What's the most ridiculous IT policy you've come across

syklops

jester77 wrote: »

I can understand why warning labels are on things, too many muppets out there. But in an IT environment I would expect developers to be clued in.

You've lead a very sheltered life.

moycullen14

syklops wrote: »

Things are improving, but I worked in a place where they wouldn't let me install Cygwin. "Shure what would you need it for". That it was a network operations centre seemed to have escaped the IT Guy.

I've been lucky, in current job and previous 2 I have had, I was allowed run Linux on my laptop. I know Linux Admins who have to use windows as their base OS. Some places are horrendous.

Me: 'Can I install linux on my desktop. I find I'm much more productive in that environment and given there's a lot of scripting/perl/python to be done, it would be handy?'

'Any modifications to your m/c have to be done by IT. You can ask them but they won't do it because the don't get linux, sorry'

Me: 'Where's my CV? I'm off'

The Corinthian

jester77 wrote: »

I can understand why warning labels are on things, too many muppets out there. But in an IT environment I would expect developers to be clued in.

Bless your innocence.

(Ironically also kind of proves my point)

moycullen14

Boskowski wrote: »

These things may be facts of life in a corporate environment but do they always make sense?

It some sort of contradiction really. On the one hand they trust you to develop and run their stuff and be trustworthy and diligent and the people are in fact more or less the sole asset an IT organisation has. And then on the other hand they seem to assume you are a potentially criminal liability half the time so they put you in a straight jacket while doing your job.

Its not what Im doing right now but I'd take a small organisation over a big corporate every time. There is a fine line between sensible red tape and bullsh1t risk management paranoia and risk managers tend to err on the side of caution.

This, this and 100 times this.

One small company I went to had no machine for me whan I arrived. The MD gave me the company credit card and sent me down to the local PC-world to pick up a laptop. 'Don't go mad on the spec.' were his parting words. I loved that place.

Contrast that with the 'jobsworths' you get in large companies. 'Waiting to die ..... if they can avoid being killed' as someone once put it

moycullen14

syklops wrote: »

Things are improving, but I worked in a place where they wouldn't let me install Cygwin. "Shure what would you need it for". That it was a network operations centre seemed to have escaped the IT Guy.

I've been lucky, in current job and previous 2 I have had, I was allowed run Linux on my laptop. I know Linux Admins who have to use windows as their base OS. Some places are horrendous.

Next time you get a problem with Linux on the desktop, use this article

http://www.zdnet.com/the-truth-about-goobuntu-googles-in-house-desktop-ubuntu-linux-7000003462/

Put it all together: the need for top-of-the-line security, high-end PC performance, and the flexibility to meet the desktop needs of both genius developers and newly-hired sales representatives, and it's no wonder that Google uses Ubuntu for its desktop operating system of choice. To quote, Bushnell, “You'd be a fool to use anything but Linux.”

deceit

BrokenArrows wrote: »

Our IT department insists on leaving Symantec Endpoint configured in such a way that it updates the definitions multiple times a day during business hours. Which is oh so fun as it downloads a 700+ MB updates 4+ times a day, processes the definitions and runs a system scan after it does the update.

I checked the IO byte count of the update process on my computer which has been running for 20 days. The byte count was at something like 17 terabytes. That's insane and that's not even counting the virus scanning which occurs under the windows System process.

If its configured correctly it should only be pulling updates directly from the management server which would not use live update so would not be as cpu/disk intensive.
The definitions would also only be a couple of kb as the server should be storing all updates (min 10 for a small company) (15-30 for a mid sized company) so its able to pass out just the incremental updates.
Most companies turn the feature scan after new definitions arrive off unless there in a high risk environment.

laugh

If open source was banned where I work tomorrow, there would be several thousand servers with nothing running on them.

Jim2007

PrzemoF wrote: »

Banning the whole open source software is like banning software that has "Z" somewhere in the name.

Well if you had just been forced to handover highly confidential data effecting the running of your business because some dumb ass included OS libs in the product, you might have a different perspective as the owner business.

This happened here in Switzerland about 12 years ago, when a market leader was forced to disclose the majority of their prop. software because the programmer had used some OS with a license that required it. Lesson learned, many business still to this day have a general ban in place that require the opinion of a barrister to get an exception.

Jim2007

ethernet wrote: »

This is in a large multinational...

Devs needing to request and justify admin rights every few months.

Having to create tickets for the simplest things, like a replacement mouse.

Tiny limits on inbox sizes (no server-side processing allowed)

Excessive web filtering - a lot of solutions to problems are blocked!

Not having full access to your own dev database - having to create tickets and format SQL to a certain line length for the script monkeys to execute it hours/days later.

And more!

As more and more companies outsource their basic infrastructure, this is the way things are going...

croo

Jim2007 wrote: »

Well if you had just been forced to handover highly confidential data effecting the running of your business because some dumb ass included OS libs in the product, you might have a different perspective as the owner business.

This happened here in Switzerland about 12 years ago, when a market leader was forced to disclose the majority of their prop. software because the programmer had used some OS with a license that required it. Lesson learned, many business still to this day have a general ban in place that require the opinion of a barrister to get an exception.

1. Using open source and selling it as your own proprietary work are two different things entirely.
2. I cannot see how any oss licence could be used to force disclosure of data.
Code maybe but not data.

What was the name of the company involved?

