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Gates: Open Source Kills Jobs
theodp writes "On the Malaysian leg of a whirlwind Asian tour, Microsoft chairman Bill Gates voiced his concerns over the growing goodwill towards open source, especially in Asia, emphasizing how damaging open source software can be. 'If you don't want to create jobs or intellectual property, then there is a tendency to develop open source. It is not something you do as a day job. If you want to give it away, you work on it at night,' he said. Gates, who apparently has never contended with the horrors of a VB upgrade, when on to say that '[Open source] doesn't guarantee upward compatibility.'"
I read that as Gates kills Jobs (Steve)
This comes up again and again. The basis of it is the idea that if people write their own software then there will be no market for others to sell it to them.
This seems true in general, but there are three important points.
The software industry has to face up to the fact that programming is no longer such a specialist skill. A good parallel to this might be writing. It was once quite mystical to the majority of the population. But I think we can all see that our world has benefited from the skill not remaining the part of a small guild or group.
And yes, I have read the article already (I'm a subscriber). Billy Gates seems to be falling back to his old tactics of targeting schools with US$20 million in cash grants in Asia. Can't see it working myself.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
For a moment there I thought Steve Jobs was killed in some kind of GNU incident!
But default installations of his company's closed-source software kills systems.
Striking fear in the authors of godawful fanfiction, I am here, appearing in darkness, Tuxedo Jack!
Apple to remain unaffected, release 35" computer screen.
Hondas kill Jobs (Ford VP on sales tour). Mkay?
More nonsense from Gates. I doubt anyone's still listening to him at this point (except US Republicans, who only listen to him because he keeps feeding them megabucks in payo... er, brib... er, campaign contributions [yeah, that's it]).
Open source kills Microsoft jobs, maybe. It creates jobs in Malaysia (or any other place where Gates is speaking, unless it's on his own corporate campus). It creates the vibrant, multifaceted, competitive atmosphere that made the computer world such an interesting and innovative place before the Microsoft monoculture took over.
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bill gates would rather us have 'open sores' that 'open source'.
"First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win."
-Gandhi
Visual Basic generates jobs. The kinds where real professionals are called in to fix a big mess.
this is one of the most stupid arguments that gates is saying.
this is like saying "volunteer work is causing unemployment for people who wish to do the same work for pay"
open source doesn't create jobs but the ultimate end result will benefit mankind as a whole. gates either knows nothing about economics or is really trying to push some BS onto us.
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
The writing is on the wall. In 10 years he will be eating out of a dumpster, all because of open-source software.
It's true that while open source is taking off it will have many of the characteristics that Gates is describing, but ultimately all software needs skilled people to install it and maintain it. An entire infrastructure for a business, city, or government is not going to run itself and generate no jobs just because the development of the software itself was done for free.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
If we don't have microsofts closed source solutions, How will I find enough problems with our computers to justify my job??
You open source people of slashdot might not want to hear the truth, but open source software loses more often backwards compatibility than windows is. From libpng to gtk to the kernel, it is just not guaranteed that next month's version will be 100% compatible with the source you wrote 6 months or 3 months ago. For users this is bad, because MOST linux users do use the source to install apps. Windows has a much better track on binary and source compatibility, my company still uses a DOS program of the '80s working under XP. That's a good thing for business.
Regarding jobs getting lost, I also agree. The problem is NOT as big as Gates says atm, but if OSS becomes much more popular in the future, it will be a problem for software engineers. You devalue your own profession.
Even though .NET IS a superior platform, it was freaking hell rewriting all my code.
.NET program with 100% ease?
It became feature creep as I wanted to use more and more "better" functions. Then the last thought, I remember is "Hey, C# looks better!"
A week of coding made me scrap everything and build up my store credit program from scratch. Has ANYONE successfully converted a VB 6 program into a
That's what Bill is really afraid of.
He's just affraid that if we move to open source, it will be harder to out-source (it's it's effectively distributed anyway) and Bill can't make any money off setting up fancy data centers where every user, while making $1/hr still has the latest $500/seat MS Office.
I don't know, but it works for me.
this coming from the same man who if i'm not mistaken monopolized the market, preventing the creation of thousands of jobs. every time your hypocritical jesus kills a kitten.
at Microsoft and what a loss that one will be to the free world. Boo Hoo... Where was Bills concern when he was crushing Nutscrape?
Very damaging ... but only to Micro$oft and others who stand to gain from locking away software and keeping it non-free. Anyone see the downside to this? :)
BTW, I have a handful of gmail invites to give away; reply if you want one out of my own goodwill
Gates has the typical American tendency of not understanding that in other parts of the world people may not think like the Americans.
When other people do not think like you, don't consider them dangerous but try to understand them.
Open Source doens't guarantee upward compatability? Puhlease! Neither does Microsoft with their proprietary office suite. Didn't Office 97 break compatability with older versions forcing companies to upgrade ALL machines in their workplaces at the same time? Talk about a horrible leg to stand on!
Will Stokes Album Shaper http://albumshaper.sf.net
Because your neighbour won't hire someone to do the job (repairing his car, fixing his computer, mowing the grass). I don't think we should conclude that people should stop helping each other.
This is just Yet Another Stupid Argument against Free Software, which should disappear as quickly as the others.
theefer
Objectively speaking for a moment.
Surely he has just said that open source is more efficient.
If fewer people are having to be employed to do something, that must mean that the process of sharing and having standards is working more efficiently. Surely that's more economical for a business, as they're having to fork out less for these things.
What he's advocating is creating a false economy of software and 'technology' by having a hideously ineffective development and business process.
Or is that an oversimplified concept of economics?
Malike Bamiyi wanted my assistance.
It's not like a big corporation (with the jobs we're talking about here) would undertake nearly 10% of the tasks that the open source community perform (small programs for a small crowd and such)
Seems a bit of a stretch given the supposed topic. Microsoft's dumping of backwards compatibility with their crap COM-based architectures of the past and going .Net is the best move they've ever made. If they can get their OS rewritten with all that new .Net coolness, they can actually be proud for once. (And windows 2003 is not half-bad)
I'm not even sure I understand what that means. I understand when something isn't backward compatible -- like when Windows XP can't run software written for Windows 95. But upward compatible? Is he talking about the failure of today's software to run on tomorrow's systems -- like how Windows XP won't run on Intel Nocoma chips?
Breakfast served all day!
The invention of cars killed jobs in the buggy-whip industry.
The invention of email and corporate intranets killed secretarial jobs.
Anti-smoking campaigns are killing jobs in the tobacco industry.
Hybrid cars are killing jobs in the oil industry (or will in the future anyway).
CD Baby threatens to kill jobs in the recording industry.
Should I go on?
Hear recorded Slashdot headlines on your phone! New service beta testing. Just call (248) 434-5508
seriously, Bill's reeeeallly starting to act worried, and this latest absurdity puts him over the top. Maybe it's the recent OSS wins in Paris, Munich, China, Australia, etc. (not to mention the recent CERT & IE publicity).
This transparent attempt to play on offshoring fears is particularly shameful.
I'm surprised that his PR people haven't reeled him in, because this MSFT campaign might be getting the attention and curiosity of demographics who might otherwise have been oblivious.
...that the company I'm working for now, The Ladders (theladders.com) finds great $100k+ jobs (kind of ironic that) and provides a weekly newsletter, and we have used almost exclusively open-source software to grow our business. Yes, I'm dropping a plug, but I want to emphasize that open-source software definitely provides jobs rather than takes them away. This is a fallacy that needs to be corrected and understood by business people--you can build businesses with open-source, and a lot of times, you can't build them without it.
ISS worms killed plenty of web businesses, unlike Apache. Did he count those jobs that remain safe with Apache and go to hell with ISS???
Internet Explorer vulnerabilities make plenty of people hate computers, and stop using the Internet. What do you think having fewer customers mean??? More jobs???
Improving computing and the Internet as a whole CREATES JOBS. Microsoft crap KILLS JOBS.
What he meant: 'If you don't want to create jobs for Microsoft or pays fees to owners of most intellectual property (American companies), then there is a tendency to develop open source."
Open Source Sushi
Is your job on the line?
Maybe you should get your boys to write better (more secure) software.
Derek
My own online store uses osCommerce, a GPL'ed commerce suite, I don't have the knowledge or resources to create my own online store, but here are these wonderful people who dedicate their time and energy to creating something useful that everyone who wants to set up an online store can use.
To me, that's the benefit of open source, people getting together to make tools and software that can help everyone.
Gates doesn't get it, because his software isn't really made to be used, it's made for future obsolecense so that people will buy the next version.
Every time you write 'your' instead of 'you're', a kitten kills a Jesus.
"Gates, who apparently has never contended with the horrors of a VB upgrade, when on to say that '[Open source] doesn't guarantee upward compatibility."
Stating that MS software isn't upward compatible, does nothing to challenge his assertion about problems in upward compatibility in OSS.
Open source helps an economy, especially a developing one. It helps people learn about their computers by giving them the tools to understand how to make them operate. It helps them grow tech skills. What, no paying programming jobs any more for them to take? Well sure there will be jobs. There are plenty of businesses that need in-house custom software (often built in conjunction with open source tools or foundations). Those programming skills learned will come in handy. Or perhaps they will join a growing software services company, where knowing how software works will prove most useful.
The Microsoft model is to create an economy where people have to shovel money to them, and individuals don't get to see how their software really works. Yeah, they can get jobs programming yet another VB (sorry, C#...sorry, .NET) report for management. But it's not the only way to go. The open source way leads to an increasingly tech literate population, and creates its own jobs. And oh yes, in this model not all the money gets shoveled back to Redmond. That's why Microsoft is squawking, but that's only natural. Doesn't mean anyone has to listen to Bill, though. After almost three decades of his self-serving words, we know better.
(except US Republicans, who only listen to him because he keeps feeding them megabucks in payo... er, brib... er, campaign contributions [yeah, that's it])
? ID=D00 0000115&Name=Microsoft+Corp
Really? Your source?
I have one which states 58/42 in favor of Dems
http://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/summary.asp
(there's a space after ID=D00 which you need to remove)
Gates: "Open Source kills MY job."
Treehugger? Treehugger... Treehugger!
Something that would be interesting to study is how many jobs open source creates -- it may just be a reshuffling of jobs around though. If companies have more money to spend on IT development instead of buying software it may create jobs. Also if a company can pay a developer to alter some OSS projects and still save money then it is still creating jobs. With the trend of companies to outsource, it just means that the people that developers need to adapt offer specialties in areas of OSS.
The views expressed are mine own and do not express the views of my employer.
He really wanted to say, that he hoped Open Source would kill Steve Jobs...
Tibbon
tibbon.com
I find it amusing that there is a lot of support for OSS here, and then people bitch about not being able to get programming jobs. You're devaluing your labor by giving it away.
I have started an open source CRM company with my two partners. http://www.sugarcrm.com We have shipped our 1.0 product. Demo at: http://www.sugarcrm.com/sugarcrm We are now starting to hire people. This is our day job, and we are creating jobs for others. It has been 3 months since we started development and we are currently the number 9 ranked project on SourceForge.net. http://www.sourceforge.net/projects/sugarcrm Proof that it can be done.
The IT jobs in America that we read about being lost are lost due to companies like MS and IBM outsourcing their IT positions to India. However, Free(dom)/Open Source Software may truly be interfering with these companies by taking away market share in these developing countries. In short, some obscenely rich CEOs/Corporate Types/Investors who put put 100's/1000's of American famlies out of work may make a few less shekels in their moutains of profits. Cry me a river....... Steve
So hang on giving something away is wrong because good will donations of time and effort stop paid work from happening?
Bill Gates and Microsoft are involved with a lot of charities. Should they stop contributing to them because the good will prevents people from going out and earning the money for themselves? By Bill's argument, Microsoft should never give away an educational copy of Windows or Office to a school or university - after all that's a copy of software a competitor could sell to that institution.
But wait it must be okay, because they can write off their contributions for tax breaks. That's good for the economy.
As far as I'm concerned, if someone wants to give away their time and effort they can do so and you just have to deal with it. You can't have it both ways.
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
I don't know what Mr. Gates is trying to prove here, other than to point out the fact that he's out of touch with revenue generation. Microsoft has historically been a software company relying on resellers or direct point of sale operations for to push its products. However, for most organizations, professional services and support services generate many jobs and much more revenue than licenses can generate.
SUNW is a great example of a company, flush with intellectual property and proprietary software, going south faster than a cheerleader at a football party. Sure, they have they're consulting arms and professional services, but it's fairly new. They still do not have any significant managed services or long-term customer engagements that generate any sizeable revenue. They lost that privilege when they maintained a sell-and-bolt strategy during their glory days.
StorageTEK, of all places, surprisingly enough is the 2nd or 3rd largest services organization in the world. By staying agnostic to vendors, they are able to come in and support everything from day-to-day operations, to long term configuration and capacity planning. And they do it very well I might add.
To bring this all back to Linux and OpenSource, they are technology products plain and simple. And like all technology products they require a certain degree of support and services that companies may or may not have in house, the latter being more common than the former. It's just silly of Mr. Gates to play on fears of job losses and unsubstantiated claims; he's going out there, to these companies and conferences and preaching about the horrors of OpenSource. I do seem to recall the gloom-and-doom approach in one of college courses, as a specific method of selling; however I can't seem to ever recall an instance where it has ever worked out in the long term.
If OpenSource is so bad, it's Mr. Gates is making a hypocrite out of himself regarding his own organizations "Shared Source", which listening to what Mr. Gates has to say, I can only conclude is a lame duck attempt at mimicking the "Horrors" and "Evil" of Open Source?
To say that "Hey, I read this somewhere, this Open Source, I don't know if it's true or not, but it's costing people their jobs" shows that he's not only worthless as a software architect, but worthless as a human being.
It does kill the job market for MCSEs.
My rights don't need management.
Again, the MSFT advocacy camp is deliberately muddying the waters by talking of Open Source *in general*, not making a distinction whether you are using OSS (Linux) or producing OSS (some apps that you might want to distribute).
:-). The apps they write are probably not very interesting to larger audiences anyway.
All these governments are clearly more interested in *using* OSS. It only kills MSFT jobs, which is never a bad thing
Save your wrists today - switch to Dvorak
Isn't it ironic that Internet Explorer was based on Mosaic, an open sourced web browser? Isn't it also ironic that Microsoft used BSD TCP/IP programs in Windows?
Does Open Sourced Software kill jobs? Ask any Linux based web hoster if they killed any jobs when they chose an OSS operating system over Windows. Ask any Apache web server hoster if the OSS web server they chose killed any jobs. Notice that Linux and Apache software dominates the web servers out there according to Netcraft's survey. Thus we logically can conculde that OSS creates jobs based on the shear volume of Linux and Apache systems out there.
Notice that most people who get outsourced or laid off are Microsoft Software users. Thus we can logicaly conclude that Microsoft Software kills jobs.
So Bill Gates has it backwards, Microsoft Software kills jobs, not OSS.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Politicians are "outsourcing" demagogy. Now prominent businessmen are into it. It's kind of like prime time television. It's generally loathsome and pointless waste of time, but everyone feels the need to tune into it anyway.
.NET. Use Java, c#, or c/c++. But not VB. VB is garbage.
By the way, friends don't let friends program in Visual Basic 6 or
Since I think it's safe to say a nontrivial number of the people here have their jobs BECAUSE OF open source.
And I think Bill Gates, by driving so many other companies out of business with his anticompetitive techniques, has done more to destroy jobs than any single person in the history of the IT industry.
Hey, nor is IE or any microsoft product to the standard today. I'd rather not pay 100 for something which isn't compatable, when I can pay nothing but a few hours typing and a couple of cans of Coke, to have something extremely compatable and helpful to everyone who uses said software :)
I like muppets.
Do these messages sound contradicting:
"Linux has a greater TCO than windows systems! use our windows systems and you need less admins and coders! And you don't need so well trained admins and coders, you can outsource the jobs!"
"Linux and open source will take away your jobs!"
Of course, Gates is just hoping that your Boss hears the first message and you (and the goverment) hear the second message.
signatures pending - ansa@kos.to - (dont mail there)
Gates is showing once and again that he is a smart guy who will take any advantage he can to get what he wants.
I remember a settlement Microsoft made with some school district. But instead of sending a check to the school, Microsoft offered them computers with the windows operating system. By negotiating a settlement in such a way, it is like getting free advertising. Most people do not want to learn 2 or 3 operating systems, they just want one they know how to use. How many of those high school students went on to use Windows based PC's in college and beyond? I don't know the anwser, but I do bet some would have used Apple if they had Apple computers in their lab.
I think the problem with Gates and Microsoft is they are unethical. It is one thing to make a product and sell it, another thing to use strong arm tactics to force people to use it. It has been said many times, but my local CompUSA and Circuit City only sell computers with Windows on them. And what is worse, my Sony Vaio laptop came with Windows, but not the CD to install it as I wish. Instead it reformats the hard drive into pre-determined partitions. And I can not pick what programs to install from that CD, it installs everything as it was when I first turned the laptop on. Getting some of that unwanted software off the PC was real work. Yuck.
But there are things Gates can do to be more friendly. Don't force windows to want a whole drive all to itself. If I have drive, and want to have a small partition for linux, don't force windows to reformat that partition to ntsc or fat. Let it be. It is a pain to have to do everything after windows is installed.
I think Bill Gates is obsessed with controlling the entire market share for computer operating systems, and now is moving into media control with his DRM technology and windows media player 9. What people really want is choice. What Windows does is take away choice.
Also from the article, and this scares me:
Earlier, Gates talked about the contributions Windows has made to the Asian economy. "Windows has opened up opportunities for computers and chips to be built in Asia. This will continue to be true for [such] software in providing high-paying jobs," he said.
Can we expect many of these high paying jobs to leave the USA? Is this Gates master plan. Make the USA dependant on Windows based software, then move as much of the production outside the USA?
Also:
Gates said Microsoft is having "good dialogues" with Asian governments, one area being their loss of tax revenue "when people don't pay for software".
Does this mean Gates will want some terrif imposed on all software, then work out some exemption for Microsoft? He has proven to be smart and creative in making thinks work out the way he wants it to, and he has proven to be unethical. I would not be suprised if he tried to stifle competition.
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
Start a commercial before or after the sugarbabes had a gig. I guarantee you that many people will feel attracted to the name, hence they'll remember and/or learn more about your product from your website.
I do all coding at night for more than 25 years, both commercial and open source. Of course I do not make any differences in code quality. Code quality is a matter of honor, not of the money.
The real reason for why I work mostly at night is I have inherited bad eyes condition and in midday, I can't see anything on screen.
