Re: [DRAFT FOR REVIEW] SERPRO chose Debian GNU / Linux for its servers and wish to collaborate
Hello, Michael
Thanks for your suggestions.
I have many doubts, yet.
Sorry for my limited english skills.
I will try to explain a bit more and someone could spell out, reword the
paragraphs better.
SERPRO is company that federal government holds all of its shares.
It offers IT services for many (most) of federal government agencies and
ministries, nation-wide.
So, it manages around 300 thousand networked computers across the
country (as per my last count. May be more now) for those agencies and
has around 8k clients and thousand of servers and some mainframes of its
own. Includes from handhelds to mainframes (one is the biggest in LA),
clusters and grids. It has the biggest databases at south hemisphere. "A
big proprietary db vendor" team of engineers is usually at direct
interaction to study db behaviour at there.
At the first paragraph I tried to avoid the need of an "about SERPRO"
section, giving upfront some key data that decision making people like
to know beforehand. It is not a distraction for those, but eye catching
words.
How will you rewrite the title now?
Debian Day Brasil 2008 RS Porto Alegre
http://wiki.debian.org/pt_BR/DebianDayBrasil2008RsPortoAlegre
RS is Rio Grande do Sul. But I guess it is too big to write this way.
> > The SERPRO will strategically reduce the cost of suppliers dependency
> > and increase its flexibility, agility and participation in solution
> > processes, by increasing the direct interaction with the Debian
> > Project community.
>
> Sorry, but this sounds like plain marketing speech. I am not convinced
> a US$ 1 billion company will significantly change its figures just by
> "direct interaction with the Debian Project community".
>
I will try to explain, expanding a bit more from
http://lists.debian.org/debian-publicity/2008/08/msg00060.html
The Debian subject is under big governmental entity geological eras
speed evolution since around 2005.
At the middle of 2007 a new top board was assigned and things evolved a
bit faster. Fortunately, the new top board was exposed to Debian before
(thanks to also a DD).
This year, some more key meetings happened and we were able to negotiate
with some key management levels the advantages of Debian for the
corporate goals.
Their top board decided to reduce the cost of suppliers dependency
(sorry I could not disclose numbers yet, but at an US$ 1 bi/yr company
you could guess) that are seriously bleeding them. The lack of
operational flexibility due these contract clauses are astounding. Some
customer needs could not even be fullfiled or seriously delayed due
suppliers contract clauses. The operational efficiency is not "there".
The availability is not "there". The agility is not "there". They are
merely allowed to breathe. And to pay gazillions...
So, enter FLOSS some time ago. Progress and slowly increasing management
awareness.
And now PURE FLOSS. Debian Project.
Technical excellence.
Independence.
Freedom.
Flexibility.
Suitability to their corporate goals.
Committed community.
But an acid community that wants reciprocal collaboration and benefits.
By collaborating with the debian project community, many support could
be obtained, with the active participation of company employees also
giving back to Debian.
This will take time to happen.
The numbers will be modest (to a company of this size) at first. But
they have clear goals and deadlines. (sorry again, not allowed to give
numbers yet).
The entire evolution were "under the radar" as long as possible.
You have no idea of how things could go ugly at third world when the
"proprietary empires" got challenged. If at Europe and USA things went
like the ooxml iso fiasco, you could figure out how they are here.
The massachussets odf Peter Quinn affair gives some references.
We are at real and serious risks of all sorts. No joke.
The brazilian representative, Mr Kuhn (from SERPRO and the one wearing
black shirt at the video [0]. I am at left on the video) at Geneva BRM
balloting was injured by a group, in front of the hotel. Broken bone. No
explanations. Pure violence.
Pure coincidence, for sure.
(The costs are being painfully high for me too.)
We agreed to announce at Debian Day their decisions.
THIS is important.
How will you reword the paragraph?
> > culturally release total control for increasing collaboration and
> > respect at the community, to increase agility at the needed
> > information flux in order to get better operational continuity and
> > efficiency.
>
> Are you really sure they got suggested doing this at Debian Day? In any
> case, I cannot parse this, most notably not the first part "culturally
> release total control for increasing collaboration".
>
I will try to explain.
The SERPRO was totally closed source proprietary software buyer and
"cathedral" developer.
A closed source corporate culture.
Their first attempts to open source some code were incredibly closed (!)
and cathedral like. Almost a proprietary license with almost no rights
to the third party developer. (At least, did not have NDAs AFAIK.. )
Something similar to "selected parties shared source initiative".
They started to USE floss some years ago.
And forked a lot of floss projects internally.
And demanded "free support", but no "giving back".
Even FSLA notified (cease and desist) them of gpl violations.
The management levels and developers simply do not "grasp" what is
FLOSS. Many think as freeware, crapware, public domain, etc.
It is so radically different of what they think about sw that it is
inconceivable to them.
At an fierce uphill battle for some years (since 2003 at least, with
many "perished braves" and "assimilated" ones), some of the management
levels are finally getting a bare minimum idea.
The (most of) top board reasonably understood pure floss (and debian
project values) now and it is committed to give a try to collaboration.
At the Debian Day Porto Alegre, our local debian user group went rigth
to the wounds and selected some key suggestions for a better behaviour.
IF they become accepted by the company, the community will help them
when they need.
This way, their service costs reduce, flexibility agility availability
and service offerings features increase, progressively.
Collaboration is a two way road.
Knowledge flow instead of knowledge possession.
The company has around 2800 developers and around 4000 technicians,
afaik. With 43 years of corporate experience at systems and networks of
government size, imagine if 10% of these skilled people decide to help
debian project.
How will you reword the paragraphs?
Regards.
Andre Felipe
[0] http://www.debian-rs.org/node/73 select
Deivi_Kuhn,_Andre_Machado_e_Sady_Jaques_-_SERPRO,_comunidade_SL,_Debian,_como_interagir?.ogg.torrent
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