PS. you can usually use oss libs without having to use the oss license yourself! That's how many gpl projects can still use apache licensed libraries... and vice-versa.

dazberry

I worked in a small finance company owned by a large multinational, and as time went on more and more policies came from the parent as we were in IBM parlance - "blue rinsed". Given that it was a financial, they're big on the concept of separation of duties. Problem was that we really didn't have enough people for all this separation, or indeed enough work for some of the roles - during audit season we'd pretend - it was all a farce

But as a stick to beat us, quick often parental polices were mentioned that didn't exist to save some middle manager from having to do any work. For instance I tried to get the development environment virtualised but was told that vmware (and it's ilk) were barred from running on desktops (only allowed on servers), only to discover 2 months later vmware being rolled out to a different department. Also tried to get dual monitors but was refused siting lack of business justification, really it was just a lazy manager.

We had to reapply for admin access every 3 months to our own development machines.

We had to study and pass financial exams, but specific IT training was frequently refused. Regular reading and reviewing was mainly finance based, nothing to do with us but as policy we had to do it - and it was audited.

Freeware libraries were ok, but open source libraries were banned on the off chance the licence was "viral".

D.

Jim2007

croo wrote: »

1. Using open source and selling it as your own proprietary work are two different things entirely.
2. I cannot see how any oss licence could be used to force disclosure of data.
Code maybe but not data.

What was the name of the company involved?

Sorry, went I referred to data I was referring to company information in general and not the IT meaning.

I don't remember the specifics of it, but whatever the license was it required them to provide copies of their source to the public. A competitor to them to court on it and won.

The bank was called Volksbank, but it no longer exists, although I do not think that the software issue had anything to do with that.

Trojan

croo wrote: »

1. Using open source and selling it as your own proprietary work are two different things entirely.
2. I cannot see how any oss licence could be used to force disclosure of data.
Code maybe but not data.

I think the proprietary source code is the data that he is referring to. If GPL licenced libraries were compiled in, that could happen.

That's one of the reasons why it's crucial that software developers are taught about software licences and their implications. There are plenty of open source licences that aren't as aggressively viral as GPL.

If the developer in the Swiss case had used something with a different open source licence, or had had training and supervision, this wouldn't have happened.

The Chris Pearson issue with WordPress is similar to the above situate - here's a debate between the protagonists with transcript, worth a look or read through.

croo

Jim2007 wrote: »

Sorry, went I referred to data I was referring to company information in general and not the IT meaning.

I don't remember the specifics of it, but whatever the license was it required them to provide copies of their source to the public. A competitor to them to court on it and won.

Okay.

Jim2007 wrote: »

The bank was called Volksbank, but it no longer exists, although I do not think that the software issue had anything to do with that.

That's should be enough for me to search thanks. Though if it were simply code then it could happen easily enough.

@Trojan
+1
The other point to consider is distribution. If its an "in house" IT project that will no be distributed then there will be no issue.

oscarBravo

Trojan wrote: »

The Chris Pearson issue with WordPress is similar to the above situate - here's a debate between the protagonists with transcript, worth a look or read through.

That's a fascinating read. Pearson's position seems a bizarre one: he's basically claiming that the GPL doesn't apply because he doesn't want it to.

syklops

Jim2007 wrote: »

Well if you had just been forced to handover highly confidential data effecting the running of your business because some dumb ass included OS libs in the product, you might have a different perspective as the owner business.

This happened here in Switzerland about 12 years ago, when a market leader was forced to disclose the majority of their prop. software because the programmer had used some OS with a license that required it. Lesson learned, many business still to this day have a general ban in place that require the opinion of a barrister to get an exception.

Did anyone find a link to back this up?

Colonel Panic

I've seen IT departments take a "No MS SQL" stance. Oracle or death.

croo

syklops wrote: »

Did anyone find a link to back this up?

Not me, I searched in english & german but I couldn't find anything.

syklops

croo wrote: »

Not me, I searched in english & german but I couldn't find anything.

Me neither. I have heard lots of arguments against using open source, and having to release the source code is always at the top of the list, usually due to ignorance or confusion.

MOH

Trojan wrote: »

The Chris Pearson issue with WordPress is similar to the above situate - here's a debate between the protagonists with transcript, worth a look or read through.

Wow, that's just ... That's some ego.

beauf

moycullen14 wrote: »

This, this and 100 times this.

One small company I went to had no machine for me whan I arrived. The MD gave me the company credit card and sent me down to the local PC-world to pick up a laptop. 'Don't go mad on the spec.' were his parting words. I loved that place.

Contrast that with the 'jobsworths' you get in large companies. 'Waiting to die ..... if they can avoid being killed' as someone once put it

I like that. Reminded me or our situation. Working away on 6yr old Workstations, while brand new ones sat in their boxes in the next room, never really got a good reason why. Even when we had big jobs that needed some extra processing power, still wouldn't release them, even temporarily. Eventually we got them, a few of them failed PSu's motherboards, the usual thing with a batch of new machines. Only now some of them were almost out of their warranty period. So you had machines worth a few thousand new now being too uneconomical to repair. You couldn't make it up.

Trojan

Pearson's ego is amazing to behold in that debate, particularly "one of the most important people in the history of WordPress" thing.

He did actually split-licence Thesis with GPL as a result, but it the theme is almost dead in WordPress circles now. His actions and behaviour destroyed his reputation and lost him a massive proportion of his fan base, as well as his business partner(s) on some major projects he was involved in. All self-inflicted.

Trojan

In the same vein as the Pearson-WP issue, the OpenCart developer removes attribution from source code and abuses folks who give constructive criticism on minor issues like encryption.

MOH

I'm not sure I have a better response to that than just quoting myself:

MOH wrote: »

Wow, that's just ... That's some ego.

(although is quoting myself talking about ego in itself an ego trip?)

Trojan

Trojan wrote:

It's only egotistical if you self-quote