So technically, for me, Mr. Gates *is* just an insensitive clod, yes.
There you are, staring at me again.
Open Source-onomics: Examining some pseudo-economic arguments about Open Source
It's quite old, but I think it's still relevant. It's the article that changed my opinions about the economics of Free/Open Source software.
The author deals with most of the common arguments against OSS/FS quite effectively. A must read for Bill Gates.
Yeah i guess it does take away some jobs but then again you can do something that MS knows a little about it's called inovation ;). Put staff that would be doing development to R&D and create the next thing that will sell your product ;).
;)
OS = distributed development (jobs spreed out)
Proprietary = redundancy
Microsoft employs about 55000 employees, most of them NOT programmers, and the ones that are barely see a fraction of the money that's earned off of their products. Open source helps to replace the overpriced commodity software that's created by a fraction of a percent of the world's developers and pulls in a majority of the world's software spending.
The maturation of microsoft's products in the late 90s lead to microsoft developers adding stupid bells and whistles (like extensive VB programming support in all MS products, yay viruses) that didnt add value to the software. Microsoft SHOULD have entered the maintenance phase with all of their desktop products about 5 years ago. There are probably 10-20k developers sitting around performing development work at MSFT that will not drive further sales.
Meanwhile, Open source has slowly been catching up to where microsoft was 5-10 years ago. This would ordinarily be a devastating disadvantage, even for a software package that doesnt need to make money but the problem is that when microsoft's products matured, they also became commoditized- since microsoft's products havent become any more compelling in the past 7 years, microsofts existing products compete with the old ones and 7 year old open source software competes successfully as well.
The end result of this is the "cost cutting" measures that microsoft is undertaking now. It will mean a lot less "new development" for microsoft products, and a lot more outsourced maintenance contracts to fix bugs in existing ones. The real cause to blame for unemployed microsoft developers is microsofts fear of breaking into new markets and trying different things to make use of those developers. They would rather defend the rotting carcass of Office and Windows than go off boldly in search of fresh meat.
- Copyrights: open source software is still copyrighted as much as closed source software. He can't be talking about this sort of intellectual property.
- Patents: can also apply equally well to open or closed source software - indeed, some people call for software patents to explicitly include source code showing how the claimed "invention" is implemented.
- Trademarks: not really relevant; they're concerned with brand names and don't depend on if one chooses to share the underlying source code to a program or not.
- Trade secrets. Ah. We might be onto something here! Yes, something isn't a secret if you share it openly. Gee whizz - who'da thunk that?!
Yes, what Gates is saying is that you can't have trade secrets if you have open source software - only that's far too obvious a statement to make and any audience would see straight through it. So he uses the meta-FUD term "intellectual property" instead. What a sham. As with the RIAA and MPAA, what Microsoft really needs is a law that forbids circumventing an "effective" business model...
Oh no! Poor Steve Jobs. We always knew Open Source would be his downfall, but could not have known it would literally kill him.
Slashdot gets worse every day... Pipedot: News for nerds, without the corporate slant
Then of course there's the cost issue. Who the fuck can afford Microsoft licenses? Even American businesses, who have a lot more cash than Asian consumers have been bitching about the cost of MIcrosoft licensing, especially when it has become blatantly obvious to even the dimmest of PHBs that most new Microsoft products add little in the way of useful functionality but do succeed in introducing incompatible file formats and siphoning cash off to Redmond.
Then of course there's Microsoft's arrogance in offering crippleware such as XP starter edition and XP home. Explain to me what the differences are between these products and XP pro again (other than registry hacks to turn features off, missing DLLs and different packaging). Explain to me why I can't buy a CD with an installable image at retail and have to purchase OEM copies of the OS or deal with Microsoft's fucking annoying upgrade copies. Explain to me what the new version of Office does that I couldn't do with Office 98. Fortunately for me my step-bro works at Microsoft, so I can get the software through him for cheap, other than this, or getting educational discounts I can't see how anyone affords buying Microsoft products or why anyone would continue to do so.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
Or you install linux on the old hardware bear the one time transition cost and from then on spend the IT budget on custom applications tailored to your company rather then bending over backwards to conform to the expectation of of the shelf software.
A few years ago this kind of talk could be seen as a threat. Now it is just the bleating of a worried sheep. People have woken up. No there won't be an overnight revolution. Instead slowly each week you see another story of a company or goverment using linux in some small way. A few years ago only a handfull of small stores in the entire world could install linux for you. Now it is hard to find a serious retailer that doesn't sell linux. HP/compag IBM and dell are obvious but even the local chain Mycom.nl has linux knowledge, they don't sell it yet but they use it internally.
So does switching to linux mean joblosses? Perhaps. But other jobs can be gained. Programmers/administrator/fixer. There will be less demand for off the shelf software and more demand for inhouse developed custom application that are far less feauture rich/bug ridden and instead tuned exactly to the demands of the workplace. Less Excell spreadsheet more webapps.
Kinda like how factories can choose to buy their machines ready made from outside or have their own people building the machines to fit their specific needs. The more money they can save on what they have to buy the more they can spend on their custom stuff.
I like it, the off the shelff stuff is made in redmond or india. The custom stuff is made right here where I work. So redmond will loose jobs, amsterdam holland will gain some.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
I'd say outsourcing kills a LOT more jobs.
You can create a piece of open-source technology, write a book about it (keeping publishers in employment), allow people to gain a skill in that technology (keeping programmers/architects/technicans in employment) and allow yourself to gain income from providing training sessions and seminars (keeping course organiser in employment).
As an example, look at the Qt libraries for user interface. The source code is publicly available, free for use for open source projects, but requires a license fee for commercially based products. What's Bill complaining about again?
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Liked the last paragraph,
...and apparently, he's now touring Asia doing said FU^H^Hwork. If all the F^Hwork goes this double-plus-un-good, no wonder Longhorn's so long off ;).
Would the jobs Gates refers to be all of those programming jobs that were supposed to save the post-industrial worker and instead are going to South Asia? Or is he refering to the increased phone-support helpdesk jobs to deal with the crap software spewed from software sweatshops, oh, whose jobs are getting outsourced as well. Besides, whatever supposed jobs we're loosing to open source can be more than made up for by getting paid to implement open source programs(anybody tried to implement Compiere CRM, not a trivial task). Since open source programs can be customized to each customer's needs, more opportunities can be created for people skilled in programming and with an understanding of business processes. Open source may kill jobs, but it's not the jobs most of us in Europe or the States are getting anyway.
What does migrating visual basic apps have anything to do with open source or the article in general? /., because if you don't program in C or PERL, you must be a loser.
The whole statement was needless and stupid; except, of course, to fuel the usual tide of visual basic jokes on
Well, as much as we may hate it, I can confidently say that although as a programmer I'm a firm believer in open source, it _DOES NOT_ allow intellectual property. It's a problem when I'm working at the university.
- Code Dark
Really? Perhaps what Gates means is Free/Libre/Open Source prevents Microsoft from using intellectual property as a weapon to generator more profits inside that country. Gates is saying M$FT knows best, let us create all the intellectual property you will ever need (oh and you will have to pay us for it). What is the value of all software "intellectual property" outside the USA compared with inside the USA?
Does he really not understand that many governments see the value in creating free software for the masses, it is something governments should encourage.
How/why would a government wield intellectual property against its citizens to begin with? Doesn't sound like democracy to me.
As a scientific research tech, I, for one, totally agree with Bill Gates on this matter! If it wasn't for OSS, I would lose my job!... Hey, wait a minute... I got hired because of my ability to work with and help create OSS... Wait, but if I got hired to work with OSS, and OSS is going to make me unemplo--Oh, look, I've gone crosseyed.
It's such a fine line between stupid and clever.
Last couple of projects which I worked on ( for decent pay I might add) were only possible because of open source, the small companies / non-profits for which the projects were done did not have the budget to buy M$ crap. If everyone had to pay M$ for development tools, there'd be a lot less jobs for developers. Many clients don't have the resources to pay both the developer and Bill, I'd rather the money go to the dvelopers. M
What Gates is trying to do is wipe the competitor(Open source), instead of competing with good ,better products in the market.
,is required in a healthy market.
It is the violation of the basic Business Practice.Competition,and not killing of it
His very act,means he is being intimidated by Open Source,and more cnsumers will begin to turn to Open source to see what makes M$ afraid.
Good for Open Source.
Why does yahoo do this
Basically, what I think you're saying is that MS also doesn't guarantee upward compatibility, and I agree.
It's also worth noting that when MS breaks compatibility, you're pretty much doomed because it's closed source. When something open source breaks compatibility, if there's a way to alter/filter/import data to make it fit, you at least have the options of writing code to do it yourself, or paying someone independent to write it.
"If you don't want to create jobs or intellectual property, then there is a tendency to develop open source. It is not something you do as a day job. If you want to give it away, you work on it at night," he said.
Then I have RTFA for the third time... I am having trouble with the "killing" part. IMHO this reads as Gates saying: "People work on open source in their spare time as a hobby." Nobody has yet posted righteous indignation about their occupation being called something done in their spare time and not relevant to the economy.
Plus the article was covering Gates' talk on open source and piracy. Clearly, with open source there is no such thing as piracy because you can do what you want with the software. It is when you try to sell the open source software (not present it as part of a service) that you get into trouble. I think we all get the diametric opposition part already.
Finally, -Bill Gates bashed open source- surprise! Next article.
Have you Meta Moderated t
I read the headline to my wife and the first thing she said is this is the same person who has call centers in Inda.
Well I dont know if that is true but Outsourcing kills jobs in America.
... the more bang for the buck the better.
...
And arguing that there are taxes lost is also pretty stupid.
If I buy software for $200 - this is my cost
and I can deduct it from the taxes - in most countries there is one or another type of exemption one can use.
If I use free software, this is my income and I do pay taxes.
In some countries it is even worse since many
governments (or European Union) support technology
investments and give you extra grants for it.
So not only I deduct it from my taxes but I also
get 50% refund from the EU !!!
Sorry Bill
Arguing over whether or not Open Source Software causes job losses is illogical. Following that same premise, Gates would agree that viruses and security holes are good things. After all, look at all the jobs that those problems have created. You have a billion dollar industry that has developed because of the insecurities in Windows operating systems. Maybe this is the reason why it took them so long to fix the latest Internet Explorer bugs? Just think of all the jobs created because of it!
Oh, ain't about that jobbs. Another piece of crap from redmond. How desperate can you get? And in asia too. Home of the Opensource TRON operating system wich was killed by MS and wich meant japan lost a chance to have controlled the OS market.
Oh well here is hoping leaders in asia got a good memory and a taste for revenge.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
A proposal for the next opinion from Gates: how the Sun (the big yellow ball in the sky, not the computer company) causes unemployment for candle makers, since daylight allows people to buy fewer candles and still be able to see and read.
But it also creates jobs in (slightly) different areas that equal the balance.
Why should it matter whether you're working for Microsoft producing proprietary software, or for IBM producing Open Source, or for company <foo> customizing Open Source to fit their needs?
Because open source software is free, businesses can use the money that did not go to M$ to hire more employees in their companies, resulting in thousands of jobs created in other sectors for every one lost in software companies.
Nothing kills jobs or competition like a monopoly.
nuff said
Have Linux installed at your place in Amsterdam, for cheap
Users of Open Source save money and are so able to spend money elsewhere. Thus there are less jobs in software companies but more jobs in software using companies. Since software people are highly paid there are probably more jobs created than are lost.
Open Source results in jobs being transferred from Software companies to End user companies.
SCO: Open Source Helps Terrorists Make Nuclear Weapons Same logic
----- irc://irc.slashnet.org/#vendetta
The software and hardware industry and other industries have expanded greatly because of the Internet, and the Internet is mostly based on open source implementations of protocols, operating systems, and web/email servers.
It is just too bad for Microsoft that their products compete so closely with open source.
---------
There is inferior bacteria on the interior of your posterior.
Breaking compatibility between versions is more than just an annoying facet of their software -- it's part of their business model!
So, if you give it away, then it falls short of the pantheon of "intellectual property"? (Betcha Gates will say that it's not "property"... but want me to hear that neither is it "intellectual".)
Seeing bad movies only encourages them. Watch responsibly
But it generates the same amount of jobs (Or even more) in the companies that othervise get drained by an unfair software monopoly. We use open source in our company and we have saved a bundle by using Linux/Apace and other Open Souce products. That have helped financing the hiring of another developer. And thats way better shareholder value instead of lining greedy Bills pockets.
The real fact that the software industry has to face up to is that it's not an industry. They're really not manufacturing software. They've had two decades of selling software as if it were a durable good, not I.P. Of course in recent years they've joined the ??AA in trying to make software, along with music and video, a strange sort of hybrid durable good with I.P. aspects to it.
This latter model is really scary, because they sell it to you as if it were a durable good, yet you don't really own it, because it's I.P. and they specify the ways you may use it.
Either it's a durable good, you buy it, you own it...
Or it's I.P. and the so-called durable good is media-only, replacable for cost-of-media, only.
IMHO, they've only been getting away with 'manufacturing software' because we've been on the front of the curve. Even now MS is finding that it's own worst enemy is its own installed base of 'durable bits' that customers see no need to upgrade, because it does what they need.
Yet at the same time, we haven't figured out how to turn software into a service model. I suspect a large part of the reason is that remnants of the manuracturing model blow the service model out of the water, here in the transition time.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
what the hell are you talking about
Windows XXX professional. With built in access to one of the world's largest porn databases, it has the tool for the professional wanker.
What Bill Grates is most terrified of is that having access to quality open source code will make even more people aware of precisely how crap Microsoft is! The more people who gain in awareness of the Snake Oil he's pushing, the harder and more ludicrously silly his marketting people will have to work. If he *DIDN'T* scream and flail about we'd know he wasn't hurting right? So, let's sit back and enjoy this one.
Gates sounds like Cheney continuing to go around saying Iraq and al-Qaeda were linked, despite massive evidence to the contrary.
I guess all those people working at RedHat, SUSE, IBM, et. al. are wondering why they don't have jobs...
I guess if Gates said the sun rose in the West, all the Microsopht fanbois would cheerfully ignore reality.
I have something in common with Stephen Hawking...
HAHA good one. You had me up until that line. I didn't have to read any further.
So sorry man, but my d.. is longer than yours.
is the sun. Shouldn't that be extinguished before open source software?
This is pretty obvious nonsense from Gates.
Gates implies that anything that prevents the sell of a certain product (in this case commercial software) is necessarily bad for the economy, which is pretty obvious nonsense. After all, the money the potential buyer would have used to buy that product doesn't magically vanish because that particular transaction won't take place, will it? The buyer still has it and can use it to buy other products instead.
What matters is the net effect in the economic activity, and I contend that free software is actually good for the economy, because it gives small companies cheaper and more convenient access to the basic software tools they need, improving their chances of success.
What's better for economic activity and employment, having twenty more small companies succeed because of their savings in software, or having another million dollars in Gates's hands? The answer seems obvious.
This is reminiscent of that battle.
Beta *was* higher quality, but VHS was a lot cheaper, and quality was 'close enough' for the masses..
( VHS has increased in quality since then, but its had years of technological advancement )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
Since `hobbyists' and students are willing to write software and release it for nothing, isn't it inefficient to pay people money to do the same thing? Granted, this may mean fewer jobs in software engineering, but this simply means technical people will work in other fields. Jobs don't simply disappear for ever when you cut redundancy; in fact, with fewer people tied up writing unnecessary code, the capacity of the economy to grow should increse.
Also, isn't discouraging open-source akin to protectionist economics, which have not been generally succesful? Gates is a free marketeer when it suits him, but here he's appealing to legislators and governments to protect his fledgeling, ailing, company. He sounds like a swindler to me.
Open Source is better because it gets written to answer real needs. Proprietary stuff gets written to meet the market goals of some company- if their customers benefit, that's incidental!
You can't create multiplicative economic value unless you respond to real needs. Companies trying to do something other than that will certainly lose jobs.
Why all the argument and consternation about OSS killing jobs? It's an economic fact that it does, and will continue to do so. When considering any regime of commodification, as efficiencies increase and prices drop, the capital inputs for production decrease. We can think of OSS as the ultimate example of this, where (for commodity software) the price drops to zero and the efficiency and associated quality of the products is VERY high. OSS produces very, very good products at very, very low cost! There's nothing hard to understand here. Think of OSS as "good, cheap products."
Obviously the jobs destroyed will be MicroSoft jobs, and Oracle jobs, and SAP jobs, and the like: fewer people will be paid to make software. Perhaps many of the next generation programmers will become professionals of a different sort, but continue to program as part of OSS? Or whatever. Who know, and who cares? It's pure speculation.
My thesis is this: OSS will kill jobs, but that is not a Bad Thing(tm).
A common parallel example is getting rid of farm subsisdies in the US. It would absolutely kill many farming jobs (mostly small famers), lower agricultural prices (long-term), and invariably increase efficiency and competition in Ag. This is good for just about everyone, save a particular group of current farmers. At the end of the day, EVERYONE ELSE benefits, though. OSS development is the equivalent of taking a cash subsidy from current farmers, er, programmers.
So, please, saying that OSS doesn't kill particular jobs is both naive and dangerous. It OSS makes supporters look ignorant. A better position is that we have no obligation to support jobs that have effectively become "welfware" in the new OSS software economy.
You must be a goose-stepping Right Wing dittohead zealot to point out facts like that. The important thing is to *feel* that the Democrats are less controlled by corporations, and vote based on feelings.
Sad as it is, some unions do use that argument. There is a nearby state park that has unionized maintenance workers. It is a several thousand acre park, which, due to budget cuts, only has two full time maintenance employees. Both guys work hard (maintaining roads grass, trash, buildings, etc,) but there is only so much two guys can do, and the parks trails are in terrible shape. Not just in need of mulch or stone, but washed out or nearly impassible due to overgrowth, downed trees, etc.
Some local businesses offered to donate tools and materials and some local Sierra Club (et al) members offered to volunteer their time to get the trials back into shape. Since it is a public park and is currently not useable for hiking by the public, I thought that was a great gesture from the community. Can you guess what heppened?
The state union told them to go stick it somewhere. Despite the fact that the two employees couldn't and wouldn't work on the trails - which is part of their job description - they wouldn't let anyone else do a "union job."
So the trails are still crap, now two years later.
A preposition is a terrible thing to end a sentence with.
Automating stuff with computers kills jobs. Smash the computers! And electricity, bane of the working person, allowing even many powered labour saving thus job killing devices! Destroy the power stations! And don't get me started on those damn looms! If only we'd been able to stop those devil spawned looms it would never have come to this!
