Hacker News Reader

Comment by jiggy2011 | Hacker News Reader

jiggy2011·

Did you give them the whole "4 freedoms" talk?

Seems surprising that the IT guy didn't know about it though, can't be many people in the IT world (even dyed in the wool Windows guys) that haven't heard of Ubuntu.

View on HN

Honestly, you'd be surprised. The IT world includes a lot of people who train up from help desk or similar positions, and spend their time very focused on the specific class of problems they're dealing with. Not surprised at all that someone described as the "IT Guy" might be a small company's only tech, trained up from a non-IT position and with no experience at all outside their tiny ecosystem.

This is pretty common. In many cases they are strictly the hands and eyes of the technician. I know a large company 300+ where their IT guy was there only to call someone who knew more.

I'm also familiar with a situation at many smaller banks where their IT person is the youngest of the VPs. Of course they use external IT services and audits, but for day to day IT problems you go to the VP of whatever first.

I recently bought a computer from a computer reseller (great way to go, IMHO) who had never heard of Ubuntu. He had tried to install Red Hat once back in the day, but that was about it.

The IT guy has last looked at Ubuntu a couple years ago, he was surprised how far it had come. He is working a Windows domain at the job.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com