RE: tunnel vs open a hole

["Sloane, David" <DSloane () vfa com>]

This is a good point, but I think the prevalence of this mindset is
diminishing.

The broader problem is that most software developers and software projects
produce single-customer software.  By "customer" I mean one
organization/company/government that pays for the project.  These projects
generate substantial revenue for software consulting firms and employ
"in-house" developers.

Open-source tools won't change the mindset of project managers at Mike's
Insurance or Tim's Manufacturing - the business constraints placed on
software development will take longer to adjust.

The quality of *distributed* software should improve with the growth of open
source, both through competition and OSS adoption.  The quality of custom
software has a lot to do with the larger business culture it inhabits.
Don't forget that IT is a relatively new development.  Software development
as a subset of business is 50-60 years old (with a generous definition of
"software).  Accounting, by contrast, is roughly five hundred years old.
Manufacturing is roughly three hundred years old.  

Software, and IT in general, seems to be in the
awkward-adolescence/Wild-West/after-war-before-peace stage.


-David Sloane


-----Original Message-----
From: Bowden, Kevin [mailto:bowden_kw () naptheon com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 10:25 AM
To: firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com
Subject: RE: [fw-wiz] tunnel vs open a hole


Well, one reason at least, is management's hesitation / refusal to trust
enterprise solutions to an ethereal support system.  They want to be able to
have someone pick up a phone when something breaks so they can get the
problem fixed ASAP.  While this is no guarantee of a fix, at least they can
upwardly report "Our technical guys are on the phone with the vendor."  That
is a bit more substantial than "they dropped a post in a usenet group and
are waiting for someone to reply."

Kevin W. Bowden, CISSP
Senior Firewall Administrator
Northrop Grumman Information Technology
 

-----Original Message-----
From: Marcus J. Ranum [mailto:mjr () ranum com] 
Sent: Tuesday, April 15, 2003 10:06 AM
To: Sloane, David; firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com
Subject: RE: [fw-wiz] tunnel vs open a hole

Sloane, David wrote:
> I was just about to ignore this ever-expanding thread when this post from
> Mr. Ranum caught my attention.  Every aspect of the problem is addressed by
> open-source software development.

Spoken like a true believer...
_BUT_ -- if open source is the solution, why do we still have the problem?

mjr. 

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