05-04-2000
Vendor Syndrome, aka, CYA syndrome day
Been fighting for the last couple of weeks against a crateload of old-fashioned, product oriented colleagues that believe that the only way to run a production networkis to have vendor supported (i.e.: contract) hardware and software.
There's nothing more discouraging than hearing otherwise technically competent people saying "You can't run a mission critical network [whatever that means] on free software".
So instead of looking back on 6 months of sweat I've put in to get a decent SMTP and DNS backbone in here, now we have to go through a "requirement definition" and "solution decision" process to evaluate what technology and product best suits a task I've already implemented.
The peeves of the day: FUD, generation gap, Cover Your Ass politics