Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by raddan on Monday November 09, 2026 @09:04AM
(#50425781)
This is not a new problem. I worked in corporate IT in the early 2000’s. Both attitudes existed even then, though of course there was no App Store back then. Nevertheless there was a strong preference among younger employees for paid software—the kind you get in boxes. The older generation viewed most software as suspect, but were willing to accept “official” solutions from Microsoft and other name brand software vendors. It seems comical now, but at the time Red Hat was viewed almost universally among my coworkers as a terrible idea. And forget about custom software. Rolling one’s own software was widely seen as crazy talk.
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by Moru on Monday November 09, 2026 @09:17AM
(#50425992)
Never underestimate the blame game. It's a lot easier to place the blame on MS than on your own organisation. All customers knows you can't do anything about how windows works and have accepted the dysfunction already.
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by wtch98 on Monday November 09, 2026 @09:53AM
(#50426467)
It took me the best part of 20 years of working in the corporate world to realise that the decisions aren't about the best thing for the user, or the employee, or even the shareholder, it's about the best thing for the decision maker. Ideally one which allows them to have no accountability whatsoever.
It's the whole reason management consultancies exist. If Deloite tell you to do X, or Gartner say buy Y, and you do, you aren't going to have the blame. Even when you end up losing half a billion as our last CxO did, you'll just get a golden handshake and a move to another company.
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by astura on Monday November 09, 2026 @10:37AM
(#50427066)
Someone who worked in corporate law once said "in the rare case you have to hire outside counsel you always hire the fanciest name brand firm. Not because the fancy firm does better work, but because of risk mitigation and CYA. If things go sideways then you can say 'not my fault,I hired the fanciest firm.'"
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by f1shy on Monday November 09, 2026 @10:46AM
(#50427174)
Already in the 90‘s I has advocating for FOSS in a big company. And someone told me “nobody was ever fired for buying IBM” that phrase was already very old…
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by harvey9 on Monday November 09, 2026 @11:16AM
(#50427597)
I remember buying SuSe Linux as literally boxed software around that time. But I bought it for my own use and my employer (not software industry) was running mostly windows with some legacy Unix.
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by etempleton on Monday November 09, 2026 @09:14AM
(#50425933)
IT told me recently that I couldn’t install a piece of software because since it was open source it wasn’t secure.
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by ninjalanternshk on Monday November 09, 2026 @09:28AM
(#50426120)
These same folks will very soon be replacing software that’s worked for years with something they vibe coded last week.
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by wtch98 on Monday November 09, 2026 @09:55AM
(#50426494)
To be fair it's true. And likewise closed source is also not secure.
Turn it all off, bury it in concrete, toss the concrete in a river and hurl the river into space, and maybe then IT will be happy with the security.
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by x62Bh7948f on Monday November 09, 2026 @09:17AM
(#50425995)
in most corporate environments if your homebrew solution breaks, then you have a problem. If something that came from a vendor breaks, that’s not your problem
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by jodrellblank on Monday November 09, 2026 @12:04PM
(#50428315)
More likely, if your homebrew solution breaks then I have a problem and you've left.
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by 6510 on Monday November 09, 2026 @02:39PM
(#50430722)
I wonder what the solution is to that puzzle.
What would be a sensible fee to do support on 1000 lines of code you didn't write?
Re:Humans will never again create a project like Wikipedia
by bee_rider on Monday November 09, 2026 @10:01AM
(#50426592)
In their defense, if something isn’t in my distro repo, 75% of the time I’ll ignore it. Using the operating system’s built in method of installing software is very preferable. It is mostly just Windows (and to a lesser extent MacOS) where some repo (because what is an App Store if not a paid repo) isn’t the default.
Of course, all the software in the distro repo is there because somebody went against this tendency.
> younger generations raised on corporate platforms and their phone apps are less aware of non-corporate alternatives
All the new guys I work with are trapped in the app store/play store bubble. If it's not available directly through the device's software distribution system it's not getting used.
> might even be suspicious of libre and altruistic movements
All my boomer bosses think that anything that is outside the Windows/O365 ecosystem, or doesn't come with a $150 yearly license, is clearly pirate hacker software that will give your e-mail a virus and steal your bitcoin.
It is increasingly frustrating when we have a problem that could be fixed with GNU corutils and a bash script, or a raspberrypi/arduino translating between 2 serial devices, but we end up getting some $1500 black box from the 'official' vendor. It teaches the newer guys that step one is not to think about the problem, it's to grab your wallet and call a salesman.
</tangent>