Speaking as a small not-free-as-in-beer software shop, it's certainly MY nightmare that some open-source group is going to pick my company's particular application domain for their next free gift to the world.
Why complain about jobs going abroad? If you're coding open source, you're already giving away your work for free.
HoistByOwnPetard v 0.9
MS FUD machine running on fumes, -1.
Slashdot in 5 Paragraphs
Because he was soooo right the first time...
Silly rabbit
Take a look at what happened to the guys at Apple. They've started reworking and repackaging open source software for the OS, compiler, browser, etc, and if you search for those precious few unfilled jobs at http://jobs.apple.com...
Searched for: software development
Results: 1 - 10 of about 2020
I have a job because of the existence of PHP, Perl, and Apache (and other open source tools.) Not to mention Linux.
/. represent two opposing ends of the issue.
/. ... what was I saying?
I think it is pointless for us to even discuss such a issue since both gates and
Then again, this IS
Bill said Windows has opened up opportunities for computers and chips to be built in Asia.
Asian economists might construe this as a veiled threat. What can Microsoft do politically that would hurt a developing economy? Use its influence to steer factory construction or chip orders to countries that play ball?
How has Windows opened opportunities? Wasn't it IBM's nonexclusive relationship with Microsoft (DOS) that allowed the cloning of personal computers to begin? Microsoft has benefited from the open sourcing of the PC specification but takes credit for it as well. Tremendously ironic.
The x86-PC wasn't exactly "open source" but the hardware was standard enough that it could by copied. Just had to reverse engineer the bios.
That meant that anybody could make an x86-PC, not just IBM.
Is the situation similiar with hardware?
This is a good discussion, and a lot of people are making excellent points about the ability of open source software to create a positive tech ecosystem within an economy. It's worth pointing out, though already nicely done elsewhere in this discussion, that Gates' understanding of economics was necessarily compromised prior to his talk.
One of my favorite classic arguments against the oss kills jobs fud was the distinction between sale value of software versus use value and where employment comes from as detailed by esr in his prescient essay the magic cauldron .
The numbers esr quotes are necessarily speculative given the size of the field, however it seems obvious that a young national software industry has a greater opportunity to rapidly develop by taking advantage of the riches of the tech commons available to it rather than allowing scarce capital flow out to a foreign company. KalinMetamuscle.com - News in the Iro
Also interesting is that Cringley has often written about Microsoft's technology making "full employement" for msft technicians. Interestingly, though, he thinks Apples kill more IT jobs than Linux.
Note: I have not read the article, this is just my off-the-wall oppinion.
Sure, open source kills jobs! When you don't have to rewrite the code because somebody else has already done it for you, or if the API's are already avalible... You definatly don't need to hire another programer to do it!
But if what you need is something that hasn't been done before (read: "inovative") then open source could be a great way to go.
"If you don't want to create jobs or intellectual property, then there is a tendency to develop open source."
As opposed to integrating a browser into your monopoly OS to destroy a competitor. As opposed to integrating a media player into your monopoly OS to destroy a competitor. As opposed to funding a surrogate litigator in an attempt to destroy a competitor while hiding your anticompetitive practices from the public!
Bill, your balls have to be so big that they drag on the ground when you walk!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
First M$ commoditized hardware. They got to sell a whole lot more copies of their OS that way. IBMs loss of that maret was everybody's gain. Specially the man who would become the world's richest.
Apple dealt him a surprise with the Mac OS but he recovered because he alreadyu had a base.
Now Linux is commoditizing OS's. There goes his base. He's rich but there are those who could buy and sell him and his company. What they lack in money (personal wealth) they make up for in power.
Maybe not now, but inevitably, he'll end up in a small suburban office, supporting his shrinking base of users. More likely he'll have sold off the operation and somebody else will make a few bucks from the slow death spiral.
Real systems, ones that cost beaucoup bucks, have akways been open source. Open to their customer base anyway.
Would YOU pay 6 figures for software and NOT get the source? I thought not.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Office '97 was backwardly compatible.
.... the need for manpower?
...... but damn... I have th is American job I have to work to "earn my living".....
or from another POV, I'd rather work a job less and enjoy life more.....perhaps see teh world and make new friends around the world
So at what point in our technology advancement do we need to change the mindset of our leading old hat economy generators?
Or should we all just resort back to hunting (fuck farming) for food....... 6 billion people...... is there enough to hunt for all of us to eat?
So is there enough 40 hr/week jobs for all of us of such ability to do so?
Slavery is fun..... isn't it master Gates?
gates, self-serving as always, doesn't want anyone working on software unless they work for him. the gates monopoly is the worst thing that ever happened to software development. we're finally waking up from 20 years under gates' boot. software developers arise. the only thing you have to lose is lousy, buggy, vulnerable microsoft software.
Since most inventors don't like worshiping parasites, they figure why let the parasites get sole ownership of their IP?
Seastead this.
Thank you, Michael, for finally bringing us a 'MS Trashes Open Source' article at last, so that balance can be restored to the force, and we can all flame in the same direction again.
~Idarubicin
MS took backwards compatibility for developers very seriously. You could take a program written for the Windows 3.0 and recompile it for Windows XP and it would just work (most of the time). With Win32, it was binary compatible, too. Similarly, a VB 1.0 program would work in VB 6. MS took this very seriously, and it is a big reason why there has never been a shortage of programs (or developers) for MS platforms.
.NET platform and VB .NET (and even more so with Longhorn and Avalon), MS is trying to migrate developers to a completely new platform with no backwards compatibility. This is, of course, to address very real shortcomings with the old Windows platform compared with Java and web-applications. But it's a huge break with the past, the first such risky move since the original move from DOS to Windows.
With the
Joel Spolsky covers this in more depth on his weblog: How Microsoft Lost the API War.
Closed sourced monopolies kill more jobs.
Because of network effects, software tends towards standardization and eventually towards monopolies. That's why there's only one GCC, one Apache, one Linux kernel (with minor temporary distribution dependent forks) and only "One Microsoft Way". Monopolies get rid of a whole class of jobs and tend to required lower the skill level of the remaining jobs since more can be automated.
The key difference between an open source monopolies and closed sourced monopolies is that open source monopolies are democratic, technocratic, and capitalistic so many people benefit while closed sourced monopolies are authoritarian, beaurocratic, and anti-competitive. When open source monopolies gain, everyone gains (though not always jobs). When closed source monopolies gain, only investors in the monopolies gain (jobs gained in the monopoly are lose elsewhere).
I know which I'd prefer.
"Gates...when on to say that '[Open source] doesn't guarantee upward compatibility.'"
He's right - it doesn't. I'd say it guarantees it evenly with the way Microsoft guarantees it - if you just happen to have the correct version of the correct software, you'll have upwards compatability. If you chose the wrong end of the fork, then you're screwed.
On the other hand, Open Source, by definition, allows unlimited forking. And if there's a compatibility break between versions, you can be sure that someone, somewhere is going to start up a backwards-compatability fork, or write a backwards-compatibiltiy patch; if the problem is enough to bug you, it's probably enough of a problem to bug other people. And, if there's no backwards-compatibility fork available, you can always Do It Yourself, or put up a note on the proper mailing list, letting people know that the demand is out there, and asking if anyone else has the same need/desire.
With propritary software, the user is basically under the company's control. Unless you're a huge corporation with massive buying power and enough pull in the management level of Microsoft, all you'll wind up with is a "You're screwed, buy our other newer, more expensive software."
Overall, I'm pretty sure Open Source Software is more compatible, and that there's more old versions of software available to reduce the need for backwards compatibility.
--
http://nemilar.net - Not your grandmother's soup kitchen
M$ is fond of telling us about TCO of software, and how most of the cost associated software is indirect, primarily the people required to support software systems within an organisation.
So if open source is killing jobs then the total cost of ownership will be less, right, I mean less people to pay? But that's not what M$ claims about TCO.
Someone should get their story straight.
Oh, one real difference between open source and closed source, the open source jobs tend to be close to home, not outsourced to somewhere else. That seems to be an important issue for some...
The idea that open source software destroys the economy is not well thought out. The money that would have been spent on over priced software will now be spent on other things thus fueling different parts of the economy. The real loser is Microsoft; a company that has shown a tendency to destroy jobs and entire companies though the illegal and anticompetitive practices related to it's monopoly.
What do I say? Tough shit! Adapt or die Microsoft! Open Source is good for the economy in general. It's just not good for YOUR economy!
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
The jobs weren't going to Americans anyway.
The only jobs that open source will kill are Microsoft jobs and jobs tied into the Microsoft monopoly.
If he thinks that having a corporation makes jobs as opposed to having people who can accomplish the same thing without a corporation behind them, then perhaps it is Microsoft that should be the one to die off. (As we all pray every day).
I hope Gates makes more founded arguements next time, perhaps he will suggest that open source causes starvation or maybe malaria outbreaks.
I have nothing else to add.
Thank you for your time.
Yeah, those evil open-source software companies are wrecking the industry. Companies should learn from Microsoft, and use the product bundling & dumping model instead. Look at all the jobs it created at Netscape.
-- Greg
Slashdot, would a spell-checker for posting be too much to ask? It's not rocket science!
I used to hang out at the MS SQL server newsgroups back in the day. In those days you'd have periodic flamewars with the oracle proponents. The MS people always ended up saying that SQL server might not be as good as oracle but it was "good enough for what you need to do" and "a hell of a lot cheaper".
It gives me warm and fuzzy feelings to see the same argument now being made against them. Not just in databases but virtually every other product they make too.
Oracle survived but lost a lot of market share to SQL server and I predict the same will happen to MS.
evil is as evil does
I'm not a Gates fan either, but today must be a quiet news day.
Karma only matters to me now and zen.
I smell BS from anywhere on the planet. And BS still smells like S regardless of whether it came out of a B A, or some other A.
Take him out Linus. Eat his lunch. Make the unethical worm turn.
MSBPodcast.com The opinions expressed here are my own. If you don't like 'em... Think up your own stuff.
Gates talked about the contributions Windows has made to the Asian economy.
"Windows has opened up opportunities for computers and chips to be built in Asia.
Like we don't need computers and chips to run
open source.....
hahahahheheheheweeeeewooootttt
Why do I care about unemployment in India? Since the reduction in H1-B visas, too many IT jobs are being oursourced there anyway.
LK
"Hi. This is my friend, Jack Shit, and you don't know him." - Lord Kano
1) Open source gives away software for free.
2) Giving something away for free is anti-capitalist.
3) Anti-capitalism is Communism!
4) Communists don't think like you and I do.
5) You or I would never kill a puppy.
6) As neither of us would kill a puppy, and communists don't think like you or I do, communists will kill puppies.
7) Therefore, Open Source Kills puppies.
8) Hence: Chewbacca.
(It's satire people...)
Individuals should not develop/invest in OSS because they don't get paid, and it will reduce their own job market as commercial programmers.
Businesses should not develop/invest in OSS because everyone else will recieve the same benefits - there's no competitive advantage to gain.
Noone should use OSS products because they are inferior, not only will they reduce the job market in software, they will also increase the total TCO because your workers will be less productive.
What he is claiming is that from a business point of view, it is more cost efficient to pay for a well-functioning program, than to settle for what is developed for free, so your arguement is void because he does not claim they do the same thing. According to him, it is the OSS system that is inefficient because it fails to connect those with need of a program (hence, willing to pay) with those that are able to develop it.
Imagine that you have a piece of software, new or existing. For $100k in R&D, you could create $200k value in software. A closed source company would invest $100k, and sell it for somewhere between $100k and $200k total, creating jobs, and lowering the TCO of its customers (since they got more value than the retail price).
What would happen in open source? Let's say those $100k are 2000x$50. Nothing would happen. OSS is simply unable to convert that potential into jobs, or into lowered TCO. Or relative to closed source software, OSS is causing fewer jobs and higher TCO.
I'm sure you can poke a lot of sticks in this argument, but it is hardly quite as favorable for OSS as you make it sound.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
why the jobmarket has been so bad
The truth bit Bill Gates in the ass today. Mr Gates was quoted as saying "what the fuck was that? I have never seen anything like that before". When informed that it was the truth he replied "I am not familiar with that, please take it out the back and kill it before it bites somebody else".
evil is as evil does
Wow, stating the obvious, if only I'd thought of that, maybe I'd be a multi-millionaire.
MS is losing, they may as wlel just accept it now.
Do you see what I did there?
Speech is free (usually)
:-)
:P
Source code is like... speaking to a computer.
Let people do it freely and publicise it freely.
People keep trying to make money off software.
It's all been done before.
The software industry is dying.
Let it live! Free it!
Hardware is dirt cheap
Make your money on something new
(uh like not software of hardware)
Footnote: MPAA, RIAA, BSA, whatever it's digital, it will be copied.
PS: I'm a software developer and I can't think of a way to make audio/video safe with guaranteed payment. You need a reality check!
PPS: I'm unemployed but hey! I've been thinking.
PPPS: Bastards!
PPPPS: Oh that's why I'm unemployed
It is not a bad thing per se if jobs are eliminated. Open source software can be looked at as simply a technological improvement, with improved efficiency over proprietary software. Now, if this happens to eliminate the jobs of some proprietary developers, that is a good thing for the economy. Previously wasteful labor is no-longer being employed, so resources are being used more efficiently. The former-programmer must find a new job, doing something that the market values more highly than what he formerly did.
For example, consider the following situation:
Microsoft employs 100 people to work on Internet Explorer and all of its problems. These individuals work 40 hours a week and are paid $50,000 a year. All is well. Microsoft has a team which works on fixing problems in IE, the team-member get paid, and customers get a security update in IE every blue moon or so.
Now, along comes another group, Mozilla. They give away source code to the gecko core and get a small group of volunteers to work on Phoenix for free. These individuals choose to do this in their spare time, off of the job. They produce a browser which is arguably superior to IE.
Now, lets say that Phoenix drives IE out of the market, and Microsoft thus has to can it's IE project, meaning the workers get fired. Is this a bad thing? Well, obviously MS and their employees don't like it. But it is still good for society over-all.
Previously, customers had to pay money to MS for a browser. Now, they don't. They can conserve the resources (money) that they would have spent on the browser, and spend it elsewhere, on their highest valued use.
And what of Microsoft and the workers? Well, either they can make their product good enough that people will pay for it over a free alternative, or they have to eliminate the product-line or sell it off to whoever will buy it. What about the former MS employees working on IE? Well, it is unfortunate for them, but no-one has the right to be employed. Certainly, consumers in such a case would have demonstrated that they aren't willing to pay a higher price for an inferior product.
If they are laid off, they can find jobs else-where, where their labor will go towards a use more highly valued by consumers than what they had been doing. This is simply the reallocation of labor from less highly-valued uses to more highly-valued uses, resulting in greater overall efficiency.
If any programmer here is going to complain, I would ask you this: Given two computer-systems, both of the same quality in your estimation, would you buy the one that is priced higher or priced lower? The answer is you'd buy the one that's priced lower. Now, why would you expect anyone to pay more for a product of the same or lesser quality, when they can pay less for a product of the same or greater quality? It is hypocrisy to ask others to pay more money for inferior products.
I wouldn't be surprised if next thing, Bill Gates is going to file lawsuite against FOSS developers. After all, they are undercutting their competitors, and this is an evil anti-competitive strategy. Of course, if they price their products at the same price, they can be accused of collusion; and heaven forbid if they price them higher, then they're accused of price-gouging.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
Open Source does not destroy jobs, it's anti trust. Take a look at how many jobs wal-mart and microsoft have destroyed.
Ive been doing some opensource project because i couldnt get a job to write it. I think this situation will get worse.
I thought it sounded a lot like what Kerry was saying the other day... ...Which of course was the exact OPPOSITE of what he said the day before.
Liars... PuulEEASE! If so, there's enough to go around!
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
On the original topic of open source killing jobs, (as has been said before) there are far more jobs dependent on efficient access to productive technology than on the technology itself. So, yes many "jobs will be lost", to many "other jobs". In the end, efficiency rules. However one gets there, that's how it will happen. Mr Gates cannot stop it any more than the oft-mentioned buggy-whip manufacturers.
Again, it comes down to the IT Department Full Employment Act. Adopting Linux allows organizations to increase their IT efficiency without requiring the IT department to increase ITS efficiency. It takes just as many nerds to support 100 Linux boxes as 100 Windows boxes, yet Linux boxes are cheaper and can support more users. The organization is better off while the IT department is unscathed and unchallenged.
It's funny that you quote that. At my last job, we made the opposite change. Went from about 100 linux boxes/x-terminals to a 100 windows boxes. There were two of us techs, and our workload increased significantly. We no longer had time to work on "fun" projects that people wanted - web access to e-mail, trying new products, etc. We spent all of our time patching OSs, fighting viruses, and reinstalling hosed systems. Sure, we still used the same two techs, but I finally quit from the tedium of the job. It was no longer fun.
I think it all depends on what you want your IT people doing. Use windows, and they'll spend a lot of time fixing windows boxes. Use unix/linux, and there's a good chance that you'll be able to assign interesting projects that improve everyone's effectiveness and efficiency.
What kind of jobs, Mr. Gates? Point-of-sale software programming jobs seems to be the only possibility--a mere fraction of programming jobs out there--which just happens to be the business that you are in. It diminishes Bill's field and invigorates the industries that have anything to do with customization, localization, and face-to-face service and support.
"[Open source] doesn't guarantee upward compatibility or do that kind of integration [for seamless computing to work]."
"We certainly will have open-source apps that compete with and that run on Windows. But when it comes to a guarantee or having someone who stands behind your software, [open source] is typically not something done in a capital approach."
Hail, Prince of the Obvious! More obvious information: Microsoft doesn't exactly specialize in guarantees either. Open Source doesn't do all those things, but companies can. Bill's statment is like me saying that closed-source doesn't guarantee free croissants. Of course it doesn't, but Microsoft sure would if it meant keeping Linux out of Paris.
As for the integration thing, he's right. Open Source environments don't integrate like Microsoft does. And is probably better off for it. Isn't that what got us into all this IE trouble in the first place? How frenzied integration is somehow an advantage is a mystery to me.
He's stating a few half-truths and presuming that his fragment of the truth leads everyone to his MSFT-centric conclusions. He makes about as much sense as a Linux zealot might. His only advantage is that he knows the business vocabulary that will get the attention of the bureaucrats. That, and he's Bill Fucking Gates and what he says goes. Outside of Slashdot, the man is perceived as a technological messiah.
