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Blame Open Source for outsourcing nightmare.
1) Open Source programmers push for everything to be free. They view it as a way to beat up Microsoft.
2) As a result, anybody can download & learn stuff like Linux, Apache, PHP, MySQL, C++, Java, Perl, Python, for FREE.
3) Lots of hardcore pro-open source geeks dedicate a great deal of time improving free programs. Advanced know-how is placed directly into source code, for anyone to view.
4) Now millions of dirt poor Indians, Chinese, and Russians have access to increasingly sophisticated tools and documentation for free. They can spend all day at University computer labs, playing with these wonderful free tools. Local university costs stay low.
Result: An army of millions of dirt poor 3rd world kids become competitive programmers, taking jobs from American tech workers, and adding downward pressure to tech wages.
Melvin
Thursday, January 1, 2004
I think there is plenty of blame to go around. For example, you seem to have neglected to mention the influence the Internet has had on the outsourcing of technical work, as well as, the role piracy of "just about everything that is closed source" has played.
One Programmer's Opinion
Thursday, January 1, 2004
What does this have to do with the price of tea in China?
Answer: Nothing.
So, according to you, there are millions of uneducated, dirt-poor Russian, Chinese and Indian kids rushing to the Universities to use their computers so they can read open source - source code to become superstar programmers at outsourcing firms in the same country. Yea, that's the ticket. Yup. You nailed that one big time.
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Just like Bill Gates going to India and giving away millions worth of software.
So what's your point? That since you dislike both Open Source and outsourcing they must somehow be related? That third world countries should be kept forever poor so that can't ever compete? Just ranting?
Andres
Thursday, January 1, 2004
It had to happen; some idiiot joining up the two demons and announcing it's a conspiracy to impoeverish God-blessed American programmers.
Think positive; you'll have time to study computing when the Indian whose bought your mansion in Florida gives you time off from sweeping the leaves and rolling bidis for him to get some pocket money.
Stephen Jones
Thursday, January 1, 2004
This really doesn't make an awful lot of sense given that the outsourcing trend is almost entirely in the realm of Microsoft software. Hell, I remember reading a Dvorak article _years_ ago (couldn't stand the guy, but he was prophetic in a way...) talking about how MFC was a grand plan by Microsoft's of moving software development to India.
Dennis Forbes
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Is this the same nuclear-armed Russia and China that kept threatening to take over the free world and enslave everyone under communism? The same Russia that invaded Afghanistan? The same China that took over Tibet and killed all the natives who resisted and did not escape? The same Russia and China that the US has to spend so much money maintaining a nuclear arsenal so that the same Russia and China won't use their nukes to enslave the rest of the countries they haven't enslaved already?
Why should we give a shit about those assholes?
Dennis Atkins
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Yeah, it's all the fault of that evil open source software. That same open source software that I use to run my business, that my business is based on. Man, I tell you, it's killing me to use all of this free stuff. I sure wish I had to pay for it instead. In fact, it would be really cool if all the software I used also sucked. Because then I could bill for all the time I have to spend fixing and working around broken features in other peoples' software, and I could retire on my own private island.
Back here in the real world, free quality software is what's keeping a roof over my head and food in my well-fed belly. The day it's bad to be warm, fat and happy we're all in a lot of trouble.
Clay Dowling
Thursday, January 1, 2004
It really doesn't matter, does it?
Philo's Philosophy:
"Don't worry about how you got here. Look at where you are, decide where you want to be, and figure out how to get there from here."
Look at the outsourcing issue, and decide how to best leverage yourself to maximize your income/career in light of it.
Philo
Philo
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Dennis Atkins wrote, "Why should we give a shit about those assholes?"
Well, for one thing because those communist countries seem to be changing and becoming more like us (a Western industrialized country). For example:
* I watched a segment on the Nightly Business Report recently that mentioned that 1 out of every 30 people in China have their own business.
* Another segment talked about how fast consumerism seems to be growing within China.
* And a recent radio segment on NPR mentioned how the Chinese government is going to allow privatization to flourish within China. Supposedly, the government is doing this with the hope that they can keep this growing entreprenurial class within the communist party.
I don't want those countries to be just like the United States simply because our planet cannot sustain such a world.
One Programmer's Opinion
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Dear Dennis Atkins dude:
(Sorry for my poor english--'cause you don't understand chinese so I have to use english)
===============================
To show me a little bit justice, after you use your "magic hole" to blame others, please also blame your ancestors since they took over America and "killed all the natives who resisted and did not escape".
