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Decentralization
jamesgregory writes "'Geeks make new stuff primarily because it's fun, because it's useful, and because they can. Suits make new stuff primarily because they hope to earn a profit. Yes, that is an oversimplification, and there's overlap between the two types -- there are plenty of profit-seeking geeks and geeky business folks. Still, the distinction is real.'"
Remember, this is Slashdot. It's not the editors' jobs to make sure that the story summaries actually summarize the story. Really, why should we know what the story is about, when we could click on the link to find out and generate revenue for the target site (assuming that site hasn't already been slashdotted, in which case it's impossible to have any idea what the story is about)? Really, come on! Editors doing editorial duties? What are you going ask for next, that they use a spell checker? Or that they actually read their own site to make sure they don't duplicate stories?
Remember, Slashdot is just Rob's personal site that happens to enjoy a large audience. Or so the line goes when someone has a gripe with the way it's run. To parrot the trolls, if you don't like it, leave. (I don't subscribe to that view, as it's a downward spiral leaving slashdot with nothing but first posters and trolls, but hey, if that's what they want ...)
And now for the karma whoring -- That wooshing noise is the sound of a thousand moderators clicking "troll" and/or "flamebait" (guaranteed to get me modded up to at least +4).
I think for things like software and web servers, profit will be secondary. Yes, I've witnessed the .com crash, but here me out:
Free software applications have to replace all common off the shelf softwate (except for stuff like games, which is more "content" than application). Simply put, time is on free software's side. Maybe not now, maybe not soon, but eventually, someone will have written a free replacement for every commercial off-the-shelf application.
Similarly, many web sites and web services seem to be too simple (from an application complexity point of view) to demand any kind of real subscription fees to users. People won't pay them, for the most part, so sites have to slim down and make due with ad revenues.
(shameless plug, check out the site on my sig for an example of such a web service)
A geek writes some software/builds some hardware that takes off, and starts to become recognised as good/cool via word-of-mouth. Geeks everywhere start to chip in and help him, because that's by nature what geeks do. A bussinessman sees an oppourtunity to provide a service of some sort that will enhance the geeks' new toy. The bussinessman makes money, the geek gets recognition (and job offers), the consumers/users win.
While this is very simplistic, I can't see why this process can't be applied to most good, cool, or useful things. No matter what anyone says, if something is useful or entertaining, it is profitable, directly or otherwise.
So all technologists with or without dayjobs, make time to help/start geek projects. After all if you're a real geek, this sort of work doubles as play.
What makes a man want to be a mouse? (Python's Flying Circus)
I haven't worked in many companies (I'm only 23), but, there is an example here that I can draw from my tiny experience: web related technologies and their associated databases, and how that relates to Linux and open source.
In a large company like mine, database clients, the OSs to run them, and the databases that they serve are, together, big business indeed. To serve about 700 people of all manner of trade using one unified client system is tough. You have people that need to make hundreds of transactions a day, and people that need to use this data to connect to yet other clients to arrange services from yet other clients. You need increased IT staff that must manage it and use it themselves, and automation people that must keep it running and add needed and unforseen features. For such a solution, both my previous company and the one I work for now chooses PeopleSoft.
Companies like PeopleSoft and their associated vendors love Microsoft and other proprietary vendors. They push Win2k for the desktops, .NET for the developers, and SQL for the database. This is because with this combination, they can force you into a static model (predictable and simple for them) that is easy for them to control. The assured future upgrades of more Microsoft technologies will keep them involved, because their solution only works with it, and will "evolve" with it (I.E. they make their new products more efficient with future Microsoft technologies). They can also sell you these MS products and the consultation needed to implement them because they are vendors of them themselves. No need to go to the Microsoft salesman for "the latest and greatest" when PeopleSoft can just "throw it all in together".
My previous company was ready to spend 1.5 million on PeopleSoft, 500k for Microsoft technologies needed to run it, and hire three programmers and admins to keep it all going for the next 3 years. I saved them about 500k by showing them how I could replace the PeopleSoft "solutions" to run on Linux terminals and simple PHP/mySQL clients that could be used from a web browser. Many Win2k licenses were avoided, many PeopleSoft licenses were avoided, many SQL licenses were avoided, and any 1rst year CS student could tailor my code in the future (I.E. out source a programmer for a week at a time).
The reason why I only saved them 500k and not the full 2 million (plus new staff)? Because the PeopleSoft salespeople have very slippery tongues, and talked the suits into using it at about a 60-65% distribution model (compared to the old 100% model). The local PeopleSoft guy still hates me for showing my old bosses that, with just a little know how and open source, you could replace their crap with highly efficient and simple tools at a fraction of the cost. In this case, nothing, since I didn't recieve any extra money for my time - only my usual salary.
Such is life.
I keep reading all these articles on the job market and the direction some businesses are going. Where do they leave me? Clueless. As I get ready to graduate PSU next summer, I leave with one question... wtf am I ever going to do for a job? Decentralization. Great, so does that mean I should try to start some business away from a business? Or is it that when I get into a business, I won't have 50 bosses? Does anyone have a plain english definition?
When I think centralized companies, I think back to my Managing Quality prof from this semester saying how a lot of companies are flattening out their structures from having tall hierarchies to wide bases with a few upper people. Meaning, less people telling you what to do, but more people around you trying to work with you on everything...
Are the two totally related? Probably not. But when you're soon to be entering the job market, its food for thought, and leaves me more confused than ever... What do I want to do, and who do I want to do it for?
Many people these days tend to forget that Gates IS also a geek. Whether you want to admit it or not he was hacking some pretty good assembler code back when a large portion of the Slashdot readship was still wearing diapers.
