> Contrast this with what it takes for an engineer to use a common, free tool: They can just use it. No approval process. As far as IT operations goes, it's us

> Contrast this with what it takes for an engineer to use a common, free tool: They can just use it. No approval process. As far as IT operations goes, it's usually easier to get approval for paid products since they come with support and are viewed as more "trustworthy". At least in my experience. I've never worked in a 300+ organisation where you could "just use" things. I have worked in places where they gave some of us local admins (I've been a domainadmin in a few places too), but there is usually a large bureaucracy around software regardless of licenses. Where I work right now, licensing is a minor part of it for companies with good payment systems (like Docker) where it'll automatically go on the books and be EU tax deducted. Compare that to GitKraken where you need to create an IT owner account inside their system, and then distribute the annual licenses manually after you pay for them with a credit card that you will then need to manually submit for tax deduction.