* Non-technical people making technical decisions (many years of this have left much of our IT infrastructure a mess–but it is getting better).
* Proprietary everything everywhere. I ran into the “vendor doesn’t make documentation available to the public” problem just last week. When everything is proprietary even the simplest tasks become a pain in the ass.
* Paying for proprietary junk when they could’ve just used a free tool that is vastly superior.
* ‘One tool to rule them all’ mentality is the driving force behind all IT decisions. It boils down to this: Why use two perfectly capable tools when you can use one tool that does the same thing in an incomplete, half-assed, proprietary manner? If my company’s IT management was in charge of demolishing a house they’d hand everyone hammers and say they got a bulk discount… Then they’d wonder and complain when the project takes 4x longer to complete and attrition goes up.

-Riskable
http://riskable.com
“Indoctrination Quiz: Are you eager to believe? Are you eager to serve? Are you eager to sacrifice?”