Selling management on Cygwin

Jason Pyeron jpyeron@pdinc.us
Thu May 14 14:46:00 GMT 2009


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chap Harrison
> Sent: Tuesday, May 12, 2009 16:28
> Subject: Selling management on Cygwin
> 
> Hi,
> First time post.  Believe I have read and carried out all 
> specified "do this before posting" guidelines.
> 
> Ok.
> 
> I work for a 5-person company whose IT infrastructure is 
> exclusively Windows Server-based, and whose mindset is very 
> narrowly Microsoftian.  I prefer *nix.  Four months ago I 
> quietly created a Windows Server 2003 machine running in a VM 
> on a test box, installed Cygwin, and have been successfully 
> writing & running tools (mostly
> Perl) all this time.
> 
> Now I want to persuade management to let me install Cygwin 
> directly on the "main" Server 2003 box.  This is not only for 
> better interactive performance (I work remotely and need to 
> go through one extra screen- scraper layer to get to my 
> current Cygwin command line), but also to access some 
> directories on the "main" box that aren't being shared and, 
> consequently, can't be accessed from my current Cygwin.
> 
> I expect to be met with plenty of FUD.  I honestly don't know 
> what kind of concerns & arguments will be raised, but I feel 
> certain they will be "garden variety".  However, since I'm 
> not a management or IT type, nor a Windows expert, nor a 
> Cygwin expert, I am unprepared to argue the case.

Please note, none of these issues are meant to imply that other solutions do not
have these issues, these are just some of the issues we have received from
customers' management about tools, including Cygwin.

OOS: 
* Licensing
* IP liability assurance / indemnification
* Entity backed product lifecycle and migration.

Support:
* Who supports it, contracted terms.
* Warranty
* Other vendors will not support the system if you install it.

CM:
* Feature Stability
* Interoperability testing (and costs associated of doing something new)

Security:
* Who guarantees safety
* Foreign national/government written code
* disclosure of vulnerabilities



> 
> If someone could help, perhaps by briefly explaining what it 
> is they're worried about, and why they needn't be, I would 
> greatly appreciate it.  Alternately, a link to an article 
> would be nice (I haven't found any so far).
> 
> In some ways this is more of an issue about open source 
> software in general, but I'm sure there will be questions 
> specifically about Cygwin and the extent to which it 
> "touches" Windows OS innards.  Any guidance would be helpful!

Maybe some one else can fill in the outline.

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- Jason Pyeron                      PD Inc. http://www.pdinc.us -
- Principal Consultant              10 West 24th Street #100    -
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