O'Reilly Open Source Convention - August 1-5, 2005

Session
Opening the Source to Business
James A. Duncan, CIO, Fotango

Track: Emerging Topics
Date: Wednesday, August 3rd, 2005
Time: 4:30pm - 5:15pm
Location: Portland 252
There is a fairly well known joke that goes around IT circles about a man in a hot-air balloon. He floats about for a while, and gets hopelessly lost. Just when he thinks he's going to be staying up there forever he looks down, and sees a man standing on a hill. "Hello," he shouts. "Where am I?" The man on the hill looks up and says, "You're in a hot air balloon, about 100 feet off the ground." The first man looks down and says. "You work in IT don't you?" The second man, surprised, shouts, "Yes. How did you know?" To which the man in the balloon replies, "While what you've told me is factually correct, it's completely useless." The man on the hill shouts back, "You're in business aren't you?" The first man replies, "Yes, how did you know that?" The man on the hill smiles and shouts back, "You're in the same position you were in 3 minutes ago, but now, somehow it's my problem."
Unfortunately, this tale describes the relationship that is shared between programmers and the business all too well. Open souce can challenge that, and this talk will outline how.