Linux Czar

Its Faculty versus Staff here at the academic Stadium and the score is 0 - 0. The Faculty is up to bat. Here comes the pitch! Strike 5? What? Again, the sound of a ball impacting a leather mitt. Staff only gets three strikes, Faculty just makes up the rules to suit them then and there.

What’s up with that? Why is it that the faculty always supposedly know more and can do things better than the trained professionals hired by them to help them. Linux, Windows, OSX, it doesn’t matter what kind of computer and what kind of software. All it matters that the the faculty think they can do a better job.

I’ve been hired to do Linux. I work with other folks hired to do Windows and Solaris. They do a darn fine job. This is our chosen career and we are the computer “professionals.”

Why do I get trouble calls from users telling me how to do my backups?

Why is there a faculty group with grants and special this and special that that want to redesign our customized Windows install using the excuse of better teaching and learning?

We put a lot of work into making what we call “kits” or customized versions of operating systems. These kits are installed just like you would any normal OS but they have modifications present to work with our authentication systems, file servers, instant messaging, distributed applications, etc. Yet, apparently, we can’t do it well enough.

Faculty think they can “fix” everything their way. They hire minions and give them a week to do the work. The minions come to us asking us every type of questions. Including those that scream “I don’t know what I’m doing!” Ask the faculty committee and they know everything and don’t want our help at all. They can do it bigger, better, and faster.

Whoa! Hello? They tell us they don’t want our help. What does that say?

Okay, next, the minions get a test machine up and running their new Windows kit. WHAM! It just got hacked. WHAM! I just blocked their IP. Now explain that to me. They don’t want our help. How fast things can be forgotten.

Taking a step back I have another question for the masses. I experience this issue a lot during my plight of administrating and running a Linux Beowulf cluster. Why do none of our users give us feed back? Okay, very few do but most do not. Even when they have serious problems users and faculty are more prone to spread rumors about how our services are unusable rather than send in a trouble call and give us any amount of feed back. How are we supposed to make things better for our customers when they don’t tell us what’s wrong.

Please, everyone would like each other a lot better if they would just try to work together.

Did you know that? Or are you saying, “The fsck Linux isn’t free?” Unfortunately, and if I have to break it to you with a crow-bar I will, Linux is not free.

The problem is that everyone thinks it is. Why is that? Probably because they are used to downloading it, for free, installing it, for free, making small servers and a lab or two of clients, all for free. Everyone says is free, it is Open Source Software after all. Free as in speech versus free as in beer — both are “free,” right? Organizations will even let an employee or two that like Linux have some company time to do their magic to make that lab go, or that web server. Free, right? You’re paying that guy to do that over there anyway. What’s an extra duty?

There starts the problem. Linux is no longer a cute thing to plug the hole created by a few small needs. Its an enterprise class operating system. Its, fsck’ing addictive too! Before you know it Linux will fit the bill so well that you’ll start to roll out lab after lab of clients. You’ll have server farms to handle your web applications. Computational clusters, terrabytes of file storage, network probes, mail servers, and…oh my! What have you done? Your Linux needs have developed into an entire infrastructure.

Hmmm…the ‘I’ word. How many people to you employ that primarily make your Linux go? How many servers did you buy last year that are running Linux? How are you benefiting from another department’s work and investments into Linux? How much are you paying?

Whoa! Paying? That’s right. Servers cost money. That social recluse in the corner cost you a pretty penny too. Or maybe, you are on the side lines not paying any attention to those guys in that other department making Linux go.

You! Yeah, bench warmer! I bet you are still using Linux. I bet you are using the Linux resources provided. I know that you at least have a clue that they are there and you are using them. In fact, Linux may be a major investment of your own. You’ve got hundreds of clients and servers and employees dedicated to Linux. But what about all those upstream resources in your organization? Can you carry on without those? (You just said yes, go back and think damn hard about it.)

The fact is, you can’t start from scratch when all the infrastructure and hard stuff is done for you. You use the resources provided. But Linux is free, right? You don’t have to pay for that stuff you get.

That’s unfair. That’s unfair to you. If you use a resource you need to be good and sure that you are contributing upstream. That’s what Open Source is all about, remember? Money isn’t all that needed, but it is needed. What extra benefits might you obtain if you funded an Opteron for upstream development when development doesn’t have one? What might you get from contributing resources to make mission critical service X highly available and fault tolerant? What benefits might you see for funding that extra server? Dare I mention testing equipment? Machines to build and develop with and different machines to test with?

Linux has a price. I’d wager its a metric boat load cheaper than a non Open Source solution. But you need to consider that. You need to consider where Linux can go at your organization with your extra resources and funding. You need to stop using your organization’s hard work, blood, sweat, and tears without contributing back to them. I don’t care how many hundreds of Linux machines you have. I don’t care if you only have one on Mondays and Thursdays. Its dead wrong to not think of the larger picture. Its dead wrong to assume someone else will pay for all the back-end equipment, testing equipment, and even licenses. Get responsible. Return the value of what you use.