Every day, enormous numbers of people spend their time posting on Slashdot, Fark, blogs, newsgroups, what-have-you, for nothing more than their own amusement and (if lucky) a bit of recognition. Getting a +5 insightful on a post isn't going to raise a person's take-home pays by a single penny. The same holds true with volunteer work, donating blood, and giving to charity.
What Mr. Gates apparently forgets is that the goal of capitalism is not to force people to use money during every transaction but to allow people to put their own price on the goods and services they trade. If I write a cool little utility and my only price is recognition by my peers, it should be my choice. If he wants to write software and charges a few hundred dollars a package, that is his choice. He has no more business telling me that I shouldn't be giving away my own property than I have telling him he has to give away Windows.
Economies do not consist solely of software developers. That's the first fallacy in his arguments. Sure, OSS may be deadly to the Microsofts of this world, but most of the world's economies consist primarily of companies that make tangible products; cars, appliances, food, etc, etc. For these companies, software is a tool, not an end unto itself. Every dollar that they have to spend on proprietary software is a dollar that they cannot put into making or improving their product. In the end, every dollar that they spend on proprietary software shows up in the price to buyers of their products.
The second big fallacy (implied in this case) is that Microsoft software is good enough to base a business upon. No matter how many studies they fund, the fact is becoming clear to a large number of Microsoft users that they just can't afford to keep Microsoft software running anymore! Whether it is recovering from the latest virus attack, the endless hassle of downloading and installing updates so you don't get hit by the latest virus attack, adjusting to the newest release of software (where the hell did they put that feature this time) or just the quirkiness of Microsoft software in general (it did this yesterday, why the hell won't it work today?), users are finding that the biggest cost of Microsoft software hits only after they have purchased it. And, again, every dollar that companies spend fighting with Windows will show up in the price to their customers.
And now for the third fallacy. From the article:
"Windows has opened up opportunities for computers and chips to be built in Asia. This will continue to be true for [such] software in providing high-paying jobs," he said.
Bill Gates implies that if Windows goes away, all that demand for computers is going to dry up. What does he think that OSS runs on? Blenders? No, computers are not just a passing fad; there will continue to be increasing demand for computers of various shapes, sizes and capabilities. The only question is whther or not Microsoft software is going to be running on them. He then implies that the only way high-paying jobs will be created is the Microsoft way. Well, who does he think works on OSS? For every developer that gives away his work on an initial project, there a hundreds that get paid well for installing, maintaining and extending that project. And, if a company doesn't have to pay an exorbitant amount for that software or an exorbitatnt amount to keep that software running, they can afford to pay more people to install, maintain and extend it for them. Of course that worries Bill; that money is no longer flowing back to Redmond! Instead, it stays at the local level and enriches those who need it most.
Oddly enough, I cannot recall ever having a problem upgrading an open source application or service. True, sometimes with server/daemon code one must fiddle the config files a bit, but I've never had a situation where upgrading created data incompatibilities or prevented older applications from working alongside newer ones.
Contrast this with, say, Microsoft Access. Say you have an office with a bunch of older versions of MS operating systems and people running Access 97. Now you buy a new machine. Of course, you can only get Microsoft Windows XP for the thing. Then you find that:
- MS Access 97 won't run properly/reliably under WinXP
- Running Access 2000 (or whatever the latest incarnation is) against shared
databases that users of Access 97 are using makes those databases unusable by
the Access 97 users.
The logical conclusion of all this is, of course, that the business must upgrade all their MS Access 97 installs to a more recent version of MS Access. But wait! Recent versions of MS Access won't run properly/reliably on older versions of MS Windows! (Imagine that.) So the hapless business is faced with also having to upgrade Microsoft Windows. But wait! MS Windows XP (or whatever) is so much more bloated and so much more resource intensive that it does not run well on that old(er) hardware. If it runs at all. So now our poor business (or they will be poor, once this is all over) must upgrade their hardware, as well.I have never run into the scenario above with open source software. And rarely even with proprietary Unix-based software.
Well, but why don't we repair cars, treat illnesses, etc (put in any profession you like) for free then ? I mean in our free time, let the customer pay only the parts, which should btw also be free since those workes creates them also in their spare time, of which they have plenty now...
Keeping inefficient work just for the jobs, and replacing jobs with work-done-for-free are 2 entirely different things.
Microsoft gave their browser away, sponsored by windows or office sales. This is anti competitive and they should have been punished for it. But you would have the same apply to free (as in beer) software developers, woulnd't you, if they ask developers to please stand up and get out of the way so they can put in their work results for free...
It shouldn't take an econ degree to figure out that this works only small scale.
say that '[Open source] doesn't guarantee upward compatibility.'"
There is no guarantee in the propriatary world that there will be upward compatibility. The fact that you can migrate you data to the latest and greatest or God for bid an other vendors product is completly the will of the original vendor. Sure most of the time there is an upgrade path but if a product is discontinued their may not be. The data storage might be binary and it would be a massive under takeing to reverse engineer that data. Look at all the effort that it has taken to be able to import a word doc with reasonable accuracy for example. At least with OSS you can look at the source code to your old app and probably use the file/data access code from it in your new app or simply to create something new and simple that can convert using that old code to parse and writeout back out to some better know format. There are all sorts of very valid reasons why a closed source proprietary solution might be better, Gates needs to focus on those instead of spreading out right lies. The problem he has of course is the vast majority of those good reasons are decreasing in value to the average user as skilled people are becomeing more availible and the barries to entry on large scale information systems is shrinking daily.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
(nt) stands for no text
well, too bad if open source kills jobs...
one should not base its business model on working...
it should be about acomplishing tasks... getting work done.
if gates reallly thinks that whole idea in software business is to create more jobs, then in his ideal world 100% of people would be in software business, noone working in farms nore in hospitals etc...
lukily it's not just me... you all share my beliefs, is it not?
Seriously... I mean, how many people are employed out there because of the need to remove viruses and spyware from systems because of IE flaws?
Corporatism != Free Market
Until computers can do everything that I possibly want them to do, until they understand what i'm saying, drive my car, avoid crashing, present data in every format that I might prefer, compose beautiful music on-demand, self-diagose problems, and so forth, there will always be jobs for programmers. It'll take a bit for the market to adjust -- people and funding have to move around a bit -- but the fact that there are good open source instances of an office suite, web browser, and kernel is not going to induce starvation in the masses of programmers out there.
May we never see th
We have the richest man in the USA who can't really talk about anything except maintaining the intellectual property rules that made him rich. There are a lot of alternative ways to fund innovation-prizes like the Methuselah Mouse and Xprize come to mind. Gates has the money to be a serious force changing the human condition-but I see little evidence that he's really serious about acting in that direction.
Paul is not only well liked, but when he dontates to some cause, it does not come with strings attached. All of BG's donatations has strings attached. I had to laugh when they were donating computers to Libraries. I saw some here in colorado as well as at Denver Meusuem. They are all low-end that were bought in mass bulk and probably cost BG ~200 (monitor and all). Then they have the place buy several hundred dollars worth of MS software. Drug fix anyone?
OTOH, Paul has donated billions as well, but he typically has no strings attached. What's more, he has always been forward looking. After starting MS, he chased the cable companies in early 1990's. Now, he is chasing space. The man is pure genius.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
The one thing I've noticed is that the VB6 devs are still using VB6 and the C++/Win32/MFC guys are still doing C++/Win32/MFC. .NET is really about fighting in a new programming market that was created/pioneered by Java.
Must Consult Someone Else
Lessee...
At work, we tried moving to a heterogeneous MS network: Windows Server 2003 with some legacy NT 4 servers (because the applications couldn't be migrated). Several thousand wasted people-hours later, they found out that they either had to turn off the "useful" features of 2003 or upgrade the NT boxes and re-develop the applications on them.
MS has never provided painless upward compatibility. But at least with Open Source, I can keep the older version alive for as long as I need to. And more importantly, someone can create a business just to support that old version. Oh wait, that's Open Source creating WEALTH and EMPLOYMENT!!
I wish people could realise that Microsoft's business model has suppressed jobs in the industry and suppressed the growth of the markets they "compete" in. In Microsoft's world, only a small cadre of programmers in their employ would create the world's software and the limit would be the amount of software Microsoft could crank out per annum. In our Open Source world, the market's only limit is the number of available people to do the work.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
MS has been harping on that OSS is more expensive the its products for years now. The only reason this can be is BECAUSE YOU HAVE TO EMPLOY PEOPLE TO ADMINISTER / INSTALL IT. These people must also (nearly always) be local to the business in question. Now we hear that it kills jobs. Both can't be true. Sure you could arue that there are less developers and more administrators but even thats a pretty flaky argument.
"Macs threaten the livelihood of IT staffs. If you recommend purchasing a computer that requires only half the support of the machine it is replacing, aren't you putting your job in danger? Exactly."
This is such rubbish. The company I work for are convincing our clients, one by one, to upgrade their Windows9x PCs to Windows2000/XP. Why? Because it doesn't break so easily, which means we're out there less often to fix it, which means they save money. And this has proven successful. We've cut the time we spend supporting in half in most cases.
So our clients save money, and don't loose anywhere as much time to computer related problems. And what about us? We have more time on hands, so we're supporting almost twice as many clients as before.
If I had my way all my clients would be running Macs with OSX. Considering how little trouble they give, and with each client signing a support contract, I'd barely have to work at all.
Win-win situation I would say.
sigaar
On one hand he says that the TCO of a Windows server is lower because it requires fewer admins to manage/maintain.
Then he comes out and states with equal fervor that Open Source (read: Linux) causes the loss of jobs.
So, which is it, Mr. Billy Boy? You can't have it both ways.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
The sad thing is that most of these open source developers are employed as closed source developers. It's how they pay their bills. By devaluing their profession they are slowly putting themselves out of business. When they can no longer find paid developer work what are they going to do then? Support their open source projects by working at Starbucks for $7 an hour? Working on Open Source is self destructive and stupid unless you live in a communist economy.
Do you also consider Communism a "technological improvement" with "improved efficiency"? Soon a good day as an open source developer will be same as a good day as a citizen of Communist Russia: 7th in line for bread in a light drizzle.
The greatest thing open source could do is reduce this whining thief to an aged cranky old bastard that gets to watch his all-important fortune and gratuitous self importance fade, fade, fade in the face of freedom and justice.
Every time you use open source, God kills a kitten! Think of the kittens,
Open source just seems to be a more efficient way of developing software in many cases, otherwise, it wouldn't be getting so popular. And, yes, like other more efficient production methods of the past (mechanized agriculture, factories, robotics, etc.), it kills jobs. Like, for example, jobs at Microsoft. It's always unfortunate when people lose their jobs, but they can usually get new ones. Overall, the economy is better off. In fact, in times of technological progress, job losses are usually more than made up for by gains in other areas.
If we only tried to optimize our economy for job creation, we could just have people crush rocks or copy books by hand, like people used to. But that's just not a very efficient way of using our human resources, so we aren't doing it. Well, it's the same with 20th century software development models in the 21st century. Sorry, but the days where someone could get fabulously rich with writing a BASIC interpreter in 8bit assembly language are simply over.
Yeah, it's like saying that painting your house white doesn't guarantee that the roof won't leak.
I think what he's trying to say is that there's no one to hold responsible for any shortcomings in OS code, but afaict that's more true of consumer-grade commercial software than Open Source. Both tend to include "no fault" disclaimers, but you can usually get in contact with the actual developers of Open Source code, or find new ones to do your bidding.
So I guess it's more like saying that keeping around blueprints, tools, and spare roofing materials doesn't guarantee that your roof won't leak.
fVck you!!!
If you are looking at IIS, Exchange, Outlook, and IE, then MS is right. They have created a great deal more jobs than all of linux has of similar work. Think about Symantic, etc. There are a great number of jobs from all the anti-viral companies that will not have work if OSS takes over. OTH, they can simply convert to working at companies that would be in operation iff they had not gotten so many worms/virus.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
American Jobs for American Workers. Stop this obscene betrayal of American Workers, led to believe that the IT revolution would change their lives, only to have the promise betrayed by their own government. UNIONS NOW! PROTECTIONS NOW!! Remember, it's your CHILDREN who will suffer from letting these predatory foreigners take your jobs, your homes, and your careers. DON'T TOLERATE THEM at work. Shun them and ostracize them and above all DON'T HIRE THEM. If you know of an illegal H1B report him immediately to the US. Department of Commerce. Find a lawyer and sue the company that you know hires them. I lost my home and my fortune because these vultures took my career away. Do what you have to do to stop them.
What Microsoft consistently (conveniently?) ignores about the software world is that for the overwhelming majority of businesses, software is an expense-- not a profit center. Reducing this cost increases the amount that a business can spend on other things (like salaries or R&D). Software development is a miniscule portion of the total economy and it's reduction isn't going to cause a collapse.
God is imaginary
It could just as easily be argued that the IBM-PC for whom Mr. Gates' company creates software has killed thousands of draughtsman & engineering jobs with the advent of CAD and computer-controlled lathes, for example.
Sure, it's unfortunate that many skilled people have been replaced by computers but those very same people want their cheap electronics goods & mass-produced household items.
Gates' is being a total hypocrite here - on one hand he wants to head an organisation that produces software to make our lives easier (thereby taking work away from somebody else) but when it affects the jobs in his scope of business, it's a different story.
When all said and done, the great thing about this issue is that Gates' has no other weapon than words to fight with - with all his billions in the bank, he is almost totally powerless.
Ultimately, the world, not Gates, will decide whether Open Source or commercial software is the future - although I believe it will always be a combination of both. That can only mean it's good for the consumer because the commercial software houses will need to fight for the remaining commercial software space which has to mean better quality & cheaper products for all of us.
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
Just playing devil's advocate
I think what he is saying is that open source has a free (As in beer) workforce. Many of the contributers to open source have professional software jobs by day, and do open source by night. If open source replaces commercial CSS, then what happens to people's day job? Open source doesn't pay the bills.
Taken to the extreme, if there is no commercial software, you remove a level of paying software jobs. Nobody would get paid to create programs, just by individual companies for customization.
Widespread adoption of OSS will be a boon to the world. Just like any disruptive idea, it will cause problems, unemployement, etc; but overall it will help humanity and the spread of information.
D6 63 0D 70 89 81 BB 8E 7B 7C 5F 5D 54 EA AB 73
Didn't M$ just cut a billion bucks out of their budget last week? Ands what of all of their recent layoffs? Is this how a 'closed source' company saves us from the 'evils' of open source software??? :)
-Cnik
So you tried moving your whole network over without testing these applications on Windows Server 2003 beforehand? Seems like you could have avoided wasting several thousand people-hours and sounds kind of stupid to me.
But hey - good idea to tell your boss that it was Microsoft's fault to avoid getting fired.
How can a developer support the notion of giving away his work ? I don't hear of calls for - Coke to release the formula for Coca-Cola
- Calvin Klien to release the formula for Obsession - The Colonel to relase his 11 secret herbs & spices So why as developers should we give away our work.
WTF is that?
First: what is a software architect? I've never seen that term anywhere in the years I've been in the university.
Second: I can't believe that most people can't get it right.... Bill gates knows squat about software development, he might know about business, finance, how to illegally use a monopoly, but about software....zero, zip, nothing, nada!
It's unbelievable how many times I've told people that BG is just a successful businessman and not a computer science genius. And people calling him like that does not help.
Doesn't this thing happens to you all the time?
(Sorry about the rant, I needed to vent that)
GPG 0x1B479C78
You can still buy guns, you know! Go ahead! Make those low-life pay! We'll be behind you 110%!
Cheers,
e.
Tongue only slightly in cheek:
Open Source is like offshoring of jobs:
As the globalization advocates never tire of telling everyone, offshoring may cost some jobs in the US (or other corporate home country) in the short run, but in the long run creates more jobs because the cost reductions create more profits, hence more investment, hence more new economic activity, hence more jobs.
Similarly with Open Source... developing OS software may cost some jobs in the short run, but in the long run it will lower costs for all other industries which can now use cheaper, better software and will have lower costs in developing new software because of increased re-usability. Hence more profits for everyone (except MS, but in the big picture of economics even MS is only a drop in the bucket), hence more investment, hence more new economic activity, hence more jobs.
Colin Png, director for Developer and Platform Evangelism, ...
That just struck me, although it's not really news. Hire someone to be evangelic about your platform? At least that's another thing the Free software community can do infinitely better, infinitely more honestly, and without having to pay or coerce anybody into doing it.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
Is Gates trying to say that with Open Source Software, you can do the same things with less employees?
That's the first intelligent thing he's said on the subject.
The ______ Agenda
It's true. Open Source does kill jobs, but what he failed to mention is that it specifically kills Microsoft jobs!
IMHO. Open Source requires more highly skilled workers but in less quantity.
---------
This space for rent. Call 1-800-SIGADVT to place your ad.
If it takes fewer people to make quality open source software than it does to make quality closed source software, then Open Source development, by definition, must be more efficient. It uses fewer resources, and lowers cost.
Sounds like he's busy complementing Open Source / Free Software and he doesn't even know it.
--- It is not the things we do which we regret the most, but the things which we don't do.
I really like the term "Gnomes of Redmond", it describes better than most phrases exactly what is going on here.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
yeah, microsoft destroys computers, which gives me a job for repairing them.
"goodbye and hello, as always" ~Prince Corwin, from Zelazny's Amber series
I think that the interesting thing in this situation is the fact that programmers in general seem to be in favor of OSS, unlike the textile workers that protested massively over being made unemployed...
Programmers don't have any union organisations... We don't seem to care that we are making each other unemployed... At some level, Bill Gates is right - OSS is killing jobs - not jobs in general, but programming jobs.
I myself am an OSS advocate because my heart tells me to be so, but my brain tells me: shut up and your web development business will get more clients - building a web shop will give me at leat 200 work hours, while installing OScommerce takes maybe 10...
Wow... it is now official - I have defended Bill Gates... please mod Ziggamon2.0 down to hell just as his predecessor.
Bourgeois scum!
You have the luxury of doing for free what others must do to support themselves and their families.
It is you who are to blame.
Instead of sipping tea in your luxurious mansion, you should be stripped of it and the funds used to employ those who will be grateful for the work.
Cringly's full of S#$T.
The fact is that the Mac, prior to OS X, is adequate for most company tasks, but has major problems of its own (remote manageability being the first, and technical things like memory management being a second). In the end it doesn't require just half the effort -- it probably decreases the efficiency of the IT department sufficiently to make it impractical.
With OS X, things improved on all fronts quite drastically. However....
I see no reason why OS X should take any less time than Linux to support and
Macs cost much more than Linux systems.
Secondly, I think you make an excellent point about maintenance of Windows vs Linux systems. Windows requires much more maintenance on average, and and by all accounts has more downtime than Linux.
