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<title>The Importance of Adopting an In-House Linux Expert LG #29</title>
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<H4>
"Linux Gazette...<I>making Linux just a little more fun!</I>"
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<h1><font color="maroon">The Importance of Adopting an In-House Linux Expert</font></h1>
<H4>By <a href="mailto:fluido@fluido.markdata.pt">Carlo Prelz</a></H4>
</center>
<P> <HR> <P>
Changes, even huge changes, are difficult to evaluate when you happen
to live close to whatever is undergoing the change, be it a child,
global politics, or the world of people who make a living with their
knowledge of information technology (IT) matters.
<p>
In our world, as the most common computer-dependent tasks get
standardized and as more and more raw computing power can be tapped
by more people, the figure of the white-clad ``computer priest'' is
about to vanish. But what is the world getting in exchange?
<p>
How is the young manager of a new company going to build its IT
infrastructure? No, he most likely won't phone IBM. Instead, he will order a bunch
of PCs, equipped with a various assortment of
Microsoft software. Other Microsoft software will follow, because
that's what <i>everybody</i> does.
<p>
Through a brief, fractal period, we have moved from one monopoly to
another, with the added disadvantage that people who blindly accept the new easy solution end up with
less-than-solid material. This material is much harder to
adapt to local needs. In the past, companies who could afford a high
level of informatization hire with a
handful of COBOL or RPGII programmers who could customize the software that needed
to be adapted.
<p>
Today, a manager will most probably be equipped with a
NT server, a Microsoft Office suite on Windows 95 for each desk, an
Ethernet network, and an assistance contract with some specialized
firm (who has to deal with dozens of other companies). He may organize
things so that his people have some limited sort of Internet
access. All standard, on a path that is being walked on by a huge mass
of people all around the globe.
<p>
As the path gets dug deeper and deeper, it gets harder to choose a
different one. This has to do with gravity: the deeper the path and
the steeper its sides, the harder the person, company or organization
has to <i>want</i> to choose a personal way to its own IT goals.
<p>
But why would a reasonable IT manager want to get out of the
mainstream? The keyword is <b>customization</b>.
<p>
Yes, you can program in Windows. But when it gets to having an
``intimate'' relationship with what actually happens, Windows leaves you
in the cold. You may find books, but unless you have uncommonly strong
links with the Microsoft engineering circles, you have no way to be
confident in the fact that whatever OS feature you are using won't
disappear without a trace in the next release. Which you will have to
use because everybody will be using it at a certain time. You end up
being <i>dependent</i> on the next brilliant idea they come up with at
Redmond, WA.
<p>
This strategy is evident. Human beings' laziness is again tapped, at
the benefit of a company that found itself at the right space-time
coordinates, and has been as un-principled as needed.
<p>
But if our young manager were to dedicate a moment of thought to how
to solve his IT problems, what are his choices?
<ul>
<li> If he has enough resources, he can go the mainframe way. The road
is still open and fast becoming an elitist choice.
<li> If his connections with IBM are vital, or for a series of
(constantly diminishing) other reasons, he may go the OS/2 way.
<li> He may be romantic and like Macintoshes. There are concrete
rewards in these choices, although these give the impression of
diminishing, too.
<li> He may instead choose the proprietary UNIX way--yes, the
overpriced one.
<li> If he has a curious attitude, chances are that he has already met
Linux, and that he has seen Linux mentioned at an increasing rate
during the past months. Thanks to the Net, there is no scarcity of
information open to whomever decides to look around a bit.
<li> He may also decide to either write or pay somebody to write an
operating system from scratch. This seems somewhat improbable.
</ul>
Let me know if I missed some important options. But of all the above,
the one that promises to bear more fruit is the Linux way. So, how to
give it a try? The best solution for a manager who would like his
computers do what is needed without learning the way himself, is to
engage the services of one or more Linux aficionados.
<P> <HR> <P>
<h3>The Linux Aficionado</h3>
<P> <HR> <P>
Linux has been growing like a big, healthy forest plant. Each branch
has been contributed by someone like us, who decided to spend a bit of
their free time to make the tree look and live better. Not ``for free'':
we humans always do things for a reward; it happens that money is not
the only (nor the best) reward. The impulse behind the Free Software
movement has been and still is to demonstrate to ourselves and to the
world that we worked well, that we brilliantly solved a problem. That
we created a handy tool, that was not there before. That is, that the
world is now a little bit nicer now than before we started developing
our ideas.
<p>
Of course, programmers need to survive, too. Here is what the Richard
Stallman has to say about the topic (excerpt from the GNU Manifesto):
<blockquote>
``Won't programmers starve?''
</blockquote> <p><blockquote>
I could answer that nobody is forced to be a programmer. Most of us
cannot manage to get any money for standing on the street and making
faces. But we are not, as a result, condemned to spend our lives
standing on the street making faces, and starving. We do something
else.
</blockquote> <p><blockquote>
But that is the wrong answer because it accepts the questioner's
implicit assumption: that without ownership of software, programmers
cannot possibly be paid a cent. Supposedly it is all or nothing.
</blockquote> <p><blockquote>
The real reason programmers will not starve is that it will still be
possible for them to get paid for programming; just not paid as much as
now.
</blockquote> <p><blockquote>
Restricting copying is not the only basis for business in software.
