[CS-FSLUG] Transitions

[Greg Slade]

>> Rather than sitting back and berating the guy (BTW, does that
>> show the love of Christ?) why don't you volunteer to help him
>> out with his work.  In the process you can learn more about
>> WinNT and his concerns and maybe have a chance to widen his
>> horizons in teaching him some about Linux and Open Source.

> There is no doubt that IT guys in ministry especially are
> over-worked and under appreciated in general so helping him
> might fulfill his needs. Today's society is more likely to
> listen to someone who is willing to listen to them. It's part
> of that "Post-Modern" mindset.

Uh, no, it's not "post-modern" at all. Consider the issue from the point 
of the person you are trying to convince: what you are asking them to do 
is put in a whole bunch of extra time and work, only to end up where they 
are right now. (Pointing out that Linux is free while Microsoft costs 
money makes no difference when the money has already been paid to 
Microsoft. Uninstalling stuff which has already been paid for won't 
magically put the money back into the ministry's coffers, it will only 
take up the IT guy's time for no benefit.) That moves forward *your* 
agenda for promoting Open Source, but it does nothing for the ministry's 
agenda of getting work done for the Kingdom (still less the IT guy's 
agenda of putting out fires so that the ministry *can* get some work 
done.) 

When I was in Hong Kong, my list of desired qualities in volunteers 
working in the computer refurbishing department very quickly shortened 
down to two. Things like computer experience were much less critical than 
two basic attributes:

1. be gentle with the equipment (don't bang it around)
2. do what needs to be done (not what's fun)

We had managed to obtain a large number of Windows 95 licences, but we 
still had more computers than licences, so as the pile of licences 
shrank, I grew more and more concerned that we needed to get a workable, 
easy-to-use, works-out-of-the-box, free solution to install on the 
computers before shipment. (Most of our recipients had extremely limited 
computer skills, and if we didn't ship the systems in a state where they 
could plug them in, turn them on, and use them, they would probably just 
ask some geek to install stuff for them, and that geek would almost 
certainly give them pirated Windows stuff.) I had plenty of volunteers 
come in and say, "Oh! You need to install the Brandex distro! Every other 
kind of Linux is rubbish." (Or, they'd want me to use FreeBSD, or 
whatever.) My reply was invariably, "Fine. You bring in a distro, 
complete with OpenOffice, E-mail, web browser, and so on, so that I can 
stick in a CD and let it install itself, and we'll use it." (I wasn't 
kidding, either. Installing Windows 95, applying the assorted patches and 
upgrades, then installing Mozilla and OpenOffice, is an incredibly 
tedious procedure, and we never could get utilities like Ghost to 
automate the procedure reliably.) Not one ever came back with a CD. 

I have been forced to the conclusion that most of the "you should use..." 
talk doesn't stem from any real experience with the problems of the 
current solution, or with making the recommended solution work in a 
production environment, but from a fairly widespread tendency for people 
to want to recreate other people's computers in the image of their own. 
Therefore, any time you want to "evangelise" for Linux, you need to 
overcome the resistance which will invariably have built up to this kind 
of displace egotism. That means that you have to be willing to help the 
poor, frazzled IT guy meet *his* goals, not yours. In other words, 
helping to make Windows systems work may well be something you need to do 
first, in order to convince the ministry to replace them ultimately. 

In Hong Kong, the way we first got into Linux was when volunteers came in 
and built systems we needed, using Linux. (One was a firewall machine for 
the network running Smoothwall, another was an internal webmail system 
running SquirrelMail.) By adding functionality to the network at no 
cost[1], those volunteers helped us achieve important goals for the IT 
department (to protect and enhance the work), and also demonstrated that 
Linux can deliver working solutions, and is not just a lot of unkept 
promises.

God bless,

Greg

[1] The software, of course, cost nothing, and we took the hardware out 
of our stock of donated computers.

Greg Slade                              www.associate.com/camsoc/greg/
gslade at studio.cbbs.org                       www.associate.com/camsoc/
"Mayhew's laughter faded. 'My God,' he said hollowly, 'you mean he's
like that *all the time*?'"               - *The Warrior's Apprentice*