My point of trying to get my customers to switch to Linux is that they become free to dream about how they want their computer to work for them, not the other way around.
Also, the people making the recommendations are not the ones whose jobs are at risk if jobs are to be cut.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
Their current dividends are basically meaningless. They're "token" dividends meant to keep investors complacent. The unofficial rule is that a publicly traded company is to retain profits for the purpose of increasing corporate growth in the near future (e.g. new hires, purchases, etc.) and as a security reserve (e.g. to cover lawsuits). Any money which is saved just for the sake of saving is supposed to be given to investors as dividends. That's the purpose of dividends: to share profit. Microsoft witheld profits for over a decade and their dividends today barely touch the $50 billion they have saved up.
What are those savings for? To buy a small nation? To buy all the companies left in the software industry? To buy another industry? To buy favor with government officials? They're not spending it, so it's owed to investors.
Developers: We can use your help.
Mod parent up, they really do have a good 3rd person view of what's going down.
Photoshop an old anti-communism poster replacing the red scare with open source. Difficulty: This isn't Fark.
The shame is that you and others have the luxury of doing for free what others would be grateful to do to provide food and healthcare for themselves and their families.
No, comrade. Your luxury and excess will be stripped of you and redistributed to those more deserving.
That you have such luxury when others have such hardship is the surest sign of your wicked exploitation of your brothers and sisters.
It is the inevitable end of all history.
Workers of the world unite!
Longhorn will break no more compatability than Windows XP did. All the Win32 calls are still valid.
-]Phreak Out[-
I completely agree. But there's a bigger reason why they're missing the boat this time. Unlike other technologies, products, and services they've missed (or came late to) in the past, this one's a whole different business model. They're very slowly moving to become somewhat of a service company, but they still believe their core business should be the sale of software. Jumping onto the open source boat would mean abandoning their entire business model and dropping most of their profit machine.
They are missing the boat completely this time. It's partly from fear of becoming another IBM and partly from fear of abandoning what's worked so well for them for the past 20 years.
Developers: We can use your help.
... I must state the OSS in fact *PAYS* for my job, not the other way round.
;)
I think there are about 30 webservers hosting a few hundred domains and some specialized dynamic programs that are all powered by Linux and Apache/PHP/MySQL.
This would be (nearly) impossible without OSS, and so, my job would be, too.
Thanks, OSS. Of course I give a fair trade by maintaining my own small OSS project at sf.net
every time a story comes up about India "stealing" jobs. Or when companies hire lots of young adults out of College.
Judging from the one-sided moderation, I guess Slashdot is fully behind the idea of companies dumping high paid workers and shifting work over to where labor is cheaper. After all, it's not about who is being paid or what they're being paid. It's about getting a product out. According to the majority of Slashdot users apparently the product is more important than the livlihood of those who make it.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
It's really called "Open Source Kills Jobs at Microsoft"
I do understand the point. And I have read the GPL and newer versions; BSD too. Not that it has sunk in ;-)
I could get torched on this. But I gotta ask. What really happens if you fork some code, with one re-use license (BSD just for example) make modifications and then paste a different re-use license on it then use it? That is a licensing violation and "piracy" in the software sense. But truly, what is the legal recourse? The previous licensor, if aware of the violation, could send a cease-and-desist letter to the new licensee. I do not think you could recover monetary damages or really force the issue.
Have you Meta Moderated t
Gate's right.
Ahh, the smell of selfish capitalism. Gotta love it.
This sig is intentionally left blank
Forget arguing about gates, do something to fight him, like boycott hotmail/msn. Create your own programs in OSS.
Yea, and all those Microsoft security bugs are a hugely successful jobs program for sysadmins.
Maybe someone should tell Bill that bugs in Microsoft software makes the world economy less efficient and that costs lots of jobs.
-Mike
Open source software lowers capital barriers to market entry.
Proprietary software vendors will not create jobs for Americans:
So, ON THE WHOLE, OSS expedites job creation, MSFT et al. do not.When I had this discussion with MSFTie Rob Scoble, he wrote:
And I replied: Q.E.D.MS has been sending programming jobs overseas since the 80's before open source software was readily available to the masses.
every one of my jobs was to program with open source tools, everyday
if what gates says is true , shouldnt i be homeless?
back in the day we didnt have no old school
Microsoft... just shut up. People are realising that you and your views are full of shit. Shut up and die already. Death to Micro$oft. Long Live Linux!!!
We could employ more programmers if we only wrote in assembly, or even better hex!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
Open Source is turning programmers into street performers. Slashdot complains every time jobs are given to younger cheaper labor or to other countries but Open Source, which allows anyone who wants to work for FREE, is perfectly great. Apparently it's okay to cut costs and cut labor as long as it's because of Open Source.
The company I work for could have paid me or other people thousands to develop a project management tool. But the nice people who made dotProject did it for free and put it under a very nice license that doesn't violate my right to do what I want with my own code. All we had to do then was spend under 300 hours tweaking it and adding features to work the way we wanted it to work.
Next time you complain about India or some wet eared college grad taking your jobs consider how many of those very same people are working on Open Source products for no pay at all.
It takes significantly less skill to maintain a product than it does to create it. Anyone can maintain and troubleshoot Windows without knowing a single line of code used to run it. You don't need to be an engineer to do maintenance on your car. It's also far easier to understand code that has already been written than to write it in the first place.
I couldn't have written Wolf5K without spending a lot of time on it. But in a few days I've deobfuscated the code and understand exactly how it works. Tutorials are being posted on it at my JavaScript 3D site.
Most people need to eat. Until Open Source becomes compatible with that notion it's going to be used very sparingly by companies looking to cut the fat but not the people. Why spend $200 for Windows when Linux works just as well in the situation? But if choosing Linux meant several workers had nothing to do any more then it's a tougher call. It's worth spending money for software when you can justify people working.
"An entire infrastructure for a business, city, or government is not going to run itself and generate no jobs just because the development of the software itself was done for free."
If people aren't motivated (money) or have the time to code then things aren't going to get done. I can't think of too many Open Source products which have gotten on par with the closed source counterparts in anywhere near the same time frame as the original product was created.
100 people working 1 hour each does not equal 1 person working 100 hours.
It's takes a lot of dedication and time to build large scale products. No amount of people are going to write the database front end for a bank and no bank is going to wait 10 years for it to be completed. It's much more cost efficient to pay a group of dedicated people lots of money to get it done in a short time frame. The bank has a job to do. It can't wait for freelancers to get around to getting a complete product finished.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
I know of a few folks currently working at M$. From what I hear, they are working at a burn-out pace all the time. Management always refuse to hire despite being the most financially stacked software company in the world. If anything M$ should stop buying out little companies, cause that can destroy jobs and competitions too.
If you read /. with any regularity, you will hear two really strongly held beliefs.
1) Open source is good for everyone. That developers need to realise that theirs is no longer a specialized skill, and that the jobs lost to open source can be somewhat offset with contracting/support, and that it leaves more money for business to spend elsewhere...so all in all, the jobs lost to open source is a good things
and...
2) Jobs lost to india are bad!
Same outcome guys...job losses in local IT markets, more money for companies to spend elsewhere...and the creation of local support/customization markets.
Make up your mind eh
"Open Source Kills Jobs"
-- Bill Gates, 2004
"You shouldn't get overly paranoid thinking that Microsoft's a broad competitor and it's not possible to work with us."
-- Bill Gates, 1997
"The Internet? We are not interested in it"
-- Bill Gates, 1993
"I believe OS/2 is destined to be the most important operating system, and possibly program, of all time."
-- Bill Gates - OS/2 Programmer's Guide 1988
"The next generation of interesting software will be made on a Macintosh,
not an IBM PC."
-- 1984
"640 Kilobyte ought to be enough for anybody."
-- Bill Gates, 1981
"Microsoft programs are generally bug-free."
-- Bill Gates, on code stability, from Focus Magazine
But that won't stop anybody (unless your a shrimper). The market works out toward the greatest effeciency, so this is just saying open source is the most effecient method of writing software. The jobs lost will just have to find other more meaningful and relevant work.
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
I run UltimateTracker on dosBox, which is really easy to install and works usually better than windows' DOS emulation.
Bill Gates Cries into his beer again, look at what he said last time, instead of reading "hobbyists" read "open source developers" and for "BASIC" read "Software" ...
AN OPEN LETTER TO HOBBYISTS
By William Henry Gates III
February 3, 1976
An Open Letter to Hobbyists
To me, the most critical thing in the hobby market right now is the lack of
good software courses, books and software itself. Without good software and
an owner who understands programming, a hobby computer is wasted. Will
quality software be written for the hobby market?
Almost a year ago, Paul Allen and myself, expecting the hobby market to
expand, hired Monte Davidoff and developed Altair BASIC. Though the initial
work took only two months, the three of us have spent most of the last year
documenting, improving and adding features to BASIC. Now we have 4K, 8K,
EXTENDED, ROM and DISK BASIC. The value of the computer time we have used
exceeds $40,000.
The feedback we have gotten from the hundreds of people who say they are
using BASIC has all been positive. Two surprising things are apparent,
however, 1) Most of these "users" never bought BASIC (less than 10% of all
Altair owners have bought BASIC), and 2) The amount of royalties we have
received from sales to hobbyists makes the time spent on Altair BASIC worth
less than $2 an hour.
Why is this? As the majority of hobbyists must be aware, most of you steal
your software. Hardware must be paid for, but software is something to share.
Who cares if the people who worked on it get paid?
Is this fair? One thing you don't do by stealing software is get back at MITS
for some problem you may have had. MITS doesn't make money selling software.
The royalty paid to us, the manual, the tape and the overhead make it a
break-even operation. One thing you do do is prevent good software from being
written. Who can afford to do professional work for nothing? What hobbyist
can put 3-man years into programming, finding all bugs, documenting his
product and distribute for free? The fact is, no one besides us has invested
a lot of money in hobby software. We have written 6800 BASIC, and are writing
8080 APL and 6800 APL, but there is very little incentive to make this
software available to hobbyists. Most directly, the thing you do is theft.
What about the guys who re-sell Altair BASIC, aren't they making money on
hobby software? Yes, but those who have been reported to us may lose in the
end. They are the ones who give hobbyists a bad name, and should be kicked
out of any club meeting they show up at.
I would appreciate letters from any one who wants to pay up, or has a
suggestion or comment. Just write to me at 1180 Alvarado SE, #114,
Albuquerque, New Mexico, 87108. Nothing would please me more than being able
to hire ten programmers and deluge the hobby market with good software.
Bill Gates
General Partner, Micro-Soft
'[Open source] doesn’t guarantee upward compatibility.
.doc with every upgrade so the old versions can't red new files. Then everyone has to upgrade.
If the last 7 versions of Word are 100% compatible, I'll kiss Gates ass on the Capitol steps during the Inauguration on Jan. 20, 2005.
Lets revise
Professional Politicians are not the solution, they ARE the problem.
"If you recommend purchasing a computer that requires only half the support of the machine it is replacing, aren't you putting your job in danger? Exactly."
I usually agree with Cringely, but he's way off here. If you replace Windows with something requires half the support, you free resources to provide new and improved services in other areas.
Cringely is assuming that there is a fixed amount of services and support that can ever exist, and that IT departments have reached that peak. I can understand his error since when you're running Windows, you will never have the time or manpower to exceed a very minimal standard of services. You're so busy cleaning up after Windows when it shits all over itself and your data that improving the departmental offerings isn't even an option.
I talked my boss (actually Windows did the honor all by itself) into replacing Windows/IIS/ASP (which is all that dual-processor box did -- serve web pages) with Linux/Apache/PHP when Windows died for the millionth time, and the results were an eye-opener for the entire department. The Windows box pegged both processors at 100% after only a few simultaneous users connected to the web site, while the Linux box will sit largely idle with 50 or so simultaneous web connections).
Uptimes measured in hours under Windows turned (on the exact same, unmodified hardware) into 11 months (which is when the network card fried) under Linux.
I later added samba for file and print serving, and a PostgreSQL database for a variety of web related activities.
The former Windows web server required two of us programmers (because the techs are always busy fixing Windows problems) to babysit on an almost continuous basis. I now manage the web server (and two other highly utilized Linux servers) myself whenever I get a free couple minutes.
My time has since been spent creating new software services for my 600 internal users and the thousands of visitors that visit our web site every day.
My point is that there will -always- be higher levels of services that a department can offer when its people are not buried under trivial nonsense like constantly changing baby Windows' diaper.
If the place he works for is like a lot of places it was probably the boss that insisted on moving the whole network over without testing, or at least insisted on moving the whole network and refused to provide the necessary budget, time and manpower to do the testing. Its rarely the IT staff that makes boneheaded decisions like that. That kind of thing is almost always imposed by the PHBs.
Although he failed to properly qualify it...
Open Source kills [Microsoft] jobs.
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
But default installations of his company's closed-source software kills systems.
Which creates jobs for people who fix systems.
I think Slashdot could really help with job creation. Every day, throw rocks through 5-10 windows. By the end of the year, we will have created millions of jobs in the window building industry. Granted, 10-20% of our economy will be window building, and everyone will be spending 10 to 20% of their money replacing windows, but we'll all have jobs!
Cheaper is only bad for people who used to provide the same thing for more money. In the case of Open Source, that's Microsoft.
paintball
After all, could anyone working at Microsoft be named after an OPEN SOURCE network diagnostic utility?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
By your matrix, however, the US has even deeper ties with al-Qaeda than Iraq ever had (seeing as how the US originally funded Osama bin Laden and his mujahedeen). The commissions found that there were contacts, but no substantive or ongoing relationship of any kind (despite Cheney's blathering to the contrary). One of the main "ties" claimed was that Mohammed Atta met with an Iraq intelligence agent in Prague shortly before the 9/11 attack; the 911 Commission found that impossible due to the overwhelming evidence that Atta was still inside the US in the weeks wherein the supposed meeting took place. In fact, the 911 Commission invited Cheney to explain these "facts" he claimed they didn't have; two weeks later nothing was produced so they went ahead with their original findings.
The recent US policy towards Iraq had everything to do with WMDs and the possibility of them finding their way into terrorist (read: al-Qaeda) hands. This is now revealed as an untruth (read: a lie).
If invading Iraq was an attempt at stopping Panislamic radicalism, that policy is UTTERLY FAILED, as the terrorism problem (both inside Iraq and out) has gotten worse since the occupation began.
The whole "human rights" excuse came into being only after it was discovered that WMDs didn't exist. That was a convenient (yet laughable) CYA move by the Bush administration.
The world economy is indeed neck-deep in the Middle East, but intentionally destabilizing a country controlling the world 2nd-largest oil reserve is about the stupidest move anyone could imagine.
The rest of your juvenile, ill-informed diatribe was apparently culled directly from the RNC website, showing your utter lack of intelligence and independent thought.
Nice try, sheep-boy, but the original poster was correct.
They would always like to lower the cost of their labor, and maintain the same prices, i.e. more profit.
Or in some cases, lower their prices to be more attracitve than their competition.
Both of these forces would be at work, even if Open Source software did not exist.
Also, these firms can use open source software themselves, and thus lower the cost of doing business as well.
------
vi +
...Microsoft .Net Money 2005 will be leaner?
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
No, this is about freedom. I'm as happy to big dumb companies hire Indian as I am about code from India being in free software. What I'm not happy about is big dumb companies that get bogus patents so that others, including free software writers, CAN NOT compete. Idiots like Bill Gates think they should "own" the IP behind software so that you and I have to pay him everytime we want to use any computer. He'd be just as happy to give "ownership" of the common screw to some big dumb company. Slavery of ideas means slavery of everything else and not being able to compete, regardless of price or technical merit.
Got it yet? Read it again if you have to.
Good. Now you might understand why people consider posts like yours flamebait.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Ah, well... when they do bring in .NET as "the" application development platform of choice, I doubt they will throw away Win32. But they'll advise that people don't use it, and if someone comes up with a legitimate API which Win32 had and they need to use, MS will probably incorporate it into some .NET API.
In the long run though, strategies like .NET should be able to assure better forwards and perhaps even backwards compatibility (hey, Java managed it.) They could completely change the entire native API underneath the .NET runtime, and applications would still work.
Hopefully, assuming Microsoft don't behave like fucktards, this will give us cross-compatibility with Mono and Portable.NET systems too, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. The odds are if Microsoft do start losing significant market share, that they'll just pull the rug out from under Mono and its ilk. :-(
Karma: It's all a bunch of tree-huggin' hippy crap!
This is a great example of a falicy being used as a premise. Is software supposed to sustain jobs? Not any more! Programming is like the new digital landscaping. Everyone can do it, they just need to be willing to get a little dirty. This is the same drum as the whole social security system. Quick! Everyone pay for needless crap so we can all have fake jobs! Come on! It'll be fun, we can raise kids in this false world and tell them they have to make it work!
-Digital Extremist
After all he did write one program, by translating some open source software (BASIC) to a popular home computer system, using someone else's hardware resources...
OS X takes less time to support than Linux because it's un*x-based (therefore stable) and the primary interface of the system is a GUI, not a CLI (by definition making it easier to administer).
- different-spot-on-another-system text-based configuration file is edited, not by hand, but via a GUI. Instead of an IT staffer spending 4 hours figuring out what file they need to edit, and how to restart the services after editing on that particular box, they spend 15 minutes trying to find the GUI frontend, and then 30 seconds making the change, and the GUI handles restarting the service.
Every single cryptic arcane placed-in-one-spot-on-this-system-but-placed-in-a
BTW, ever priced out workstation-class hardware before? Linux systems are only cheaper if you use hardware that's not suited to the purpose you put them in. For the hobbyist, using a cheap POS system as a workstation or server is perfectly fine. In the real world, we can't suffer through problems caused by half-assed hardware. We require workstation-class features to work with the workstation-class hardware we're going to throw in the box (e.g. 64-bit PCI). We require our servers to be fscking servers, reliable hardware, bulletproof hardware, with the feature set to work with the hardware that we're going to stick in them.
An off-the-shelf Soyo motherboard isn't going to cut it, boyo. Once you throw all the cheap hardware out of the equation, the prices get much more in line.
Gates' arguement makes about as much sense as saying Libraries will destroy Bookstores. I mean why would people pay money to buy a book if they can read it for free?
The reason is the same reason why Open and Closed Source software will always be around: value. Both software camps offer something of value.
The value proposition of close source generally offers idiot-proof installation with an army of monkeys taking support calls in case you get stuck.
Open source offers the opportunity to get your hands greasy under the hood, to make software do what you want. But you gotta have the time and desire to put into it.