It is probably a mistake to try to relate this "balance" to the future of Silicon Valley or our economy for the following reason: There must be tangible financial benefits for there "home-brewed" or "geek-driven" applications to really be exploited and capitalized on.
That was the case for the internet's early days (before the web) and still is the case for P2P; it isn't the first person who manages to come up with something new that benefits from it, it is the first person who figures out how to make a profit from it... and has incentive to market, etc...
In the first half of the 20th century, when mass production really got going, this was a clear distinction. Understand, throughout all of history up to then, making stuff took a lot of work on each item. Even simple items were expensive. Suddenly, in one lifetime, that all changed. Machines were developed for stamping, moulding, glassblowing, punching, rolling, and the other operations of manufacturing. Those machines got faster and more powerful. For the first time ever, the world was awash in manufactured goods.
The relationship between manufacturers, who put the machines and plants together to make stuff, and the financiers, who put deals together, was much like the "geek" and "suit" distinction today.
Add to your list, companies like Redhat, Yahoo, AOL, MSN, oh yeah and Slashdot too.
For Software, the model of giving something away to make a profit is the halmark of the 90's and early 00's. The reason is thoretically when support is factored in software can have an infinate cost to the company that produces it. For most propietary software, where the software support cost is bundled with the cost of purchasing the product, the actual support cost is unknown. For some products after the second or third call, the income from the sale of the software has already been eaten up. Many companies have moved to giving the software away for free and selling the content, the service, support or all three.
A good example is Redhat. They give away, their brand of linux every day. Thousands of people download their product off their website for free. Yes free. What they sell is service and support subscriptions. Also beyond the scope of actual products, Redhat gives away a lot of code and integration time, back to the community. Things like gcc development, kernel code etc.
Yahoo, AOL and MSN all give a way product every day. Yahoo has tons of games, content, free e-mail, all for the minimal price of looking at some advertising. They also have a number of upsells to improve the quality of the free product, but the key is they give it away first. AOL and MSN do simmilar things.
Slashdot, while albiet questionable, provides content that get thousands of comments a day. All for the price of watching the pretty banner add at the top of the screen.
Shameless self promotion : The Misadvetures of the in
This is just another manifestation of the fact that the domains of art and practicality lie, at times, seperate from each other. Yes, there are those out there who are mainly interested in creating things in order to increase sales. Yes, there are those out there who are only interested in creating things that enact change or communicate with others. Or perhaps things that just amuse themselves.
The truth is, both types are firmly entrenched in our humanity. Half a century of various failed or struggling communist social models bear out that there will always be those motivated by greed. Half the art hanging in MOMA bears out that there will always be those who couldn't care less about the vote of the common Joe's greenback.
Most of us have a little "suit" in us, even if we pretend not to. Developing GPL software, for example, is often just a form of apprenticeship, or self-teaching. Most people who develop GPL software would not be satisfied with working the stamp at a steel factory forever to support their hobby. Those who would are rare (but, notably, valuable to the world; while artists often only end up living a hard, poverty stricken life, they populate the cutting edge of human thought.) On a similar vein, one likely would do the world much more good by devoting their life to a project such as world hunger, as opposed to taking classes in electronic engineering and wiring up the l33test battle bot this side of TNN. Only with world hunger, you get to meet mankind, not Mankind.
The base problem here (if you call it that) is human greed and self-interest. Remove that and the ocasional division between art and usefullness is no longer relavent. Unfortunately, remove that and most of humanity dies of starvation and dolphins take over the world. Which is mostly like it is now, except with more dolphins.
Gate's bought DOS...he didn't write it. That makes him a suit in my book....not a geek.
If he was as good (a geek) as you claim, he wouldn't have gone to all the trouble to buy it.
> Sure, suits don't care about the elegance of YOUR crap--but you don't care about [theirs].
Characterizing it like that is a blatant attempt to make the suit-geek dichotomy go away, and its not working. For one thing, everyone understands money, geeks included. When a suit is concerned with the bottom-line, we can at least understand where he's coming from. The converse is (often) not even remotely true. In the extreme, suits understand money, and money alone. Geeks, on the other hand, hold the position that while money is important, in some circumstances, elegance trumps money. So while geeks understand both the ephemeral "elegance" AND the more obvious bottom line, suits usually only understand money.
Therein lies the problem. If anything, the Geek is more dedicated to the bottom line than the Suit, because a more elegant solution is a part of or even the foundation of a sound business model, especially in the long run. However, a Suit who typically has little or no understanding of the domain, or the humility to take the advice of those who do often cuts technological corners (like hiring MSCEs) with deleterious effects on the bottom line. A geek suggesting the use of free open-source software will get modded down in the board room because "Everyone uses Microsoft." The reason for the stereotype of the Pointy Haired Boss is because it is unfortunately common. Not the pointy hair part, the inept technological aptitude part.
"It's Dot Com!"
The article is a report from the "Supernova conference" on decentralization - a currently perceived shift in the nature of the Net, back from few publishers and many readers, to something more end-to-end.
The two-page Salon report wonders what the business models for e2e are, and what the consequences of greater commercial interest in e2e technologies might be. The quoted introduction (and high-rated comments) are not very representative of the story. It doesn't say anything very surprising, but there's more there than the dubious geek/suit dichotomy.
--Anthony.
Unless you can farm, fabricate and generate electricity, you're not going to lead a very fufilling life without doing something for money.
Humans existed for 15? thousand years without doing anything for money...so it is possible.
What we need to do is invest heavily in technology so that food and energy become basically free to produce. Then we can each pursue our happiness without having to do something to make a living.