===============================
Now let's talk those "dirt-poor" chinese programmers, I was one of them. Pirate-cheap-software, CloseSource-highprice-software, OpenSource-Free-software, Which one do you think is a reasonable choice for "dirt-poor" people?
================================
One last thing, Please don't try to correct my english. It doesn't make you smarter.
(Some time I do admire Dalai Lama, He speaks fluent english which makes him very trustful.)
A chinese programmer & Joleonsoftware lover until this thread
Thursday, January 1, 2004
So when you guys gonna stop threatening Taiwan and let them live free?
Dennis Atkins
Thursday, January 1, 2004
You will see if you can see by then.
=========================
BTW, IS THIS A SOFTWARE FORUM?
A chinese programmer & Joleonsoftware lover until this thread
Thursday, January 1, 2004
This thread is getting too political. This was not the point of my original posting. I have nothing against Indians, Chinese, or Russians.
My point is that we must fight Open Source, which is our common enemy, and the embodiment of communist ideology.
Melvin
Thursday, January 1, 2004
That you equate open source with communism, Melvin, shows only that you don't understand either one.
Justin Johnson
Thursday, January 1, 2004
"You will see if you can see by then."
This is EXACTLY the problem. The Chinese think they can threaten people with the force of violence to get their way. And I mean fascist communist party members like yourself, not the common workers of China, who are good people. (Only party members are allowed access to the internet.)
Well I am not your average Chinese political prisoner wasting away who you can throw acid into the eyes of. It is those people who someday will be liberated. And let me tell you, when the people are finally liberated, they are going to track down you party officials and justice will be served.
Power to the people! Down with the Facist Party Pigs!
Bring it on dude! bring it on! I am ready to take you and your five strongest fat Party pigs in a Cage Match!
Dennis Atkins
Thursday, January 1, 2004
So Richard Gere posts here under a pseudonym, eh?
Rabid fanaticism on both sides is bad, Dennis.
Please try to think clearly.
Can we get back to the topic of Open Source please?
Melvin
Thursday, January 1, 2004
>> Blame Open Source for outsourcing nightmare
I don't think so.
Three things:
1) Software product development is an almost insignificant piece of the entire IT scene. The vast majority of IT revolves around custom business applications and supporting users. The *only* "pricing support" damage that a piece of freeware can do is to erode the price that can be charged for equivalent commercial software. While I myself have lived in the product development end of things, I also know that what I do is regarded as "Last of the Mohicans" stuff by most other IT workers.
2) Even if software product development were a significant slice of the IT spending pie, the fact is that almost all OSS is generic "toolware" - operating systems, horizontal applications like word processors, CMS systems, internet servers, etc. Even as blase' a "vertical" application as a decent financial application for home or small business use is literally years away. Geeks writing software for their own vanity/mental masturbation/pride just don't *bother* with development anything useful to a limited number of people that is also financially lucrative. The "hoity toity college professor who can't be bothered with menial real world needs" mentality tends to rule almost all OSS.
3) The somewhat adversarial tending RTFM philosophy of OSS, along with the "you have the source code, are you a stupid buttwipe or not?" attitude prevalent, makes end users more, not less dependent upon expert help.
My guess is that as MS licensing becomes more user-hostile with product activation, DRM, and lock-in to extensive product maintenance programs, OSS will be increasingly attractive and will be embraced by end users.
As this happens, expect the deliberate gutting and de-skilling of the IT sector that business has pushed off on us, to bite it in the ass. Over the last decade, the biggest priority of IT management has seemingly been to create a generation of button-pushing IT "professionals" who can't cope with even a command line.
The heads-down GUI only paraprofessional will have no clue how to make OSS work for a user... hurrah.
Bored Bystander
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Perfect. Time to pull up your pants and compete, or find another job.
Lots of people love to cook and make a career out of it. Most of them get paid min wage, except for a handful of superstar chefs. There's no god given right that says our profession should be paid $X/year on average.
We make our money off of capitalism, let the free market decide.
Yummy
Thursday, January 1, 2004
So corporate extorsion by monpolies has nothing to do with outsourcing. If all of Microsofts "customers" didn't have to pay the MS tax, they could afford to employ local talent.
doobius
Thursday, January 1, 2004
----"If all of Microsofts "customers" didn't have to pay the MS tax, they could afford to employ local talent. "-----
I suppose a Linux loonie had to come along to counterbalance Melvin Microsoft Militiaman.