Gates is not a fool, but he is a slave. He is forced to be the puppet that he is because Microsoft is a two trick pony (Windows and Office). His shareholders and his employees need him to defend the only solid revenue they got, because as history has shown he can't seem to make anything else work.
Ruby on Rails Screencast
A Microsoft OS that can be secured by anyone who is not a dumbass?
You must be somkeing some of that crack that Daryl has over at SCO!
If it weren't for open source, I would be unemployed right now.
Maybe you hadn't noticed that IBM completely remade itself. IBM is about services, not hardware or software (both of which they sell). IBM fully backs the open source movement on several fronts, and strongly sells Linux into corporate accounts where it makes sense. IBM is willing to go to the mat for open source (ie. spend money in the courtroom).
I don't see Microsoft behaving like IBM at all.
As you have posted this nasty little flame about Indian labor more than once here, I'll go ahead and link my answer.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
try reading my post again. Then try responding with something that has anything to do with.
Got it? Good. Now you understand why your post has zero relavence.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
One time I attended a speech given by ESR, when he asked the programmers to raise their hands - almost everyone in the auditorium raised their hands, when he asked how many worked for a "commercial" software company rather than in house - I'd say less than 25% raised their hands. I think that says it all about the job picture right there.
One of MS's biggest vulnerabilities is that the financial model for the company has always been based on revenue growth and zero control of costs. When growth stops, the model will collapse. We're already seeing that in Balmer's latest memo.
Not sure that it is so tied to growth. If it stops growing, but remains constant, then Microsoft's growth will come from new markets and will be slow.
The bigger problem is this: Microsoft has been so successful because no other proprietary software maker can touch them on scale. They can therefore leverage a huge economy of scale, sell their products at prices which make their competitors go bankrupt, and still make a profit. This works up to a point untill.....
You guessed it.... Free Software.
The problem with FLOSS is that it spreads the cost of development more efficiently than even Microsoft's model. Therefore, it has a much lower critical mass than Microsoft. Hence as the software beginst to grow, it undermines the scale which makes Microsoft competitive.
I used to work for Microsoft. Personally I think that they are not agile enough to come out of this with their business model in tact because they are too successful. They cannot just move to greener pastures like, say, Intuit. There are no greener pastures.
They will survive no doubt, but not as the company they are today. Expect to see them go through an extremely painful transition resembling the finest medieval torture techniques.... What comes out may not resemble what went in....
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
is still stupid. Linking to it again makes it no less irrelavent and unrelated to anything I said.
If you can't see the blantent hyprocicy of complaining about shipping jobs overseas while hailing Open Source then that's your problem.
It has nothing to do with patents no matter how much your thick skull won't let you comprehend it.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Jeez! its such a flawed logic. Think about it, closed source software is virtual suicide when you have players like Microsoft in todays market. If you have a good idea you will either be ripped off by Microsoft, Bought by Microsoft; Or just die of natural causes leaving your customers without any line of support or future in the software. Open source however ensures longevity; extensibility and this increases availability of source and so forth.
Open source also creates a need for skilled workers and in addition a wondrous array of tools and applications both to use and examine(source code anyone?). Its a lot easier for anyone to get the tools and learn how to use them than to do the same with closed source.
Closed source however reduces choice, makes development less accessible, and makes it more expensive to set-up shop.
It is complete and utter fud. How many jobs have been created through Open Source? All those ISP's running Apache services they are running well over half the Web (netcraft link anyone?) Then what about IBM, Red-Hat, Apple, Sony, Motorola, Sharp the list goes on and there are whole service industries based around open source. Its not just about the programmers, but the Hardware, the Software, the Support, Technicians all the way up and down the chain!
Its crap Bill and you know it!
Electronic Music Made Using Linux http://soundcloud.com/polyp
Gates says Open-Source kills kittens! And Babies! THINK OF THE BABIES!!!!!
not fewer working on the project.
It takes a heck of a lot more people working part time to get something done than dedicated employed people working full time. Frankly it's better for the economy if companies are employing people rather than looking for free labor.
There have been numerous stories of programming jobs being shipped overseas to India and most high rated comments are complaining about it. Now companies are cutting workers and milking free source and that's perfectly okay. It takes significantly less time to figure out how a BSD licensed piece of code works and use it and modify it than it does to write that piece of code from scratch.
Hours do not translate directly from part time to full time. 100 part time hours are less efficient that 100 full time hours. 1 full time employee working 100 hours is going to get far more done than 100 people working 1 hour when they feel like it.
"What he's advocating is creating a false economy of software and 'technology' by having a hideously ineffective development and business process."
The economy has always been fake. The world works based on the making and selling of crap that nobody really needs so they can have money to buy things they do need. But if we didn't buy it, lots of people would starve.
Nobody needs makeup (okay that's debatable) but if everybody made it for free and expected to get it for free they'd have no money to pay for their house or food.
If you want to talk about a "real" economy then I guess we should all go back to a world where you cut down your own trees for shelter and grow your own food and you have absolutely nothing you can't provide for yourself. Otherwise you would be forced to make "junk" to barter for something worthwhile which is a "fake" economy.
Anybody who watches the stock market knows how fake the economy is.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Poor Steve...
It doesn't matter whether what Bill said is true or not. It only matter that people will believe it, and that's all he wants: people will have the idea that MS is upward compatible.
well if I had a nickle for every /. comment that has the words "i am unemployed" in the text....I could get a nice dell with xp installed. so maybe he is on to something.
on the other hand maybe those people are just "too good" to do the mind numbing web scripting and j2ee tasks that the rest of us are doing now days?
(+1 Funny) only if I laugh out loud.
OS X takes less time to support than Linux because it's un*x-based (therefore stable) and the primary interface of the system is a GUI, not a CLI (by definition making it easier to administer).
- different-spot-on-another-system text-based configuration file is edited, not by hand, but via a GUI. Instead of an IT staffer spending 4 hours figuring out what file they need to edit, and how to restart the services after editing on that particular box, they spend 15 minutes trying to find the GUI frontend, and then 30 seconds making the change, and the GUI handles restarting the service.
WTF???? I think you have immediately shown me you don't know what you are talking about.
I suspect that Linux and OS X have similar levels of stability given reasonable quality hardware.
But the bit about the CLI vs GUI strikes me as extremely odd, and suggests to me that you don't do any real administration of networks, servers, etc. Two points about it:
1) With X11-based systems (NOT OS X apps not based on X11), I can run them on any system and export the display to any other system. If I have to use GUI tools for administration (which I generally avoid), this means I don't have to walk down the hall to reconfigure a server which happens to be in another location (or drive across town, if they are in different buildings).
2) More importantly, although a GUI allows one to be more productive with things like reading reports, graphs, etc. it isn't so great for being productive while telling the computer to do something relatively complex. The reason is that the density of information which an admin can send to the computer via a keyboard is MUCH higher than can be had with a mouse. This allows for optimal administration, scripting, etc. but the computer cannot provide you with as much information as it can with a GUI. Therefore although GUIs are really nice for office apps, they are miserably inefficient at actual administration.
Every single cryptic arcane placed-in-one-spot-on-this-system-but-placed-in-a
If companies are going to avoid standardizing their platforms, then they get what they get. OTOH, with any sort of standardization, you don't have the problem you are suggesting.
Also, I have NEVER spent 4 hours trying to figure out how to edit the configuration of any software which I was even marginally familiar with. And restarting a service is really simple assuming people properly set up scripts for this in the init.d directory.
Also, what do you need out of a workstation?
Most employees need to run Word, Excel, Outlook (so I recommend Evolution and OpenOffice on Linux). WTF do you need 64-bit PCI busses for? Nearly all of this work is done in the CPU.
If I want a really rugged workstation (not a server), I usually budget about 1000 to 1500.
For graphics design or technical workstations you may need more hardware, but if you want you can be selective on these matters.
Regarding downtime, here are a few facts:
1) My firewall runs on an acer advantage, pentium 1, low-end hardware. Average time between reboots: 6 months to a year or more.
2) My intranet server runs a slightly modified Red Hat 7.1. Runs databases, email, intranet web servers, and jabber. When I was a hobbiest and used to play games on it I would reboot it at least once a week due to a bad video card driver. Now that I am running my business off it, I run it headless, and it is usually several months between reboots.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
"Linux has a greater TCO than windows systems! use our windows systems and you need less admins and coders! And you don't need so well trained admins and coders, you can outsource the jobs!"
That's the jobs of admins...he claims a company needs to hire less people to maintain windows systems than they would to maintain linux systems.
"Linux and open source will take away your jobs!"
That's the jobs of developers. People that work for companies like microsoft that make their living off creating proprietary software.
The problem with Gates' arguments is that he forgets that people can change jobs. Many old professions no longer exist, but new professions were created to fill the void. For example, even if you take the two sentences above as true (which is not, really), those coders could take the jobs of the extra needed admins.
Come on, now he has to actually reduce prices and "innovate" since there is an alternative.
So now he's going to bad mouth Linux and OSS it like it's a rivial politico.
Cry me a river. Boo hoo. I'm tired of all this "feel sorry for me world" Microsoft has in the press these days. Grow up and make real software.
OK, probably not much point posting this deep into a thread, but here goes:
What the hell is wrong with losing jobs, so long as something is done to keep the general public's standard of living up? Everytime you lose a job to progress, that's less work that needs to be done. The problem with people is they can't think of a society in any other terms but economic. All anybody wants to know is how to get more money. Nobody ever asks the more important question behind that: how do we improve our standard of living?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The problem I see is when COBOL programmers start coding VB. Everything variable is in a working storage section and one subroutine does all of the work. VB is easy to learn and use but takes just as much work as any other language to write good code. High cohesion, low coupling, abstraction and encapsulation. You need to know what those are first intellectually and then intuitively.
Horrible VB code is still easier to extend and maintain than mediocre C++ code. And people can get things done on their own with VB, COM+ and MSDE unlike with J2EE where you would have to get the corporate web sphere advisory team to meet twice daily to second guess every design decision and call in the IBM rep to confirm their findings.
I have seen bad and good uses a lot of technologies. Technologies don't make bad code people do. You can even write modular structured maintainable programs in COBOL it's just that COBOL is the long hand version and a lot of COBOL programmers were assembler programmers so their COBOL is like assembler and does not take advantage of the language Same with COBOL programmers in VB. They make their VB programs look like COBOL.
So learn some Java, a little C++ and learn were it's strengths are and learn how to recreate those strengths using the technology you use.
I can not believe these technology bigots around here. If you know so much and you are so good then you should be able to make any technology work for you even if you have to jump through some hoops. The complaining just makes me believe the tech bigots aren't really as good as they act. This isn't college homework, you have a business system to write with the tools the boss gave you to use. Shut up and code already.
I drive through Gates..in my Toyota 4X4, brandishing a PowerBook..grinning 'cause it runs Yellow Dog- jambo! or maybe that's a Capital "J"
Innovation outside of Microsoft is his enemy, while in the past innovation outside of Microsoft which has been available has got it to where it is today. DOS, Excel, the TCP/IP implementation in Win32 all came from outside Microsoft, and the TCP/IP stack was open source software under the BSD licence. Microsoft have even packaged gcc with some of their development products in the past - and they did it in full compliance with the GPL.
It never was. There have always been Mathmaticians, Engineers etc doing it on a casual basis - it's a subset of science, and like all subsets technicians of all skill levels can exist once it becomes mature.If we need a monopoly to create jobs, then we don't deserve jobs.
...on the basis they hurt the economy?
Quick, stop everyone taking snapshots at a wedding because the wedding photographers will go out of business! Video cameras too! The MPAA is under threat! Movie sales will plummet as everyone watches home made flicks.
Stop everyone from learning to paint, because it will starve already starving artists.
Stop anyone from learning to cook, or cooking meals at home, because the chefs will go out of business.
Every kid in a garage band, quick arrest them before they put pro musicians out of business. (Ok there are a few people who might want to stop the crappy garage bands granted).
We need to license these things now before its too late! People may actually find fulfilment in their lives outside of work! Stop the madness.
What's the argument here? That MS is so bad it can't stand competition from dedicated hobbyists?
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
If you believe that,I have a worked out coal mine ready for habitation,too.
Geek Hillbilly
I, for one, say Cringley is wrong here. He's certainly not the first to make a comment about Macs being "dangerous to the status-quo in I.T." - but repeating it doesn't make it any more legitimate.
Here's why:
1. I.T. departments are always (but especially in the current economy) supposed to be adding "value" to the workplace in all of their endeavours. If a Mac is the best tool for the job and I.T. really believes it will cut support in half for that task, then I'd say the vast MAJORITY of I.T. workers would recommend it. In reality, the thing that caused loads of I.T. workers to lose their jobs was the perception that they spent far too much money on products and services that didn't offer enough payback to the company. (So in effect, the I.T. workers trying to preserve their jobs by only recommending things that "kept them busy" backfired on them when they couldn't show real cost savings/benefits.)
2. As any *good, functional* I.T. department can testify, there are always more things that can be done to make a company's computers easier to use and more useful to the other employees. More often than not, these things get pushed aside because I.T. is too busy "putting out fires" where the products they have in place keep crashing/misbehaving.
3. I love the Macintosh (I own 3 of them myself), but I also realize some of these claims of far reduced support needs should be taken with a grain of salt. Mac users tend to run only a relative handful of applications. (If you use a Mac for desktop publishing, for example, you probably spend most of your time in Quark Express or InDesign. You may never really do much else with it!) I also see Macs used in such places as dentists' offices, where they pretty much do nothing besides run a proprietary dental billing/records application. The typical Windows PC user tends to have a plethora of things installed, including lots of installing/uninstalling of demo/trialware apps - and of course, the tendency to play around with little games, screen savers, and the like they receive from friends in email or web links. When I see a Mac all loaded up with a variety of apps, I start to see odd issues, just like Windows PCs get. (Look at www.macfixit.com on any given day to see examples of some of this stuff! Lots of weird font corruption problems when people use 3rd. party font managers, etc. etc.)
"And I say your three cent titanium tax doesn't go to far enough!"
Seriously, anyone who *can't* see the similarities needs to look harder. They're no different. Both are simply trying to get more power for themselves. Neither are concerned about "America" other than the pesky "voting" thing in November. They seek victory, nothing more.
Me, I'm voting for Jack Johnson instead of John Jackson. (You know, the one who went to Yale and was in the Skull and Bones Society.)
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Not knowing much economics i have no idea if im talking crap or whatever but maybe there just inherently arn't enough jobs for everyone? What happens if/when we get to the stage where robotics and automation (some very small shell scripts) remove the need for most people to lift a finger? I know some jobs will always be around (unless we get AI!) But sooner or later we will get to the stage where we can all either go tan and have our robot servents do everything or have some serious economic crisis. What do the people who have no useful (in a money making way) purpose in life do if they make up 90% of the population?
This comment does not represent the views or opinions of the user.
He funded the ITAA : an inside the beltway lobbying firm run by Harris Miller dedicated to paying congressmen to vote for the H1-B program and for out-sourcing. Harris Miller was hired because he was good at getting more migrant farm workers into the country. Now this bastard Gates wants to moan about "jobs"? What a jerk!
Software's great defining attribute is it's shareability. Good software costs a lot to write, but almost nothing to reproduce and distribute. This is the attribute that the open source movement so efficiently exploits.
And by doing so, people do not have to keep reinventing the wheel, which means software systems can be built more efficiently. And this means we need less people to generate the same applications.
But this is a good thing. Remember the purpose of the software industry is not to employ programmers, but to provide functionality for computer users. If this can be done cheaper, faster, and better, society on the whole is richer for it.
But what about the all of those poor unemployed programmers? Well, two things might happen - one is that they go on to some other industry where their wealth-generating capability is put to better use. And that's a good thing.
Perversly, however, by increasing the (true) productivity of programmers, the demand for programmers may actually increase. Currently there is no shortage of challenging software applications - at least, not where I work. Open source will allow us to develop fancier and more difficult applications than we would otherwise take on.
Billy's arguments seem to assume that the applications we develop will be the same with or without open source. He should have a long talk with an economist.
I suspect that few OSS programmers would have to worry about antitrust law.
And what of people who like to program? How would you prohibit them from doing so? After all, noone complains if someone who likes to work with cars repaurs them cheaply.
Microsoft does not rest until it destroys its competitors, who then lay off workers. Microsoft can only employ so many people, and of course, it is shipping thousands of those few jobs overseas, particularly to India. Microsoft's monopoly has destroyed jobs.
In contrast, Open Source creates jobs for those who customize and support software in a competitive environment.
a "Get some priorities!" troll. Y'know, people on Slashdot are now saying things against open source SOLELY FOR THE PURPOSE of getting the "woo-hoo-i'm-not-a-zealot-so-i'll-call-this-insigh tful" moderation.
Of course, it depends on where you work.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
If not for open source technologies, I would not have a job.
Because of my exprience in Linux, Apache, MySQL, PHP, Perl and various other technologies, I have a job at a company that uses these technologies exclusively. And the company is able to be competitive because it doesn't have to pay all of those licensing fees that would have to be paid if we used Windows Servers running IIS, ASP, SQL server, etc...
And of course, the entire internet runs on technologies that are open to everyone, http, tcp/ip, ftp, ssl, etc... many businesses would not exist if not for open source technologies.
Long live open source.
-- Does anybody know where the 'any' key is on the keyboard?
"Beta *was* higher quality, but VHS was a lot cheaper, and quality was 'close enough' for the masses.."
0 ,1 2449,881780,00.html
No, no it wasn't.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/online/comment/story/
VHS was superior because it had 2 hour recording time on a tape. Enough for a movie. Betamax had less than 2 hours time on a tape.
Almost as important was that Beta was essentially a "proprietary" format. Only Sony made it, and I believe Sanyo licensed it. By contrast, JVC licensed VHS to whomever wanted it.
Finally, I've heard (although I wasn't aware of it at the time), that Sony didn't like Beta being associated with Porn, and so the porn vendors went with VHS, because again, JVC only wanted to win, not to pass moral judgement on porn, and as a result the porn was on VHS, which helped JVC "win" the format wars.
As to the picture quality difference, Beta had a theoretical advantage, but that was debatable. VHS was probably almost as good, but had better record times.
VHS was better.
... that the jobs I've had for the past 5 years or so have all been primarily developing software that runs on linux systems?
;-) You can't get software to work without a good understanding that computers don't respond to positive thinking or marketing, and such people will always be a tiny minority.
Funny thing is that these jobs have been paid for mostly by non-US companies who are trying to get out from under the thumb of either IBM or Microsoft (or both). And they're hiring Americans like me to help them do it.
