[lug] OSS Discovery

[Walter Pienciak]

On Thu, Dec 13, 2007 at 11:56:39AM -0700, David L. Anselmi wrote:
> Walter Pienciak wrote:
> [...]
> >It has two intended uses that I can see:
> >
> >1) Help people understand just how much Open Source software is
> >in use.
> >
> >2) Companies that develop/provide commercial software are
> >concerned about the rat's nest of licensing and how it all impacts
> >their own product.  This helps them find all the stuff on their
> >systems.
> 
> "However, open source typically bypasses traditional procurement 
> processes, making it difficult for companies to accurately inventory 
> their open source usage."
> 
> So the bean counters can't ask the admins?  And if the admins don't 
> know, that's a whole 'nother can of worms.
> 
> Dave

Not sure where your quote is from, but I'd guess you work with a
group of highly qualified admins with tight configuration
management across your enterprise.

In my company  -- and also for some friends who work in corporate
research environments -- legal counsel would drive it rather
than bean counters.  There's a lot of stuff buried in header
files and little turdlets throughout systems.  I know a
programmer who spent almost two years completely rewriting
graphics libraries so there would be no copyright issues with a
package his company was going to sell.

It sounds like it's a tool in search of a problem you don't have.

I'm personally more interested in what it might to do provide
numbers as to Open Source usage.  A couple years ago an IT person
high up at my company was proclaiming loudly that he did NOT use
Open Source.  Of course, at the time, his staff was running bind,
sendmail and postfix, ISC dhcpd, extensive use of Perl . . .
Nah, no Open Source there.

Walter