Perhaps he would like to explain the exorbitant tax that such well known outsourcers as Intel, Sun, IBM and Oracle are paying (and of course to a lesser extent MS itself!)
Stephen Jones
Thursday, January 1, 2004
I doubt so.
Let me use this assumption: MS is totally out of business, OpenSource wins.
A US local comany ABCs use those saved "MS tax" to hire more local talents. But competitor XYZs still think they can outsource to other low cost countries to save even more money.
I really don't know.
A chinese programmer
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Melvin, I think open source is part of the same phenomenon as offshoring, rather than being an enabler of it.
That phenomenon is the relentless quest by business managements who don't understand software development to undermine the payment structures for software development.
This is combined with a characteristic almost unique to software development, where professionals don't understand their own interests or defend them.
me
Thursday, January 1, 2004
---" That phenomenon is the relentless quest by business managements who don't understand software development to undermine the payment structures for software development. "----
So, if I use Apache instead of IIS or Samba instead of Win 2K, what payment structure am I undermining apart from Gates and Ballmer's millions?
----" This is combined with a characteristic almost unique to software development, where professionals don't understand their own interests or defend them. "-----
Yea, just look what sheep's heads and concrete shoes have done for the stevedore's.
Stephen Jones
Thursday, January 1, 2004
"Software product development is an almost insignificant piece of the entire IT scene. The vast majority of IT revolves around custom business applications and supporting users."
Repeat this nonsense all you want, it doesn't make it true.
The computer games industry ALONE makes as much money as all of hollywood combined.
Dennis Atkins
Thursday, January 1, 2004
"The computer games industry ALONE makes as much money as all of hollywood combined."
---------------------------------------------
Pardon my heading off onto a tangent, but I don't think that's the correct statistic. I believe the correct statistic is that the gross profit from video game sales recently surpassed the gross domestic box office take at movie theaters.
The domestic box office figures are only one facet of Hollywood's money-making... don't forget the billions from home VHS/DVD sales, pay-per-view, foreign box-office receipts, licensed products, etc....
John Rose
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Original poster: I don't think you have anything against open source. Your problem is: all was good and sunny, until one day those overtanned oriental types started 'undermining' the American programmer.
What you really mean is: let's deprive everyone else of education, so we Americans can be the only programmers on the planet. Let's not give them access to books, universities, and computers so they can stick to picking sugar beet, and we can live in our safe haven earning good money.
And you picked a very wrong scapegoat for your problem, open source. The thing is, a good programmer is a good programmer, whether he fishes source listings from the trash or not. Good education, lots of reading, and lots of hacking are available anywhere on earth.
There is very little 'advanced know-how' buried in source code, open source or not. All the know-how is in the books -- let's ban them?
The thing is, the world is coming together -- blame the Internet and the ubiquity of English. There is an equalization process going on, and some Americans will naturally bitch about it. You can't expect good programmers to stick to $200 a month when better pay is now within reach. They're not 'undermining' the American programmer, they want to live well -- don't you?
But a Microsoft compiler costs $300, that should keep them, you say? No, it's $2 in Bucharest or Moscow or Peking. It's just as expensive to get a Linux CD as it is to get an Windows CD - the cost of the media. So if you want to bitch about Russians becoming competitive, bitch about copyright enforcement.
(Just to sum up, I'm offended by your belief that only Americans should be entitled to being good programmers and making good money. I am too, you know.)
Alex.ro
Thursday, January 1, 2004
>"The computer games industry ALONE makes as much money as all of hollywood combined."
The Federal government plus Fortune 500 companies spend more on custom IT solutions than what all of hollywood makes.
NoName
Thursday, January 1, 2004
A few questions and comments:
"An army of millions of dirt poor 3rd world kids become competitive programmers, taking jobs from American tech workers" (Melvin)
- Why are American workers entitled to have good jobs developing software for the rest of the planet?
- The political system in China, Russia or India has little to do with the thread. This is about software development, not about us agreeing with whatever goes on over there.
"I don't want those countries to be just like the United States simply because our planet cannot sustain such a world." (One Programmer's Opinion)
- That is nice, you have achieved the highest degree of consumption in the whole planet and have the chutzpah to determine, by decree, that others are not entitled to have the same benefits. I think this would be more credible if you say "we are giving up our SUVs, DVD players and comfortable houses so we all live with the same lower standards". Realistic?