It is the most common basis because it brings in the most money. If it
were prohibited, or rejected by the customer, software business would
move to other bases of organization which are now used less often.
There are always numerous ways to organize any kind of business.
</blockquote> <p><blockquote>
Probably programming will not be as lucrative on the new basis as it
is now. But that is not an argument against the change. It is not
considered an injustice that sales clerks make the salaries that they
now do. If programmers made the same, that would not be an injustice
either. (In practice they would still make considerably more than
that.)
</blockquote> <p>
The above was written back in 1985, when programmers were still earning
big money; 12 years later, our market and contracting power has
diminished a lot. Gone are the days when a programmer could be the
best paid man in the company thanks to writing huge bits of database
access/data entry pieces of software that differed very little from
their brothers.
<p>
When the need arises for an application that is somehow different,
there is no other way than to call an actual programmer. Here are a
few characteristics that make a Linux aficionado an ideal choice for
such a special need:
<ul>
<li> Passion. Something better than money as the reason for what we do.
<li> Love for quality. Learning from previous experience, and being
able to judge and better our work.
<li> Ability to solve problems. If a problem exists, we like see it
solved in the best possible way, and we generally find a way.
<li> Loyalty. If we are given recognition, an interesting place to
work in, interesting things to do and a reasonable wage, we may oppose
more than normal resistance to the lure of head hunters.
</ul>
I may like to add a couple of counter-indications:
<ul>
<li> Lack of particular enthusiasm for wearing ties or adopting
uniforms (or respecting poorly justified liberticide rules).
<li> The wish to understand what one is doing renders less than
desirable a sort of job where you must focus on a tiny fraction of the
whole thing, knowing nothing about the complete picture.
</ul>
<P> <HR> <P>
<h3>No Need for Another Windows95</h3>
<P> <HR> <P>
There are recurring, well-financed efforts to create a new
good-for-everybody operating system on the robust structure of
Linux. These efforts are justified by the hope of snatching even a
small percentage of the huge market held by Microsoft.
A very small percentage of a very large sum may promise
reasonable earnings to those who follow this path.
<p>
Regardless of how things look like now, the omnipresent PC that
we see today has a limited time to live.
<p>
A very big slice of the PCs that are currently in use in the world are
used for standard operations: keeping one's correspondence, making
spreadsheet calculations, maintaining one's agenda, playing games and
looking around the Internet. How many PCs do you
know are being used with software that has been written especially for
them? The logical direction, one that much effort has been spent to
hamper, is that of including everything that a secretary, a
non-IT-oriented office worker or a common home user will ever need in
an idiot-proof box.
<p>
This tendency has at last emerged in the shape of network
computers. No matter which way is selected, the result of adopting an NC
is that, from the prospective of the user, there will simply be a
couple of plugs to insert into the respective sockets, and the user
will be ready to work or play. No need to reinstall Windows95 for the
nth time because the maintainer can't divine a better way to recover
from the cryptic error messages.
<p>
Along this way, comes the demise of shrink-wrap software.
If the server is the only place where a separate
operating system needs to be installed, it will be much harder for
Microsoft to maintain their stronghold on the computer market. NT has
very little advantage compared to the many UNIX options in the field. In
particular, it is not significantly easier to manage than UNIX by a
knowledgeable person. And if or when the networked world
becomes so easy to manage that a bunch of software <i>wizards</i> can
do the job, the next step will be NSes (Network Servers, I think I'll
patent the name...). Again, something that spells bad to a
software-only company that is programmed to EARN.
<p>
Isn't it futile to try to be the new Microsoft? As if it really
mattered much to have so much money that you will not have the
material possibility to spend it all in your lifetime.
<P> <HR> <P>
<h3>Meet the Ideal Entrepreneur</h3>
<P> <HR> <P>
So, what is there that is not futile? Doing something nice, that makes
the world a bit better. I said that before.
<p>
A human being has an idea. Some say they float around, and visit you
when you become receptive enough. She finds all the resources that are
needed to turn this idea into a practical product. After some time,
other people can exchange some of their own wealth to take advantage
of the idea of our entrepreneur.
<p>
Or the idea can be imported within a sufficiently fertile existing
corporation, one that will recognize the value of the idea and give
our human being enough space and resources to reach her goal.
<p>
Or the idea deals with bettering an established way of doing some
task.
<p>
What kind of enterprise can you think of, that won't benefit from the
use of IT? Most of the times, she will have to look for computer
assistance. It is to all the entrepreneurs who are
facing the problem of which way to informatize their pet project that
I would like to speak.
<p>
Linux may well be the best choice for you. But for Linux to adapt well
to <i>your</i> world, you will want to adopt one or more Linux
aficionados. You will want to secure the continuing services of a
person who deeply knows and appreciates the tools he works with. Who
can craft your personal solution. Who can maintain the operating
system that your solution works on abreast of the latest technical
progress.
<p>
Linux cannot be eternal. Nothing is. But it has reached a solid,
mature stage NOW. Especially, it is the ideal tool for tapping into
the networked world. Now is the time not to be lazy and to profit from
this situation. And keeping a Linux aficionado happy and well-fed now
might also imply finding yourself in a more elevated position in the
post-Microsoft world, tomorrow.
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<P> <hr> <P>
<center><H5>Copyright © 1998, Carlo Prelz <BR>
Published in Issue 29 of <i>Linux Gazette</i>, June 1998</H5></center>
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