Getting What You Pay For With Free Software
Because real money is involved, the Build or Buy decisions are made close to the business case. There’s another level of procurement below this that the business seldom knows about.
We see it with every large client, defined here as any company with an HR department with at least three full time staffers. Someone in IT brings in a small piece of code to do a small focused task, be it in development or operations. Ordinarily, there’s nothing wrong with this, and in fact the availability of these might well keep everything running.
But it can get out of control, particularly if the code is free, in contrast to a packaged application or online service that has some heft behind it that justifies the price. The free code seldom works straight out of the box, even in those rare cases where there’s a box to begin with.
The code will take some tweaking, which will require some documentation, found online in user groups and troubleshooting threads and such, and before long several hours are gone, never again to return, even though the meter has been running continuously.
It’s this tweaking aspect that brings out the native curiosity in most who work with code for a livelihood. The skill level of whoever created the code initially is seldom the same as that of the one doing the tweaking. This is not much a problem when everyone involved have some sense of the value of time, particularly their own. Unfortunately, lacking this requires a layer of management, which can compound the problem.
I’ve never really given much thought to the primary cause of this, other than marking it down to The Way Things Are, one of the givens of the universe. However, Andy Brice’s recent blog, Unskilled And Unaware Of It, shed some light on this facet of perceived skill level with some very interesting evidence and references.
I have to admit that I’m way over to the left of the curve, which is why I talk with the customers and sign the checks, although the latter is another one of those mysteries probably included in The Way Things Are.
© Copyright 2010 Chuck Brooks for FutureWare SCG
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