- Many programmers make a living working commercially with open source software. I use Python and other OSS all the time (while, on the other hand, also use commercial software like VB.net ).
- Is OSS the encarnation of communism? Of course not, as volunteering for your favourite charity is not communism either, although you are reducing the job market for potential charity workers.
Workers in other countries have the same right to make a living than workers in the USA.
uncronopio
Thursday, January 1, 2004
"The political system in China, Russia or India has little to do with the thread."
That's precisely the attitude that enabled Hitler to rise to power. Just ignore him and mind your own business. Nothing to do with us.
Godwin
Thursday, January 1, 2004
We are talking about software development. In most cases the USA pretty much ignores the political system of trade partners. How many dictatorships have maintained normal trade with the USA? Many. But that is not the issue here, but the ability of cheaper countries to compete with the USA, almost independently of their political system.
uncronopio
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Melvin,
Ahm ... sorry, you must be new to this, but the first wave of indian competition I remeber was sybase and power- builder, definately not open source.
Also india russia china don't really have the bandwidth to download this stuff,
what they do is buy it on cd a local markets (kinda like wall mart has those 6 dollar cds), and believe me any software (open source or not) is quite easy to get, and cheap (3-4 bucks) too
the artist formerly known as prince
Thursday, January 1, 2004
Just wondering; should the Ruso-Sino-Indian triad of commie-dirt-poor-inhuman-dogs-of-the-world stop undertaking any work from the US of A in any field for any remuneration whatsoever, would all this hoopla about "Out-Sourcing" come to an end?
I ask 'cause, if we really are that bad (by your technically prsitine standards) and that anti-good (if I say 'evil', I'm gonna have tomahawks rip through my coconut groves) , perhaps it would be prudent for us to stop dealing with you once and for all in all walks of life CHHWoN.
Or may be I too am over-reacting.
Regards
KayJay
Indian Developer in India
Thursday, January 1, 2004
For the record, I said nothing about India. The entire reason India developed nukes was because China has been hinting they are thinking of moving in and indian nukes stopped the insane madness of tyrannical Chinese aggression.
If only Tibet had nukes the world would be a safer place. I would really like to see Taiwas get some nukes of tehir own so they don't have to keep relying on the US to send B52s to China with nukes ever 30 years, which is utter madness. Also, Taiwanese nukes would temper the North Korean madness a bit. I'd just a s soon the US not have to get involved in any of this stuff, but if we don't respond to requests for help from this part of the world, the communists just go in and take over, kill the intelluctuals and starve the workers.
Nukes save lives.
And btw, I support communism as a philosophy but it is totally contrary to human nature and utterly unworkable in reality. What China has is not communism but totalitarianism. But as long as they and north korea want to call it communism, I'll call it communism.
Dennis Atkins
Friday, January 2, 2004
Stephen, companies using Apache is not the important issue for software developers; it's the expectation that more valuable software will also be delivered as source code. I personally could care less whether they use Apache or ISS. I don't think anyone does.
Your reference to Stevedores is cute, but I had in mind groups like lawyers, teachers, journalists, doctors.
me
Friday, January 2, 2004
Yummy, the free market has decided. It's not really interested.
doobius, why is Microsoft the only supplier not allowed to charge for its service and products? Also, as I pointed out above, companies that save money by renting cheap offices don't go and pay more to their staff. Why would software be any different?
Alex, universities and books do not come into it at all. Source code represents work to develop a product. Anyone who is good is capable of learning and doing that. Opponents of open source are simply condemning the idea that slackers should come along and profit from other peoples' work. If you're a good developer, then we would like you to be able to benefit from your work too.
me
Friday, January 2, 2004
Dennis Atkins Dude:
(First, Please don't waste your time to reply this post. Because after moderator back from holiday, It will be deleted)
=============================
Obviously, I can tell You are a good/nice man in the real world becasue I believe "bark-dog won't bite."
and since you are a nice man, I recommend oriental Yoga/Taichi to you. Those stuff really help the relief of nervosity and fear.
See ya around. Happy new year.
A chinese programmer
Friday, January 2, 2004
American Video Games companies grossed more than Hollywood Studios in 2001, if I recall correctly - 13B$ to 12B$. The American IT industry grossed 600B$ in the same year. The article I got these details from at the time didn't have any more details, but I'd be extremely surprised if shrink wrapped software was responsible for more than $100B (my guess would be around $80GB or so).
