Re: PostgreSQL mission statement?

On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 09:45:45PM -0400, mlw wrote:
> Jim Mercer wrote:
> > On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 09:14:03PM -0400, mlw wrote:
> > > Jim Mercer wrote:
> > > > On Thu, May 02, 2002 at 08:41:30PM -0400, mlw wrote:
> > > > > A mission statement is like a tie.
> > > > who on the list wears ties?
> > > How many people who make IT decisions wear ties?
> > too many.
> I'm sorry I started this thread.

don't be sorry.

i'm not big on wearing the corporate suit, be it physically, or figuratively.

that's my opinion, and i'm stating it.

your opinion differs, and that's fine.

i've had to do the corporate "mission statement" dance, as well as a bunch
of other hokey crap that didn't matter squat to the bottom line due to the
fact that the execs read some magazine article or attended some Tony Robbins
-esque motivational session.

when i hear "mission statement" and "quality circle" and "internal customer",
i cringe.

if the corporate management doesn't want to buy into the Open Source concept,
fuck 'em.

i've had a number of installations where due to management panic to get
something working, it was implemented using Open Source. Only to have
a perfectly good system replaced with "real software" when management
finds out 6 months later that it is using Open Source.

i have had successes in getting Open Source into corporate environments,
but only after battling mega-politics with CIO/CFO and MSCE IT managers
who only want to see Microsoft or Sun Solaris solutions.

we did a project using FreeBSD and Samba to replace a number of highly
unstable NT file/print servers.

recently, some consultants (friends of the managing partners) said that
it was a bad idea to use "Public Domain software that was full of bugs
and highly insecure".

when we pointed out that the servers hadn't rebooted in 160 days, and
that they were protected by both RFC1918 addressing and a firewall, the
consultants backed off a bit.

then they returned spouting the same "full of bugs and highly insecure" crap.

now management is going to have them re-implement the network using the
latest NT stuff.

this is a long winded way of saying that my feeling is the type of MBA
CFO/CIO that is impressed by a mission statement, is probably not going
to buy into technology that isn't listed on NASDAQ.

so, what's the harm in having one?

probably not much, but to me it smells of corporate bullshit.

--
[ Jim Mercer jim(at)reptiles(dot)org +1 416 410-5633 ]
[ I want to live forever, or die trying. ]