# Open Source Advocacy and Looking Good

The former CIO of Massachusetts, Peter Quinn, says that [Open Source
advocates don't dress the part for business][1], and this hampers
Linux and Open Source adoption by businesses and governments.

> "Open source has an unprofessional appearance, and the community
> needs to be more business-savvy in order to start to make inroads
> in areas traditionally dominated by commercial software
> vendors. (Having) a face on a project or agenda makes it
> attractive for politicians (to consider open source)." He went on
> to suggest that while the open-source community was slowly
> beginning to come to terms with the need to dress for success,
> doing so is a "huge education process."

Business-savvy, yes. Dress code, no. As someone who has been part of
both the Open Source and business culture, I can tell you that idea
is mostly crap. Yes, the "sandal and ponytail set" doesn't make a
good impression on potential customers, but neither do most
developers want to play the role of pre-sales engineer, or really
have anything to do with clients. It has nothing to do with how they
dress, it has to do with how they how they interact with other
people on a social level.

Putting hordes of Open Source developers in suits and sticking them
in front of government panels won't improve Open Source
adoption. I'd bet that if you put Theo de Raadt in a suit he would
still manage to [piss off DARPA][2] (There has been a lot written on
[dress][3] [codes][4] [for][5] [techies][6], [forcing geeks to dress
in business-casual isn't the way to improve their image][7]).

A previous employer of mine instituted a business-casual dress code
that applied to everyone, even developers and engineers. The
official reason was that it looked more professional when clients or
potential clients visited. All it really accomplished was pissing
off people who had been used to jeans and t-shirts for
years. Managers, salespeople and pre-sales engineers already dressed
formally for client visits, and here's a surprise - they made use of
technical talent by phone only, never putting them in front of
clients unless it was a dire emergency, and even then, it was
usually to fix some hairy technical problem where they didn't have
to speak to anyone. Just quickly usher them into the server room and
leave them alone. Another quote by Mr. Quinn:

> "(I blame them) for not understanding what it is that they do, for
> spending too much time talking and thinking in technology terms,
> and not thinking in terms of business"

Sheesh. Here's a clue - it's what they do, most are not capable or
not interested in the effort of speaking down (as they see it) to
non-tech types. Be happy that there are a [few][8] Open Source
developers who have business-sense. You should use them as a
resource.

## Comments

**[centyx](#104 "2006-04-20 21:27:00"):** I'm a systems
administrator, not a developer, by trade, but I a consider myself a
mild Open Source zealot and have been used to working in
environments with a relaxed dress code for the tech folks behind the
scenes for the past 7 years. However, last year as I was forced to
change jobs due to my employer's business failing, I found that it
was almost impossible to get anyone to take me seriously without
dressing in a suit and tie. I am in the SouthEastern United States,
so that may be part of it, but it appears that it is becoming a
matter of survival to 'dress the part' of an 'IT professional,' at
least where I am now. This disturbed me greatly at first, but I'm
gradually getting used to it.

**[Thinknix](#105 "2006-04-21 13:30:00"):** Interesting, I would have
thought sysadmins were like coders in their ability to dress-down
and still be taken seriously...I guess it depends on the audience in
the end.

[1]: https://web.archive.org/web/20061217232555/http://news.com.com/Sandal+and+ponytail+set+cramping+Linux+adoption/2100-7344_3-6054741.html
[2]: http://lwn.net/Articles/29186/
[3]: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000050.html
[4]: http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=01/05/27/2134203
[5]: https://web.archive.org/web/20061001125318/http://www.things.org/~muffy/pages/life_work.html
[6]: https://web.archive.org/web/20061009154025/http://www.chrylers.com/weblog/weblog.php?id=P35
[7]: http://caustictech.typepad.com/caustictech/2004/06/why_do_programm.html
[8]: https://web.archive.org/web/20060318060952/http://ianmurdock.com/?p=298
.