Most of the IT business is _not_ about closed source, shrink wrapped software - it's about custom solutions.
Ori Berger
Friday, January 2, 2004
----"Stephen, companies using Apache is not the important issue for software developers; it's the expectation that more valuable software will also be delivered as source code. I personally could care less whether they use Apache or ISS. I don't think anyone does."------
I'm not too sure what you are referring to here? If you mean tha companies now expect the source code to the applications you develop for them so you can no longer recycle some program you've alreddy charged full whack for, to another client at the same price, then I'm all in favour of it.
Or is it the idiotic point raised in another thread that because they get Apache and MySql for free they expect you to do their development for free. Look dude, just tell them they get the roads for free, but nobody gives them a free car or puts gasoline in for free.
What causes unemployment among programmers are prepackaged programs. It really doesn't matter whether they are paid for or free (think roads - do you see car manufacturers demanding all roads should be toll roads). And it is your job as a programmer to make yourself redundant. Now every company has its own quirks and if pre-packaged solutions, open source or commercial, can save them enough money, then they will be thinking of saving even more money by customizations, so possibly your job is a little more like that of a jack-of-all trades builder; when you've done the foundation you go on to do the walls, and then the roof, and then the plastering and so on.
----"but I had in mind groups like lawyers, teachers, journalists, doctors. "----
In terms of protecting their interests four completely disparate groups.
Doctors in many places do so by artificially restricting entrance to their professsion and have the great advantage that a small amount of work by them has a disproportionate effect on you. Add all the kickbacks they get from the pharmaceutical industry by prescribing unnecessarily expensive drugs and you more or less have it (I suppose that last idea could be taken up by programmers - start by phoning your IBM, Oracle and MS rep and saying you have a project for a client and are thinking of going Open Source; then, while they're queuing in the snow outside your door, fill your desk with photos of resorts in tropical islands and your bank code for incoming payments. When they come say how you're thinking of them, but you really would need further training and how life is so busy now you only get time to study in your holidays).
Teachers do so by traditional workforce unionization, and in most countries have suffered with the wholesale attack on unions started by Thatcher and Reagan. Anyway, the only time programmers think of becoming teachers is when they get the pink slips and there isn't a local WalMart near.
Journalists don't protect their own interests at all, and are one of the most exploited groups in the world after actors.
Lawyers are also a bad example. Firstly the law is Open Source (cynics would say that the metaphor applies to judges and juries being free to rewrite it at will) and secondly there is a vast oversupply of lawyers and disparity in salaries. Basically to understand how they protect their interests and find work you have to imagine that the work of a programmer is to be hired by a rival company and do its best to put bugs in perfect working code so the other company has to hire even more programmers to get rid of them (and thiinking of it, perhaps it's not a coincidence that most of the really big IT consultants are run by lawyers)>
Stephen Jones
Friday, January 2, 2004
Oh, and one last thing. Lawyers have the advantage that not all their work can be outsourced, but a lot of the bread and butter stuff like conveyancing can now be done over the internet or from India; this applies even more to accounting.
Stephen Jones
Friday, January 2, 2004
-----" No, it's $2 in Bucharest or Moscow or Peking. It's just as expensive to get a Linux CD as it is to get an Windows CD "-----
Actually no! In Saudi and the Indian sub-continent you can easily get anything pirated except Linux. You often find that the only software you need to pay for is a Linux distro!
Incidentally the price in Sri Lanka is $2 a CD; in Saudi it's $3 and they'll deliver to your door if you buy in bulk, and there is a no questions asked money back guarantee. Compare that to the service I get for legit software where my request for the head office to email me about availibility of Norton Ghost still hasn't been answered eighteen months later.
Stephen Jones
Friday, January 2, 2004
>Actually no! In Saudi and the Indian sub-continent you can easily get anything pirated except Linux. You often find that the only software you need to pay for is a Linux distro!
Very, very true. Its frightening to deal with people who think that RHL *is* Linux. People tak abt upgrading Linux Ver7.0 to Linux Ver 9.0!
Indian Developer in India
Friday, January 2, 2004
Indeed that is the ironic thing about lawyers. The more of them that are around, is the more the demand for them increases. 90% of the time the only reason you need a lawyer is to protect yourself from another lawyer.
