Are people listening

Title leads to an interesting blog entry on Linuxtoday by John Terpstra from October 3rd, claiming that people make the wrong decisions because they don't listen.

Hmm, I think I know what he means, but is the problem really in listening? To be honest, if an expert (or a salesman for that matter) starts talking about all the details in a good solution, also not shying away from things that might go wrong I'd say most people will not have a problem listening, but a problem understanding. What's good about a Linux or any Open Source solution probably goes way over the head of most people because due to lack of understanding, the concepts discussed and their technical advantages and disadvantages compared to some proprietary system are way too fuzzy and intangible.

One big problem for Open Source Software is still that it requires you to acquire quite a lot of knowledge in one way or another to make the correct decisions. Don't get me wrong, this is a very good thing (tm), but it's not what people are used to. In the example cited about a SOX audit:

"He asks the local network manager to configure a particular data file for change tracking so that it will log all file access, all file changes, and to report same with a matching user network logon record. The network manager says he needs time to figure out how to do that."

This was not the answer the auditor was looking for and I believe the network manager should have understood that. He should have said "OK" and solved the problem (now I realize that the auditor might have wanted to have it done while he was standing there, but let's assume he didn't).

You always have to adapt the message to the receiver and the FLOSS community is not quite there yet.