[vox] [OT] Budget Surplus - How Do I Spend It?

[Marc Elliot Hall]

On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 09:31:41AM -0700, Rod Roark wrote:
> On Friday 14 May 2004 09:12 am, Marc Elliot Hall wrote:
> > On Fri, May 14, 2004 at 09:06:38AM -0700, Rod Roark wrote:
> > > You seem to have discovered a major flaw in the Free
> > > Software model.  The damn stuff's free.
> > 
> > Yeah. Isn't that great? It just doesn't do what we need it to without
> > massive amounts of tweaking. If we buy a commercial package of, say,
> > help desk software, the tweaking is included in the "price". With Open
> > Source - Liberum, for example - the baseline functionality is there, but
> > to make it work with our business processes, we still need to dedicate
> > substantial additional resources. That's hard to sell to upper
> > management. 
> 
> $200K sounds pretty substantial to me.  I expect most Free
> Software authors will happily do all kinds of customization
> and tweaking for you if you pay them for it.

Let's not forget three of the facts here: 

1.  My boss's boss is the decisionmaker. I have to convince /two/
    levels in the hierarchy to support my recommendations.

2.  We're talking about having the money /spent/ and all goods and
    services /delivered/ by June 30. I doubt if we could even get a 
    requirements document finished in that timetable, let alone a 
    specification and/or completed customization.

3.  I'm competing with /at least/ eight other strong-willed people 
    who want some of this money for their own pet projects. Possibly
    more. Assuming I can convince management to support my ideas of
    Open Source/Free Software being a cure to all that ails, they 
    still need to play politics with the others with interests. Much
    as I'd like to think I can make a compelling case, there /ain't
    no way/ I'm gonna get the whole $200k. 

Work with me here :^)
> 
> -- Rod
> _______________________________________________
> vox mailing list
> vox@lists.lugod.org

-- 
Marc Elliot Hall		
P.O. Box 435
Shingle Springs, CA 95682
www.hallmarc.net