Open Source and Knowledge Management

Once upon a time, Eureka Corp. has a catasthrophy going on. Their system are collapse.

Boss : "Jane, call the IT management immediately! Why are our system ruin and no backup plans?"
Jane : "I'm sorry, sir, the system was created by X-Files Team and our IT team cannot recover it
immediately."
Boss : "So, where are those who were the member of the former X-Files."
Jane : "They are out there, we have lost track of them."
Boss : "Damn! Why are we using unsupported system?"
Jane : "Well, sir, we did have one of the former member left, John Doe."
Boss : "John Doe? Seems like familliar name. So, where is he?"
Jane : "He was that person whom you have spoken on the funeral last week. He was the one on the coffin, sir."
Boss : "WTF?!!! Btw, don't we have any documentation about the system?"
Jane : "We do have the artifacts, sir. That's why our IT team are trying to study it."
Boss : "Why took them forever, am I paying them to high? How can those braniacs hired high doing something so lame in this crucial time time?"
Jane : "We must run into some bureaucracies to obtain the artifact."
Boss : "What? How come"
Jane : "Sir, we are using 3rd party vendor to help us build the system. Our system was about 5 years ago and the maintenance contract was only 4 years 11 months 7 days, which means it was over last month."
Boss : "Ah.. right, I remember we cut the contract due to expensive expenses over IT. Damn, technology! They are so money eater. Ah, that company was bought by SciFactor, which owned by Blasphemy who also own one of our competitors. That's why we agreed to stop the contract."

The Boss chilin' his nerves. He is frustrated by the condition. His 20 years hardwork could be lost just in days. Memories begin to fall. His tone changes, deep sadness are written in it.

Boss : "Jane, I don't know about the future of our company. We already lost much because of this.... Oh, what am I going to tell our employee. They ... are so close."
Jane : "Sir, I remember someone tell me about another IT solution."
Boss : "..."
Jane : "He said it is a cheap solution. People out there call it open source project."
Boss : "I know you just want to cheer me up. Why we would risk more on using hackers playground?"
Jane : "But, sir, I heard they are getting better. There are communities behind them, even some IT company join them."
Boss : "Some, not all. How do you expect us to rely again on no support system?"
Jane : "Sir, there are rapid development going on over the open source project. Many have grown into stable and mature system. Even so, features are easyly added because of the openness of the source code."
Boss : "You said open, that's mean we are opening our system into other? I remember, those programs usually GPL'ed. My assosiates grumbled that we must provide the source code"
Jane : "No, sir, we don't. Data and programs are different types of thing, we can protect them."
Boss : "How can it be? "
Jane : "When we create our new system based on the open source project, that's called derivative work, that's GPL'ed. But, products such as documents, mails, passwords, logo, etc. are us. Moreover, GPL'ed softwares are distributed with source code, since we are creating a private system, we don't want to distribute it, so, why we bother about the source code falls into the other?"

The Boss stop a while to think. His secretary got the point. This company aren't trying to distribute it, we are only end users. We can still protect our modification, besides, we have community behind it. Aha... got it!

Boss : "Why aren't you tell me long time ago? This solution is the best solution that meet our demand. This is the best take and give solution."
Jane : "???"
Boss : "We can tell our IT teams to study open source project and try to interact with the community behind it. If necessary, be a part of it."
Jane : "How is it possible, sir?"
Boss : "Listen, Jane, when we build our current system, people are paid to maintain it. Instead of paid explicitly, why don't we use our IT to learn the system and getting themself brained about the system. So, we will have all of our IT teams can get the system up and running."

The Boss cheer up.

Boss : "Not only that, we can share some of our source code and our workaround bug killer. Thus, the system and the open source project can be benefit from it. Think of this way, we could obtain more knowledge from the community and test our own knowledge by shares them to the community. Two heads better than one, isn't it?"
Jane : "I think I got your point, sir."
Boss : "We could also spend of our bugdets to support the community. By my rough analysis, it is cheaper than hiring 3rd party vendor. Besides, we can get new skilled IT labor from the community. Our training programs would be decreased also."
Jane : "Ah, I see, I think it is better to do that. Sir, I often sees some of our IT modify of their code. They said it is easy because of the modularity. They can build new modules if they want it. I think by hacking into the source code, they become more enjoyed."
Boss : "You are amazing, how can you talk to geeks like that? Nevermind."

They laugh.

Boss : "Well, we could make steps to migrate our system. Incompatibility is the own that I'm afraid of. But, we could make road to transform our system from time to time."

And then the boss starting to call everyone to attend a meeting.

Boss : "Btw, how could you know such thing so eloquently?"
Jane : "I was John Doe's wife."
Boss : "What??? How could a beautiful lady like you marry geek like that?"

The story forcefully to be continued... If not, this entry would be a novel and my friend, Anton, asked me to eat (half hour ago).

Open source project as business solution.

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