Andy Haxby
Proficient Systems & Consultants
<andy@prof.net>
Today a large number of innovative software tools are 'free', e.g. distributed under the terms of the GPL. Corporate management have traditionally been reluctant to rely on these software products, preferring commercial (vendor supported-) software allegedly for reasons of better quality and support.
However, commercial products do not have the inter-platform portability that today's free software offers, nor can they be tailored as easily to the specific needs of a particular environment. Some exciting new tools even are released within the public domain only - without any traditional vendor support.
We aim to dispel some common misconceptions about public domain software, and will explain how these products can be utilized in development and production environments in a responsible manner. We will also explain how to achieve a high degree of quality and support in the many different software platforms that exist within corporate infrastructures, and we will focus on the specific benefits of using these public domain software tools.
This presentation will be of help to IT managers who are faced with the aforementioned challenge, and to technical staff who would like to have more freedom in the choice of software they implement but are having difficulty to convince their management of the benefits of doing so.