A big selling point has been that N years from now I can guarantee that the software will still run and they'll still be able to read all their files. They've learned the hard way that this isn't always true with proprietary systems.
And I can easily explain to them how they can verify that there are no hidden tricks (trojans, backdoors, etc) in my code or in any of the lower-level software. Neither my code nor anything in "the system" can be sending their data off to some stranger's data warehouse. Granted, they'll have to keep around a staff of unix/linux geeks, who will both study the code and monitor the appropriate online fora. But they don't need to hire as many such geeks as they have on site now to keep their IBM/MS stuff running, so even that's a win.
Maybe eventually we'll see the day when all software has been written and no more is needed. But I suspect that day's still a long way off. And the world is growing more and more dependent on smaller and smaller computers to keep everything running.
So for the forseeable future, they'll still need lots of people who understand that, no matter what managers or marketing people say, 2+2 is always 4, not 5 or 3.95 or something desirable. (Except when it's 3.99999999998 of course, but any true geek will understand that, too.
So I'll predict that people with the twisted (i.e., logical) minds required by programming will continue to have jobs until long after all of us are gone.
Of course, we may all have to move to India or China, as the patent system shuts down software development in the Western world.
Those who do study history are doomed to stand helplessly by while everyone else repeats it.
I think it's a little more subtle than that. I suspect that what really led them into their current financial box-canyon is Bill setting his stamp on all of the original participants, and the next generation inheriting that, and so on. This is a thing which happens a lot in network marketing: your more enthusiastic "downline" tend to act/think/look more and more like you as time passes. Role modelling writ large.
Read Bill's original "open letter to hobbyists" and you can quickly see why Microsoft is as it is today. All of the markers are laid down in that one short letter, including the kind of blindness we're describing here. Key line:
Of course, in FOSS he has his answer. He just doesn't want to see it. I leave you to consider his now-sidesplitting closing line in the context of ex-Microserfs and there comments here about MS whipping the people they have rather than hiring enough to get the job done at a humane pace:
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
"But in the long run, who do you sue when a hacker breaks into a financial bank insitution and withdraws a couple million dollars?"
Who do you sue today? Do you think you can sue Microsoft? If you think you can, I'd advise you to read that EULA you agreed to.
I'm finding the support argument mostly a myth. If you had a Windows server that crashes from time to time for no reason, what would you do? Call MS? What happens when they shrug and say "We have no idea". What happens when your Oracle DB is inaccessible, and Oracle can't figure it out?
The simple truth is that while support from a vendor is helpful, the ultimate responsibility for software's use lies with the people who actually use the software, that is, the end user.
In my opinion, at one time, software vendors used to be very helpful with their software; indeed, some software is better supported than others. For example, IBM supports their proprietary OS's very well. They'll really try to help you figure out what's going on. In the early days of microcomputers/PC's, software vendors were helpful because they had to be.
But as the market got bigger, as shareholders called the shots, and as margins got smaller, the support for most software has effectively disappear.
I'm using Windows XP right now. If it crashes and eats my data, Microsoft won't help me, about the best I can do is go online and ask for help from a user community which is precisely all I can do for open source software.
So this myth of support for software needs to be put to bed, because from my vantage point, it simply isn't true.
You were mistaken. Which is odd, since memory shouldn't be a problem for you
I was being sarcastic in that last paragraph. If someone likes to program, they should be able to do that. No voluntary transactions should be prohibited.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
"but open source software loses more often backwards compatibility than windows is"
Perhaps you're right.
In which case, people will use this OSS stuff realize how horrible it is and go running back to Windows.
If Microsoft goes out of business, life will go on. Really.
I'd take a look at Apple Remote Desktop as an example of why it's easier to support. Simple, standard GUI tool to manage all your desktops centrally, from keeping stats on what sort of hardware is where, to pushing out software updates and configurations.
There's also a lot of central management stuff in OS X server that makes running a network a lot easier. Sure all this stuff could be imitated in the Linux world with a mess of shell scripts (and has been, over and over again, everywhere I've ever worked), but it's easier when that sort of thing comes out of the box.
Compared to hardware, skilled people are rather expensive.
Charles Miller
The more I learn about the Internet, the more amazed I am that it works at all.
Most IT managers dislike Macs because there's only one supplier, so they feel they lack control over costs if they buy Macs (since Apple can dictate what the next round of upgrades will cost).
Hostility towards Microsoft typically comes from the same thing, but at least there are multiple sources for the hardware.
The thing IT managers like about Linux is there are multiple sources, so if they find SuSE aren't treating them well, they can go to Red Hat, etc.
The sad thing is that most of these open source developers are employed as closed source developers. It's how they pay their bills. By devaluing their profession they are slowly putting themselves out of business.
Well, see, I look at that differently. I am not putting myself out of business, I am putting Microsoft out of business! I have worked as a proprietary software developer for no less than 4 products that were canceled because Microsoft included that functionality into the OS. End of market, end of job.
By helping to commoditize the OS, I am helping to open up the market to anyone else but Microsoft! For absolutely too long, we have been at the mercy of Microsoft, who only waits for someone else to define and develop a market, then marches in and gobbles it all up. And they do it with the most mediocre implementations!
Enough! By donating my time to OSS projects, I am helping to kill the biggest threat to any innovation in the market.
I understand your point, but here's where if falls apart.
If a business uses a machine, a tool, a process, or software, then it becomes part of the cost of doing business. If then can do something cheaper, then they will do it, because it means more profit. The guys who were using horses got rid of the horses when steam engines came out. The steam engines got thrown out when diesel engines came out. Etc etc.
All normal progress.
If a business tries a new tool, product, service, or piece of software, the expectation is that it will improve productivity. If it does, then it will be embraced. If it does not, then it is abandoned. Progress is rarely measured in smooth changes, but in fits and starts as people understand what is best and what doesn't work.
I'm being painfully obvious, because you seem smart, but are missing the point here.
If a business uses Linux (for example), and they find it saves them money, they will use it. If it turns out to be inferior to Windows (or Solaris, or SCO), then it will be abandoned.
So Microsoft only need worry about Linux if Linux really is inferior. If it is superior, then MS better worry.
Do you see why MS's argument is a false one? If I write an OS that is crap, but give everyone $50 to use it, will I win the OS wars? Probably not. Because its not worth it.
If I write an OS that is as good as windows, but make it cheaper, is that a threat to MS? You betcha. In fact, the more Gates et al protests, the more I think they're really worried about Linux and its cousins.
If I ran MS, I'd use some of that $60B in the bank and serve my customers better. Maybe write an OS that is geared towards making the customer's life better? They seem to be obsessed with XBox and Windows DRM. How does that make the core Windows OS better for its customers? Seems like MS is intent on trying to screw its customers these days. Maybe that's why they're worried.
* Burger King announces burgers cooked on a griddle are inferior to flame broiled; increased consumption of griddle-cooked burgers will result in major job loss in "manufacturing sector"
* Head of the republican national party criticizes John Kerry
* Donald Trump names another building after himself
* GAP spokesperson lauds the success of NAFTA
* Bill O'Reilly accuses Michael Moore of being "un-American"
* Humvee automaker claims proposed fuel consumption standands are a danger to society
* Larry King interviews Martha Stewart's pool guy and asks the tough questions everyone's dying to know. Chlorine or Bromine?
* Clear Channel Communications questions the integrity of smaller radio radio stations insisting, "They don't have the resources to report news according to established journalistic standards."
* Consensus at 2004 annual meeting of Zoologists confirms: "Bears do shit in the woods."
Then they went off and implemented it ANYWAY live in production! They told us that they were assured by their "consultant" that they could just drop in Windows Server 2003 and this it would be compatible with NT 4, which it is if you a) apply some patches, b) avoid certain features in 2003 and c) fix the apps to use the new Active Directory API. Obviously, none of the above were done before going into production.
You took the words right out of my mouth. I think I said almost exactly the same words too at the time.
But I think MS bears some blame in this for convincing people out there that their software is upwardly migratable. You know, if you tell a kid how cool it is to set the couch on fire and that it's perfectly safe, you can bet your sweet ass the kid will set the couch on fire.
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com
The fact is that the Mac, prior to OS X, is adequate for most company tasks, but has major problems of its own
My understanding--and that's all that it is, as I have much more experience with Macs than with Windows--is that up until Windows 2000, Macs were much easier to network, in terms of filesharing, connecting to the internet, and connecting to network resources. Most of this was due to AppleTalk, with it's selfdiscovery; it allowed you to put a resource on the network, or become a resource yourself, and every other Mac on the network could find it in two clicks that were themselves intuitive.
That's not to argue some of the ills of AppleTalk; and if you could set up Windows 98 peer-to-peer as easily I'm sure that someone else will post it. But that's my impression, that Apple's Chooser made life wonderful for end users, and was much easier than Windows discovery protocols.
--
$tar -xvf
Monopoly kills jobs too. I just wonder what's the worst... lemme think.... Hmmm... I'm not sure of that.
1. It is evident that opensource software is rough with the commecial concurrents. However, as far as I know, opensource projects often evolves much slower. Coders can't live just of writing code and giving it away. This limits their contribution.
2. It is hard for an opensource project without budget to get a part of the market. No money, no publicity, no one to learn about the software.
3. There isn't less jobs; there is only less jobs for programmers. O.S. contributes to the development of the society by letting people concentrate their efforts in other domains.
That's the way I see it. You may not agree. But I still think the best society is one without cash where everyone contributes to the evolution of the human race, as in Star Trek.
Microsoft, as a private entity, should be able to do with their property as they please; they should be able to give it away for free, for $10, or for $10,000 if they so please. If you don't like it, don't buy their product. The whole argument that "consumers got hurt" is bullshit. It's competitors (like Netscape and their bloatware) who get "hurt", because MS is able to out-compete them by providing superior products at superior prices. No-one has the "right" to make a profit, only to try.
If Microsoft's competitors can't hack it, that's tough for them (of course, I'm also anti-copyright and anti-patent, as those are just grants of monopoly priviledges, but all software companies have those grants, thus are on approximately equal footing with one-another). They don't have a right to make a profit anymore than MS does. Nor do they have a "right" to have their products installed by default on the computers of OEMs, or offered in various stores. This would be a violation of the rights of OEMs to their property.
If you don't like MS, you have the option not to use their products. It is simple as that. Personally, I think their products aren't worth the price when there's equivalently good software (imo) available for free. Obviously, the vast majority of people don't think that, otherwise they'd be using Linux (or they simply don't want to go to the bother). If you can't find a computer that comes installed with the OS of your choice by default, you can hire someone to do that for you. There really are no excuses. What you can't and shouldn't be allowed to do is to force others to engage in an involuntary transaction by providing you with the options you want at what you arbitrarily deem to be a "reasonable" price.
What you apparently want to do is prevent voluntary transactions from occuring and violate the property rights of others.
I'd suggest you read some articles about anti-trust laws. They are nothing but a bunch of humbug.
My last paragraph was sarcastic. The point was to show the bullshit that is anti-trust laws. Companies can't win. No-matter how they price their products, they can be accused of some evil practice. A particularly heinous example is when companies raise the price of things like umbrellas during natural disasters; they're then accused of "price-gouging". The idi
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
You know what else kills jobs? Microsoft.
Bill? How many jobs did you kill at Netscape? etc. etc..
Re: "terrorism" getting worse
That's why I said OVER TIME, dipshit. Of course things are going to get worse in the meantime. The news talks about the "insurgency" in Iraq as if it's some kind of general uprising against the oppressive occupiers. Wrong: it's tribal groups with very different ideologies, ones who were crushed under Saddam, thirsting for power. We all fully realize that socially, economically, and psychologically, you can't just waltz in and say "Hey, here's a democracy! Now live happily ever after!" But it's foolish to believe that the US exists in a vacuum and shouldn't have done things like, e.g., opposing the Soviet Union whenever and where ever possible (Taliban). Conversely, it's also foolish to believe some of these decisions and interactions won't have consequences (And sometimes come back to bite us in the ass. Hard.) But as they have negative consequences, they also have positive ones. Our omnibus policy of unabashed opposition to the USSR ultimately (along with many other factors) led to its accelerated downfall. Now there's a new doctrine, and that is CHANGE in the middle east. Bush is the first president to suggest a true Palestinian state. So what of that? Nothing? Still just go around chanting how we should get out of Israel and Saudi Arabia? And, moron, WMD were never the real reason for going into Iraq in the first place. But since it was the presented reason, let's go with it. You may have noticed that the intelligence communities of the whole of Europe - including France and Germany, and that of Russia - as well as the intelligence capability of the US and the UN, and even indeed Iraq and Saddam himself - ALL believed Iraq to be in continuing possession of WMD. There is absolutely no shred of logic that would cause anyone to believe otherwise. Over **740 tons** of Sarin alone are unaccounted for. And no, it wasn't just happily destroyed with no records. It's in the Sudan, or Libya, or Syria, and we'll never know. There are thousands of tons of all manner of WMD completely unaccounted for. There were over **650,000 tons* of non-WMD UN-banned weapons found by coalition forces. Iraq was in violation of binding UNSEC resolutions every which way from Sunday for **years**. And UN member nations, who are in fact by the charter compelled to act, did nothing. People want to look at the "money trail" and shit like Halliburton? They should look at the fucking money trail in the three biggest opponents to the action in the security council. (And, FYI, before anyone brings up "resolutions" with regard to Israeli-Palestinian interaction, those resolutions were NON-BINDING General Assembly resolutions - with no teeth; worth nothing more than idle suggestions. In fairness, the US probably would have vetoed any UNSEC resolution, but hey, it cuts both ways, eh?)
Christ, I can't believe you fuckers. You gloss over the lives SAVED in Iraq (literally thousands, net) concentrate on something meaningless (WMD, when everyone else believed Iraq to have them as well) and can't see the big picture, which is a broad strategy of CHANGE in the middle east - in the meantime, terrorism will INCREASE, and problems will INCREASE. Over the long term, if you can't see how free governments, free information, free speech, education, basic needs of life, etc., will solve problems, then I feel very, very, very sorry for you.
I hope you do realize, ignoring Bush's stupid "you're with us or you're against us" and "they're EVIL. They HATE our way of life" type rhetoric, there really are people who believe one true Islamic state should exist in the middle east, and have the seat of leadership in the world, and they'll do anything to acheive it. This isn't about US gluttony, or oil, or naked women. It's about their own fundamental religious quest. And if you want to live under the threat of a mushroom cloud over a European city the next time a terrorist doesn't like someone's policies, then, by all means, keep fucking rolling over for terrorism, and let your balls shrivel up inside of your body like the gutless pussy that you are.
Get a clue about what's going on in the world, man.
All protectionist rhetoric. Nothing new here. It may cost the jobs of those that sell retail, boxed software, but it also creates jobs in service-oriented areas related to open source development or modification. Using the same logic, game engine "modding" should have destroyed the jobs of game developers. When were the last round of layoffs at Valve?
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
Gates will probably lose his job, but AFAIK Open Source is allowing more people to create jobs, if you get the foundation out of the way then you can concentrate on running a competitive business. If you have many start-ups trying to compete and getting shot down, that doesn't really help.
.sig: Open Source, Open Mind
If you look at history, the US political scheme has been like this since the 1800s.
[I haven't ever studied poli sci, but] I think this reflects a flaw inherent in our governmental structure: People are forced to make one decision based on all their views. This tends to polarize the populous as they become entrenched in the ideals of a party they initially supported based on a few issues (and then later through cognitive dissonance).
My [bold/naive/incomplete/intractable/new] theory of governance:
A government structure that could potentially minimize this effect would allow people to make separate decisions about issues, without resorting to democracy.
In essence it would be like electing the presidential cabinet.
This executive body (directorship) should be composed of no more than 7 members. Each director would be in charge of their departments with absolute authority (they are not required to report to anyone else in the executive branch). A president shall exist (gotta give the populous a figurehead), whose role shall be facilitating the networking between directors, and Congress (sort of a "Team Leader" -- with no real executive power). The president shall also have veto power over the bills from Congress (under the advisement of the directors).
Additional options for government:
1. Prevent Congressional micro-management (ie. Congress can say "do x", but not specify "how to do x" -- this prevents pork barrelling and restores the power of implementation back to the executive [which is the entire point of the executive branch])
Problems with this:
Unclear how to precisely limit Congressional authority.
Implementation may remove Congressional check on executive power.
2. Restructure congress into two houses, one of which serves as the origin of bills to be Law, and the other to serve as the origin of bills for managing government (ie. budgets). The bills will still have to pass both houses and be signed by the President to become law. I have yet to determine other characteristics for this legislative body.
I totally agree that open source is great for the programming community, and it definately has it's place. But in the years to come, programmers who have spent years learning and perfecting their 'art' will be nothing more than tv repair guys. Microsoft is scared, yep, im sure their time is coming. But where will you and I end up 5 years from now ?
If there are less people producing software, maybe there will be more people actually using the software to do something. Software (as a tool) is very important but what is more useful for society (or at least potentially so) is what is done with the software. So yeah, let's get more people doing something with software rather than just writing it.
1) Your post....
Funny every job you said is a service job, not a manufactoring job like software programming. you Build and test software like a factory, not as a service and support.
Building software is more akin to the design and prototyping process that occurs before a product makes it to manufacturing.
Programming is way too varied and dynamic to be compared to typical mass manufacturing. A better analogy would be "craftsman" or "engineering", two professions that are arguably more service-oriented than typical manufacturing jobs.
-Stu
I think the parent hit the nail on the head, so to speak.
It's pretty much a standard thing, in any game, that when you get so big to achieve more prestige, market share, or whatever have you, you must take on opponents that are your size (while, in Microsoft's case simply acquiring lesser companies and their assets).
Ergo...OSS is the target large enough now to cause MS problems.
I'd like to ask the question: Will Microsoft guarantee its software in any way or provide indemnification to end users against claims of infringement?
The lessons of history teach us - if they teach us anything - that nobody learns the lessons that history teaches us.
How about a slogan: Death to the Pirates, use Open Source
Maybe that should be a poll, any other slogans?
My other OS is a penguin
What do Gates and Windows have to do with each other anyway?
Don't go to a brothel if you want to buy broth
As a Mac/Unix programmer, I'd love to find a job in or around Seattle. But for obvious reasons, almost everything up there is Windows-oriented. As far as I can tell, jobs for someone with my set of skills are few and far between.
From my point of view, it's Microsoft that's bad for the job market.
Tarantino presents..
