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Re: Why Aren't Open Source Tools Being Considered?
Subject:Re: Why Aren't Open Source Tools Being Considered? From:Brian Gordon <elasticsoul2003 -at- yahoo -dot- ca> To:"TECHWR-L" <techwr-l -at- lists -dot- techwr-l -dot- com> Date:Fri, 19 Aug 2005 19:24:19 -0400 (EDT)
Mike - I'm going to assume that your response was
tongue-in-cheek so I can ignore the implied insult.
You're saying companies *only* hire people fully
competent in the tools required (at the time the job
was posted)? Simply not true. That is obvious from my
own experience and from the posts put up here by
others.
And most doc tools are blindingly obvious? Let's shut
down the lists, burn the manuals, and retire the TWs.
RoboHelp, AuthorIT - Word - so easy to use that
there's no learning curve? I'm not saying companies
pay for training courses, but that doesn't mean there
isn't a training cost while the TW self-trains.
I consider myself one of those "people who can figure
things out quickly." (And am currently working in a
startup, where we use some open-source stuff.) Quickly
does not equal zero. Quickly could mean hours, days,
weeks - even months to become fully expert in any
given software.
>
> Brian Gordon wrote:
> > If no expertise, you're paying a TW to learn
> > the software.
>
> Who the heck pays to train TWs? Nowadays they just
> tell six different
> recruiters to go find them somebody who already has
> the expertise.
> Besides, most doc tools are blindingly obvious and
> don't require
> training. So companies who pay to train TWs are at a
> competitive
> DISadvantage, when there are plenty of auto-didacts
> out there.
>
> > How many hours does someone spend evaluating
> > the dfferent OS tools?
>
> Doesn't matter. We were talking about startups.
> People who start
> companies are very different from other people.
> Startup CEOs tend to
> gather people around them who can figure stuff out
> quickly, and who
> know a lot of stuff already. These days, a lot of
> what they know is
> open-source.
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