NoName
Friday, January 2, 2004
"Also, as I pointed out above, companies that save money by renting cheap offices don't go and pay more to their staff."
They don't pay more to individual workers; they hire more staff. Cheap office space means they can rent more space and become more willing to hire additional staff, or at least give more space per person. If the rent is very expensive, they rent less space, and are inclined to hire less staff.
NoName
Friday, January 2, 2004
<quote author=NoName>
Indeed that is the ironic thing about lawyers. The more of them that are around, is the more the demand for them increases. 90% of the time the only reason you need a lawyer is to protect yourself from another lawyer.
</quote>
Any different in the field of Software Development. Think Network Security, AntiVirus, Testers, Debugging.....
Indian Developer in India
Friday, January 2, 2004
"Any different in the field of Software Development. Think Network Security, AntiVirus, Testers, Debugging....."
I'd say very different. I can't legally go after my competition by hiring the specialized services of crackers, network intruders or virus writers.
Maybe I am just too naive. Are you implying e.g. Sun finances some " Security research" outfits to go after flaws in MS code and do "full disclosure"?
Tell us more, please.
Just me (Sir to you)
Friday, January 2, 2004
<quote author=Just me (Sir to you)>
I'd say very different. I can't legally go after my competition by hiring the specialized services of crackers, network intruders or virus writers.
</quote>
Is not that what "White Hats" all about, except instead of the competition, it's your own co.? The fact that *you* hire *me* to check *your* systems, does not mean you do *not* have to *him* to fortify the systems.
<quote author=Just me (Sir to you)>
Maybe I am just too naive. Are you implying e.g. Sun finances some " Security research" outfits to go after flaws in MS code and do "full disclosure"?
Tell us more, please.
</quote>
-as above-
Though, I would not be surprised if monetary ("legal", as in Salary and/or R&D costs) incentives are given to "work" on competitor software. Any employee of Sun is eligible for a salary plus a chance to explore the capabilities and vulnerabilities of the Microsoft Windows Operating System. I do not know if they do it or not. But I'm pretty sure they *can*.
Indian Developer in India
Friday, January 2, 2004
The difference is that lawyers are hired by the competition to make problems for you, whereas you are paying software developers to "extend" things that worked perfectly until they got their hands on them!
Stephen Jones
Friday, January 2, 2004
Simply put, "too many cooks spoil the broth" Full Stop
You need a new bunch of cooks to make some fresh broth, apart from some more people as dishwashers to clean up after the first attempt, and hope that there are not too many this time.
Indian Developer in India
Friday, January 2, 2004
Stephen,
Great stuff on lawyers there. I just got shafted by one last month and so I am ready to pass a law mandating that all lawyers be set on fire!
With the doctors, the small practitioners don't take cash kickbacks, but they do accept gifts. They passed a law recently though prohibiting them from accepting vacations to islands for so-called 'drug education conferences' and other big ticket items. The real corruption is not at the practitioner level but at the university research level where academics put their names on papers they did not even write that have been prepared for them by the drug companies. Also, the guys writing papers favoring a drug often have huge ownership of stock in the companies they are promoting, facts that are not disclosed and that are often well-snhsrouded through offshore partnerships and the like that are nearly untraceable.
Dennis Atkins
Friday, January 2, 2004
So yes you can trust a medical researcher as much as you can trust a foaming rat!
Dennis Atkins
Friday, January 2, 2004
everyone should be assigned a lawyer at birth and an automated system should just start filing lawsuits against everyone remotely associated with the childs birth and life. Each child shall be incorporated upon conception thereby affording some legal protection and an entity for all asset ownership. Every financial transaction will be corp to corp (yes,even buying a big mac) and will be executed by signature agreeing to the contractual terms. McDonalds will invoice you.inc. Your accountant will pay per the specified terms.
Everything bad that happens to anyone is someone elses.inc fault.
Linus Inc. will be liable to everyone for opportunity lost to offshoring.
And MS, who will hire JDs at 10x the rate they hire PHDs, will be retroactively liable for everything that anyone can dream up.
Everybody happy.
fool for python
Friday, January 2, 2004
fool for python, corporatisation relies on most of the population not being corporatised, so they can be exploited.
jake
Friday, January 2, 2004
Stephen
> If you mean that companies now expect the source code to the applications you develop for them so you can no longer recycle some program you've already charged full whack for, to another client at the same price, then I'm all in favour of it.
