ago
  So do you think open source or the government producing their own software will be better?

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]

clairity 4y ago

not sure that it's relevant and 'large' is subjective, but yes, i stewarded the technology migration of a core product suite for a prior employer, which incidentally had government agencies as a prominent customer segment. i'm not suggesting that governments can only use internally developed or open-source software, i'm saying corporate interests should be firewalled away from goverment. so a locally-installed office suite incorporating no surveillance tech doesn't have the ancillary corporate interests attached to qualify it for being firewalled.

scarface74 4y ago
You migrated a product. Were you involved in migrating the entire infrastructure of an entire state? Yes, I speak from experience, migrations and modernizations are kind of my job.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]

quantum_magpie 4y ago

And if no one does anything, in 5 years it will be a 1000, in 10 years 5000. As it is right now, the only voice governments hear is that of corpos, and corpos want to preserve the influence of corpos. That's why we need to force the ban on corpo influence. I'd rather pay 1% gdp for a one-time migration to open and free software than pay .01% gdp per corp per year.

scarface74 4y ago
Are you going to also train staff to use the new open source software? Where is the open source SalesForce equivalent? Workday? Concur? Device management? Email service? ServiceNow? Time tracking? Photoshop? Are you going to also force every employee to use Linux instead of Mac and Windows? Are you going to tell them to rewrite all of their software and business processes written on top of Oracle and SQL Server? Should they also rewrite all of their bespoke mobile apps to support open source mobile operating systems? Are you going to migrate all of their Office documents and SharePoint? Are they going to move all of their project management processes from Microsoft Azure DevOps (aka Visual Studio Online)? Are they going to move all of their call center software to open source? For school systems are they going to move their fuel procurement software? Many education systems are partially funded by the lottery. Are they going to move their backend systems from GTech? Their lunch programs payment systems for students use a third party, are they going to move that too? Their ATS? LMS? Grade tracking software?
- abarwick 4y ago
  Simply training government workers to use open source tools would shut down governments for weeks.
  - mensetmanusman 4y ago
    Then this is a good argument to help convince Republicans to get on board.
- Dylan16807 4y ago
  How long have they been using each one of those products on average? How about migrating off at the same speed?
  - scarface74 4y ago
    So let’s take the lottery systems. Most states including mine has been using the same back end for the lottery since 1991. Who is going to write the replacement? Who is going to audit it? How much is it going to cost to replace literally thousand of lottery terminals? And what benefit would it be? I can’t think of the name of the company now. But there is one company that manage the school lunch programs. Who is going to write the software and you have to replace all of the hardware throughout the state.

rapind 4y ago

100 SaaS products in one org sounds like a security and logistics nightmare.

throw827474737 4y ago

so just assuming you have an overpriced stinking pile of sh*t, is this an argument to stay with it forever?

scarface74 4y ago
So do you think open source or the government producing their own software will be better?