[Ocaml-biz] Double Standards, was Re: the commercial relevance of Linux

[Brian Hurt]

Cross-posting this, because it's more on-topic to ocaml-biz.  Followups 
should go to ocaml-biz.

On Mon, 13 Sep 2004, Vincenzo Ciancia wrote:

> Yes but, why do "most developers" embrace any new microsoft technology
> without calculating the risks? Why do my company develop on .net
> accepting any kind of trouble and bug? They don't know, I ask to them
> every day. Why do software engineers carefully evaluate any risk of any
> new technology except when it's microsoft stuff? This question is not
> related to the subject but it's a good question I think.

"No one ever got fired for buying IBM".  This was conventional wisdom for 
over 30 years in the computer industry.  Managers don't want the right 
choice- they want the *safe* choice.  Until the mid-late eighties, the 
safe choice was IBM.  Today, the safe choice is Microsoft/Intel.  If you 
choose Microsoft and .NET as you technologies, and the project fails, than 
likely neither the manager choosing the technology nor the technology 
itself is likely to be blamed for the failure.  If you choose Ocaml and 
Linux, you had better damned well be right, because any failure will be 
blamed on you *and* the technology.

It sucks, it's stupid, but that's the way it is.

This is yet another hurdle Ocaml has to cross to gain widespread 
popularity.

-- 
"Usenet is like a herd of performing elephants with diarrhea -- massive,
difficult to redirect, awe-inspiring, entertaining, and a source of
mind-boggling amounts of excrement when you least expect it."
                                - Gene Spafford 
Brian