Most programs cost a lot more than $300, or even $10,000, to develop. Most programs are priced at a small fraction of their development cost, and this is made possible by the commercial software model.
Second, the law is not really open source in the sense we're talking about. The law is a social agreement by the community and thus by definition is public. Software, on the other hand, is a tool that businesses and people pay for.
The source code results from the process of creating that software, but is not a necessary part of the use of the tool. The source code is thus better viewed like other trade secrets that businesses have, such as customer lists and so on.
> Journalists don't protect their own interests at all ...
I don't think that's correct. In most countries, there are strong journalism unions. If a large media proprietor even considered reducing the pay for staff journalists, there would be strikes. If media proprietors try centralising news coverage or similar, they must first negotiate reasonable arrangements with the union so that staff are protected. Journalists get a range of automatic entitlements like meal allowances if they work after 6 pm, and so on.
tree
Friday, January 2, 2004
don't know what country you're living in tree but however much power the NUJ has in the UK doesn't alter the fact that pay for most journalisits is abysmally low (though you could argue they deserve it).
If you write a piece of custom software for a company you are billing that company for all work done. They've a perfectly good right to ask for the source code, and for distrbution rights to it. If you want to reuse it, then you can negotiate a lower billing rate to take your reuse into account.
If the company expects a piece of shrink wrapped software you sell them to be open source you say no.
Stephen Jones
Saturday, January 3, 2004
AnonTeaInChina: sarcasm, while fun, does not an argument make. Your post offers nothing here, but to make you seem uneducated. Good thing for the anonymity, huh? Try thinking of a reasoned argument against the original post. Google "reasoned discourse" if you don't know how. Then you can mix the sarcasm with an *argument* and we'll all have fun with you.
Not sure where Stephen Jones was going, but his first post doesn't make any contribution either, beyond his partly true implication that Americans like to blame others for their woes. That's a behavior pattern especially prevalent among the weak-minded and ignorant, regardless of nationality. Americans have no special claim to that defect, although our politicians from all parties sure like to exploit it. So did Hitler. But that tendency is not enough to dismiss the original post, nor is a lame cry of Conspiracy Theory, the new last refuge of scoundrels in politics.
Dennis Forbes, of all the outsource projects I've heard about, every single one was a Java project. Your MS claim seems baseless to me. Any references to back it up?
OK Dennis Atkins, you can wipe the spittle from your chin now and return to listening to the rightwing radio. Rural children in China will give up their hope for your pathos. Learn to differentiate the commoners of a country from those in power. I hope people in other countries don't blame all Americans for the acts of Bush.
Clay, you might be thriving in a world with open source, but the correlation does not imply that you thrive *because* of open source, even if you happen to be using the technologies. For instance, when you look for jobs, you're still competing with people who were displaced because (for example) somebody else took pity on poor corporations to gift them an open source application server replacement for the product that once feed those displaced programmers. You might actually have been doing better without open source. You need to draw more precise relationships before cheering it.
Philo, I don't care to leverage outsourcing. I want to slow it. I also hope to crush managers and companies that use it. People, if your company outsources something, leave them in a lurch as soon as you're able. They don't deserve your help. That said, outsourcing will happen regardless, until the outsourcer cost reaches an equilibrium with domestic cost. I like the fact that software work might help raise the standard of living in less developed countries. But I can't sit back and watch the corresponding cost pressures hit programmers harder than is necessary, when other more ridiculous waste remains.
(Many ranches where I've fattened would save far more by dumping irrelevant management layers than if they sacked every single programmer and outsourced. Many of these overhead folks save their own asses by cutting the direct cost of programmers, as they "manage" the outsourced effort.)
Bored makes some sensible points here, but his marginalization of product development I think grossly overstates the situation. Also, conceding the product space to open source misses one important issue: IT shop work tends to be really fucking boring by comparison, and the IT shops are deeply overrun with Waterfall/ISO/CMM nincompoops who, as Me might have been reaching for, don't know jack about writing software effectively. Work on a product at a company run by people who understand software, or work in a cube farm? I know my choice when I have one. (By the way, I like where Me was going, and wish this page wasn't already too crowded to encourage him to continue.)
(A digression: I've heard Ken Schwaber say something along the lines that what he's been trying to do with Scrum is help programmers be more productive. If he can cut out the wasted energy, American programming teams become cost effective again.)
