[olug] sneaking OSS into the workplace

[thehaas at binary.net]

On Thu, Oct 30, 2003 at 03:37:59PM -0500, thelarsons3 at cox.net wrote:
 
> I'm sure I'm not the first person to encounter this.  What do you guys
> do?  Is there a website for this sort of thing that I'm just not aware
> of?  At the moment I'm looking for inventory management s/w, BTW.

I've just done a lot of this recently.  Actually, my employer is really
tightening all budgets (aren't they all??) so they don't mind if it
improves your work and it doesn't cost anything (but your time, of
course).

What I do is this:
  o identify a need 
	o find an open source solution for that need.
	o familiarize yourself with that OSS software -- how do you install it?
	are the developers and/or the community helpful in solving problems?
	Is development active?
	o When you find something you like, present it to your manager and/or
	team.  Justify your need to him/her.  If helpful, talk to your team
	first and see if they will help you convince your manager.
	o Install it, and train the users.  And then be responsive when they
	are having problems.

This has worked well for me into getting dotproject and Bugzilla into my
workplace.  dotproject only has a small base of users, but the Bugzilla
install has many more users (but it's need was great!).  And not
everything went right (Bugzilla seems to forget the users login) but they
are fixable.

I should also note that I work at a place that "empowers"
employees to make their own decisions and tell their manager about it
later.  If you aren't so fortunate, the first couple OSS products you
install should go really smooth or it will be more difficult later.

-- 
Mike Hostetler          
thehaas at binary.net
http://users.binary.net/thehaas 
Stop Spam: http://wecanstopspam.org/

Everything is gone;
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