Ron Seybold writes:

> With all the turmoil in the Internet market, no single supplier of
>a Web solution could be counted upon to maintain code through an
>acquisition. Netscape, being acquired by AOL, certainly wasn't immune to
>being taken over. Open Source products, like Samba, eliminate this
>potential for disruption.

It's certainly turning out to be a delightful irony that open source
products are gaining market share because they're perceived as more
likely to be there for the long haul than fee-for-license products from
major manufacturers. In the Alice-in-Wonderland world of corporate
management, IT staff have long been asked to justify perfectly reasonable
decisions in terms of management's looking-glass views (viz., the Gartner
Group thread).

Are we going to have ready answers for when management comes to us and
says, "why are you paying for proprietary software from a company with an
uncertain future when we could just as well have had free software with a
near-certain future?" It's been so long since we've been asked questions
based on rational assumptions that we may have forgotten how to answer
them.

"I'll give you $10 for that doggie in the window."

"No deal. The price is $5, and I won't take a penny more."

Kind of puts you off your stride.

-- Bruce



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