Melvin, there's nothing wrong with the cooperation ideals of communism. There are serious practical problems with communism as a complete system. (And don't make the middle-mind mistake of thinking the Soviet/Beijing state dictatorship was/is communism. But that's not to say that Marx's exact vision would work either.) Capitalism has just as many practical problems too, and will eventually run out of steam once it's accomplished the only thing it's good at, which is replacing high cost things (you) with lower cost alternatives (not you). There's great irony that your original post is a rant for fighting the purpose of capitalism by targeting what you characterize as communism. Also, when you think of the good life in America, don't confuse capitalism with democracy, as you seem to do by baying at communism.
Uncropio makes really good points here, but in all, Alex.ro deserved the last word. I think his post said all that need be said in response to the original post.
veal
Saturday, January 3, 2004
"Learn to differentiate the commoners of a country from those in power."
Did you even read my posts? My entire point on China has been that it is the Party that oppresses the workers.
Dennis Atkins
Saturday, January 3, 2004
If one day, the working class (users) killed and locked up all the intellectuals (the programmers) and distribute the jobs to the hungry artists who are willing to play along (the english major who read Teach Yourself C++ in 21 days), what would happen to programming? What if this is already happening? How would you fight back? Well I think that of all the people who've done NOTHING, the OSS people (among many other types of programmers in the world) has in a way decided to regroup and rethink what exactly they are doing and what they really want to do:
* They realize that the expression known as programming is in a way a very simple freedom: perhaps one that can be trampled and oppressed by number of different causes.
* Without certain freedoms associated with programming, they will be robbed of the security of having a home, or feeding a family, and pursuing basic pleasures.
* They gang up together to 1) code as a group; 2) share all work, under the rules that freedoms are preserved by all participating parties; 3) allow opposing forces to feast on the gifts of this code, but not truely benefit unless they give back as well.
Supposely the argument of this thread starter (Melvin) is that the uneducated programmers from abroad is going to rob Americans of perfectly good honest jobs with the help of open source software. But don't you guys think that for any given software, Americans have just as much right to utilize open source in the right way that will show american products to be superior as does say the Chinese or the Russians or the Japanese?
I think the protection is already in place, the ball is in everyone's court to prove the other opposing wrong. By using OSS, we'll soon be using software written by those who writes the best, not whether it has an US domain name associated with it.
Li-fan Chen
Monday, January 5, 2004
Li-fan Chen, open source software means the English major doesn't even have to read the 21 days book to be able to steal your business away from you.
You create the application; he gets the business because he's more fun to be with and better at selling.
Monday, January 5, 2004
I have heard this garbage for months. First of all as a citizen of the United States I am "entitled" to the better paying jobs created by business headquartered and started here. It was tax subsidies from my paycheck and others like myself who payed for those interest free loans, and other forms of tax breaks used by these companie's to grow the way they have. The corperations that are doing the outsourcing were built on the back of Americans, regardless of race. They are using money that I earned (which directly represents my hard work)and was given to them as an investment to create more jobs (for United States Citizens like myself). You cannot have my money. You can also bet that this fall that myself and other "VOTERS" in America who have a say in our country are going to vote for the guy who will make sure that our tax investment in these companies is protected.
Non US citizens do not have the same right to a job with a U.S. based company as a person from the US. They have not participated in the tax system here, therefore it must be expected these special subsidies and tax breaks will be eliminated by the people who are paying them.
Clif
Wednesday, March 10, 2004
If open source enabled a third world person to get a job at the expense of a first world one then I am all for it. I think it is high time that the whole world, and not just us super-rich Americans, got a chance at having a better quality of life. I support human rights, I support open source.
Roger Daltee
Friday, April 9, 2004
Outsourcing creates a free space for programmers to become entrepreneurs by using the resources at their disposal in India/Russia/Chiina and multiply their personal productivity by many times. Such organized programming groups with partners all over the world can create a round the clock development resource to get all the jobs at commanding price and utilize the differential standrads of living and the pressence of markets for mutual advantage. The software markets in these countries is waiting for programmers / systems / solutions because most of the resources are being deployed for developing systems for USA market . These countries import lot of software and pay back lot of the money to MS and even to RedHat ! SO programmers afraind of loosing the jobs, quit your jobs and start your shop by partnering with persons from these countires instead of treating them as threat.
S.Ashok
Friday, April 16, 2004
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