Kill Bill 3
Open Source may be turning programmers into street performers, but it is turning other programmers into bestselling authors and others into Pultizer prize winners. Open Source software eliminates the intelelctual property nonsense that has hobbled software development and creates an information commons like the one that artists have enjoyed for thousands of years. Open Source and Free Software returns software development back to the realm of just being a language. Sure, I can code PHP for free, or I can find a company to pay me to code in PHP. It's like I can write Slashdot comments for free, or I can get money to have my articles published in magazines.
I mean, this is just as believable
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
in the SQL server market MS went from zero to 30% and seems stuck there. I would predict that the same thing will happen with open source. Open source will have 30% of the office, OS, database markets in a few years.
I think network effects are stronger on the desktop than they are for backoffice databases. A 30% market share for Linux on the desktop would be a highly unstable situation. You'd see most of the remaining 70% quickly switching to Linux because A) it's cheaper, B) there would be a critical mass of compatible hardware, and C) there would be a critical mass of trained people to help support and use it.
Workstation-class features - the latest buzzword that means nothing. A plain white box has more power than any "workstation" from a couple of years ago, and is so cheap as to be almost disposable. It breaks? So what.
If you're so worriued, buy 2 of the cheapies, and after a year, rotate them both out and buy 2 more.
It still works out cheaper, and you have redundancy.
It's like getting free hardware every 2nd year.
The "name brands" use mostly the same components as the white boxes you can build yourself, and it's not like they're going to take the trouble to lap a cpu with 1600-grit sandpaper to save you 20 degrees on your cpu temp.
I do most of my cursing on installs where the people bought the "big name" mobos, the latest video cards, etc.
Good enough is here to stay. Get used to it.
I used to make money writing windows software. Now linux pays my bills, floats my boat, and I can tell Bill Gates to fuck off - I don't need his hand in my wallet taking a chunk out of every job I do.
The software world won't consolidate like the auto industry like GM/Ford/Chrysler; we're talking about the significant likelihood a world where only *one* company either owns all software or chooses to allow a select group of loyal partners to occupy software niches it considers uninteresting. If that happens, I'm not only leaving IT, but I'll go back to doing everything with paper and pencil...
I just heard some sad news on talk radio - Apple CEO Steven Paul Jobs was found dead in his red-brick home in Palo Alto, California this morning. There weren't any more details, but Open Source is rumored to be a contributing factor. I'm sure everyone in the Slashdot community will miss him - even if you didn't enjoy his work, there's no denying his contributions to popular culture. Truly an American icon.
Show me on the doll where his noodly appendage touched you.
Unfortunately, it turns the software market into a service market. Many of the programming jobs today will go away and be replaced with support jobs, which are typically lower paying.
What makes you say that? I suspect that a good many programmers are hired to maintain projects such as Apache. In the end, I suspect that there are as many programmers paid to work on the Linux *kernel* as there are in Microsoft working on all of Windows.
Also, I suspect that ESR is probably right in that the vast majority of software development occurs exclusively for in-house line of business apps. Of course in the context above, most of the Apache programmers are probably hired to maintain it as a line-of-business app.
I don't see most of the programming jobs go away anytime soon.
Add this to the fact that most of the USA's (I live there, so it is relevant in this way to me) "export" is actually intellectual property.
How much of this is software? There is a BIG difference between exporting a copy of Windows and a VCD of Matrix (most of Asia at least uses VCD's for such). Yet they are both intellectual property exports. And secondly, what makes you think that most of this work can't be outsourced? Of course, with movies, it won't be because people expect them to be set in the US, Australia, etc. and you can't just move that to India and expect a seemless transition. But the programming jobs not only can be outsourced, but they are being outsourced.
At the same time, OSS increases competition from abroad in that the code that you write will be and is used by your competitors to get a leg up on you.
This is why my company uses the GPL for everything we do. If a competing project were to come out, they could not legally use our code without giving us access to it or paying us royalties. But you are right. This is a problem.
Also, aside from a few well supported projects, many projects (just check Sourceforge) do not get updated or bug fixed that often. What I've seen in the OSS field (aside from the few well supported "glamorous" projects) is that initially, there is some interest in the application so it is kept up to date.
How is this different from buying software from a small proprietary software house except that you would not even have the option of hiring someone to fix the program later?
Most OSS advocates seem to think that there is or will be some magical job market or product that they will come up with that will keep them fed. In truth, this is a very optimistic prediction.
Sure, it is optimistic. Approaching any hobby with the idea that it will create a job for you is optomistic. Just the way it is.
On the other hand, if you approach it as a business, then you have to look at it very carefully, evaluate the very real traps that OSS poses (IMO, the traps of making proprietary software are just as big or bigger), and carefully formulate your strategy. In this case, you work hard to create your job.
My company (http://www.metatrontech.com) has contributed a number of open source applications. We do this for a number of strategic reasons. But they all boil down to "how can we create a market for our services?"
These services include support, programming, and many other sorts of work. Open source works, but not all work can be done by hobbiests. Indeed, it works best when we are paid to do it.
One final point. You seem to feel that programming is somehow a commodity which can be shipped around the world with no ill effect. In that case, I am not sure that anything you have said about OSS does not go for proprietary software as well. You might want to look at the outsourcing trends at the moment and ask if your job might be next.
In reality, outsourcing our jobs to India might be argued to make great long-term global economic sense (a more affluent India can afford to buy more American products), and it works great as a cost-cutting measure, bu
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I think you have a good arguement concerning volunteer work, however, I disagree with your statement that open source doesn't create jobs. That statement simply is not true.
7 21222.shtml?tid=72&tid=82
Fujitsu will be paying developers on the Postgresql project to develop additional features for the open source database.
http://software.newsforge.com/software/04/07/01/0
And that is just an example of open source developer jobs created due to the demand for open source software. I could give you lots of examples where open source software is creating new companies and jobs in various industries around the world because the free part of open source software makes the entry point much easier for those who are interested in entering the market.
burnin
For at least 2 reasons:
1) Many business if the computer industry do not create "products" in the same sense that MS does. They create *custom* software for a client. Every job I've ever had in the industry has done this and open source and free software only make it easier.
2) Businesses offering support for open source and Free Software products are flourishing. Red Hat and Novell/SuSE are good examples. No one buys a failing business.
You'll pardon us, Bill, if we don't take your unquestionably very biased, word for it.
GJC
Gregory Casamento
## Chief Maintainer for GNUstep
Bill is experiencing "Kernel Envy" :)
"If you don't want to create jobs or intellectual property, then there is a tendency to develop open source."
How does buying Microsoft software create software jobs in Malaysia? Maybe MS planning to outsource their software developement.
If Bill wants to stop open source, he should hire away the open source programmers who have proven their abilities.
I've always thought that setting out to design and code up a project from thin air is a big risk. Much better to find an open source project that is nearly what you want, and hire the team who produced it to turn it into the product you want.
A viable open source project already has most of the risk removed because you know it works and you know it's wanted.
This would solve the problem caused by the two opposing forces; companies like microsoft who want to charge for software, and programmers who have too much time on their hands, who write open source projects to add to their portfolio.
Face it, a lot of open source projects are started by programmers just looking to get some credibility and get a real job. Everyone has to have an incoming for food, shelter and whatever.
People think they can tell MS how to run their business. It's just not possible. No one will listen.
If MS wants to run their business in a certain way, that is up to them. There are stories about contractors beaten into submission, and then others say it's the greatest place to work, and still others say it's a dog-eat-dog world at MS. There are so many rumors, no one knows what is true and what isn't. Who cares how MS runs their business. You can't change it. They won't listen, they don't have any reason to do so. Why mess with something that works?
Now, complain about their products, complain about their service, complain about the prices, and they'll listen. Quit buying their products, and they'll listen. Hurt them in their pocket book, and they'l listen.
So few people get it.
-- No sig for you!
you wouldn't have money to buy the house. That's the point.
"I'm sorry, but I don't buy that the economy will collapse if one industry becomes more efficient."
Nobody ever claimed it would. I'm just saying it's stupid to insist that one source of income should be abolished or that we'd be better off without it. Claiming that we shouldn't sell software because it's pointless is just rediculously short sighted. If we want a thriving economy we should encourage the buying and selling of crap. Not try to "streamline" it. The more you "streamline" the economy the more people that lose their jobs.
Every time you make a purchase you are supporting the poor and needy. Namely the people who work in the industry of which the product is from. Buying the CD is no different than giving some homeless guy five bucks. If nobody bought the CD many of the people dependent on that industry would be one of the homeless people. There has to be enough variety of industry to employ every type of people. Or you end up with jobless and poor people who just simply don't have an industry they can function in and be content.
In order to afford the things you do need you have to sell the crap that you don't need. And in order to sell the crap you need a buyer of the crap.
If everybody only bought and sold the things they actually needed there would be no economy. What's the point of selling one loaf of bread for another? Or one house for another? If all you had to sell were houses you could never sell up unless someone else was willing to get the short end of the bargain. Two houses would be excessive so you couldn't give someone two houses for one bigger house because that would be "fake." You aquired and sold something you didn't need.
I for one think that being paid to write software is a great way to make a living. The Open Source movement is undermining that idea for some very rediculous reasons. I give away a lot of source code. I believe in information being free. But I'm not so idealistic that I don't put a price on some information so I can afford to live.
But it doesn't really matter. Very little of the economy of software is from shrink wrapped products which is the only thing that Open Source can undermine. Basically, browsers, the OS and Apache. And even that's questionable. I know Linux is free and I don't feel it's worth the price. After all, I have to put it on a system. And I believe the system has more value when Windows is installed which overrides the cost of the OS.
OOS is especially lacking in the game market. Open Source development isn't rapid enough to keep up with the bleeding edge of the gaming industry to make any sort of dent.
Everyone is always waiting for ID or Valve to make the next move in that area. Nobody is ever waiting for the next OSS game to be ready to have a reason to buy the latest and greatest graphics card. ORGE has been in development for who knows how long and they're still behind. HL2 and DooM3 have been in development for much less time and will blow anything ORGE can do out of the water.
The other thing OSS lacks is the inside track to what specific customers want. The only products which have any sort of claim to fame is very generic products. The authors of GIMP don't know what professionals really want and need *now* so they just offer whatever feature whenever they get around to it. This is why Photoshop will be king for a very long time to come. Otherwise companies may use BSD licensed code as a base and pay dedicated people to finish the job the way the customer wants it.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
Can I moderate Bill -1 Flamebait please ?
True -- and Windows is guilty of the same sin. Remember back in the DOS days, when every app that wanted to print documents had to include its own set of proprietary printer drivers? This constant reinventing of the wheel kept thousands of programmers gainfully employed! Then mean old Mr. Gates added a standardized printing API to Windows and started including printer drivers with the OS -- quickly putting every other company's proprietary-app-specific-printer-driver coders out of a job. The proprietary-app-specific-printer-driver industry never recovered from that blow...
CODE REUSE: JUST SAY NO!
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
... if you don't think about it.
I'm a developer running my own business, so In a manner of speaking I do not have a job, not being employed by anyone. So perhaps he's right ;)
If a train station is a place where a train stops, what's a workstation?
Can He openly say how many jobs he destroyed post 2001 ? And howmany lives he ruined ? And show how many jobs he will be offering to Indians ? How
many Indians (asian) he will be taking to US ?
How many he took away from US ?
Lots of questions....
Open source creates more _INTERESTING_ jobs. It create jobs that require more than the ability to be able to format a HD and reinstall windows because the box was contaminated.
The more businesses and administrations take up open source the more jobs it will create. And they will be less boring that fixing other peoples broken OS.
As for lack of upward compatibility: with what? I have never had a problem with OOo or Mozilla. Has he got another nasty trick up his sleeve?
realkiwi
This from the same guy who said we would never need more than 500KB hard disk space? (Or whatever ridiculously small amount he said)
Oh right... this is slashdot.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
It may very well be to "compete" with Open Source, in the same way they "competed" with Netscape.
Microsoft may very soon drastically reduce the price of it's products in order to smother Open Source products. Imagine the next version of Windows and/or Office costing $50 (or less!). They don't need to make money now because they have tens of billions to live off of in the meantime. In the meantime, the fact that Open Source software is more or less free becomes glossed over by the fact that the Microsoft products that everyone is so familiar with are now so cheap. Microsoft is going to smother Open Source with bags of money.
----
"Ours was a free culture. It is becoming much less so."-Lawrence Lessig
and an education.
Ben
Work Safe Porn
What really hurts microsoft was their willingness to abuse customer trust to generate more profit. Now that Linux is gaining ground they are trying to recover customer trust via marketing (as silly as that sounds).
Microsoft always knew they would loose the operating system wars, they were and are only trying to delay the inevitable for as long as possible (whilst trying to maximise their profit upon an existing code base - windows 2000P is WinXP). Longhorn is vapourware no different to the relationship between Win98 and WinME (an extension upon the existing Win2000P code base regardless of marketing). They have to maintain this appearance or loose business and governmet customers at an even more rapid pace than they already are.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Yup. Our logic was: "You free resources in IT - you can hire sales people, which theoretically have a higher ROI!"
Indeed. In a company we replaced 66.7% of the IT staff had hired sales guys & one intern for the one remaining IT guy in the US office.
Yours is one of the best comments I have read on Slashdot! Thank you for posting it.
VKh
I got my first job whilst I was finishing my final year in highschool as a PHP developer.
Four years later and I'm still developing in open source technologies - It's a niche market in South Africa (Dont know about the rest of the World) and a lot of people desire open source developers.
Open source has funded my car, home and lifestyle - And I'm earning good money for a 21 year old.
In god's name, WHY?!?
That seems so ass backwards. What next, downgrade from Windows to DOS?
Microsoft (and others) aren't so concerned about jobs in highly developed countries when they move there operations to countries like India!
Microsoft is not interesting in people's welfare, or the advancement of computing.
Microsoft is interested in one thing, increasing their profits.
God! OpenSrc software is unmaintainable. Have you looked at the mess, ever ?
For all your comments about Mac Os, this is one of the reason Mac's held ground in creative businesses. as wierd as us architects, interior/graphics/web designers seem, we are still designers and most of us have a good handle on tech. Not to mention we tend to work in smaller companies (100 people would be very large as architecture firms go) Meaning with an office full of Mac's we can be Creative Professionals First, and the computer guy on the side. With windows this would be impossible, with linux it would be crazy. I've seen windows based offices employ an IT guys, they tend not to last long, they don't save the company enough money. You tend to answer your own question. Mac's take less time than linux, because on the surface Mac os X dictates a way of working and everyone works to the same base. It can be changed, but apple tends to in touch how we work, so not much value in the change. Linux can be configured any way you like, and yes you free to dream about how you would like it to be, which is good. I would tend to ask the question - Will linux really take off until some ones start to pull together a "product" and target it at a market? In the end wouldn't this create more jobs? After All as architects we do this all day, taking timber, nails steel, and various other open standard items and turn them it to a product, it's a very common model in world business. For Me Linux is interesting, but i'd rather dream about that cool new house i'm working on, getting paid full fees for, and use the IT stuff as a fun distraction.
"Call us when the New age is old enough to drink" Beck
By helping to commoditize the OS, I am helping to open up the market to anyone else but Microsoft! For absolutely too long, we have been at the mercy of Microsoft, who only waits for someone else to define and develop a market, then marches in and gobbles it all up. And they do it with the most mediocre implementations!
However, the moment any company or person creates anything with any kind of reasonable popularity - say You, for example - the OSS developers will clone what they created, knocking them out of the market.
And because OSS software is always out there, the moment it gets "good enough" in any segment, it locks out ANY other developers from creating software in that market.
But hey, go ahead. I'm sure you'll figure out some way of feeding yourself when there's not more proprietary software houses.
Coming soon - pyrogyra
Open source != free source
... who makes the bulk of machines, Linux was not good enough until now.
The next couple of years will be decisive to see if Linux remains a niche OSor if it becomes a mainstream resource.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
The Ludwig von Mises Institute is the research and educational center of classical liberalism, libertarian political theory, and the Austrian School of economics.
And a company having a monopoly on the market is just like the big guy of the sandbox - no matter what you do, he is always better equipped to kick your ass. Your solution would be to leave the sandbox, depriving me the use of it.
You watch news I presume, you remember I hope what Mr Bush, the current Withehouse tennant, did with steel tariffs.
With the typical populist protectionist argument of "Saving Our Jobs[tm]" he increades tariffs for imported steel.
What he, and whoever dumbster is advicing him on ecomonic matters, did not realize is the other industries in the use actaully buy steel, local or otherwise.
What MR Bush achieved was to make business more expensive for steel consumers, thus threateaning the livelihood of those people working on industries that rely on steel to provide products and services.
Once Dumb, or his advicer Dumbster, realized what they have done, they dropped the tariffs to allow cheap steel to come back into the US with fair tariffs impossed.
It is exactly the same problem with software or services in our interconnected world.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
I'm quite surprised no one mentioned that the same warning was touted at the time of the industrial revolution, the computer revolution, and just about every prior econimcal and social upheaval that has ever happened.
And hey he's quite right. When factories first changed to assembly lines instead of hand assembly a lot of jobs were lost. however those people either adapted or moved to another industry and the world became a better place because of it (except for action figures, they will be the downfall of society).
So quite right Bill, people will lose jobs, and the Software Revolution is upon you, get out of the way or be run over!
I mean a lawyer doesn't manufacture contracts, does he? He provides a service.
Similarly, I provide a service by writing code (which is a contract with the computer).
We don't (directly) pay for laws. They are made by our governments. Sometimes, they are even made by lawyers working pro bono (ie, free). Laws also are modified over time (maintenance).
These are direct parallels to programming. So, why do people say coding is manufacturing but law is a service?
And do lawyers complain that somebody else making laws that they use reduces their jobs to a support role?
(BTW, do people say that lawyers working pro bono are destroying jobs?)
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
"Open Source kills (Microsoft) jobs!"
This last year, my school (small private college) just upgraded every Mac, 300MHz and lower. The majority of users got $750.00 eMacs. Yeah, it was a pain, humping those 60 lb beasts around campus, but once in place, life has been easy. The only calls from the labs have been reports of stolen mice, the only printing problem was a bad port in a switch, causing a printer to drop off. Even the school newspaper, averaging several calls a week was silent once they got their OSX machines in. A couple of graphic designers in the business office still need frequent help but they keep using Pagemaker (OS9 only app) and having OS9 related problems. The other two designers (and the newspaper), have moved on to InDesign (OSX) and have smooth sailing.
I've already discussed with the boss, the idea of setting up a small video production lab and getting some training in video editing. My workload is light enough that I can now take on other projects. Cool!
I drank what? -- Socrates
Well, according to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, yes (see article 23).
But apart from this slight detail, your counter-argument is valid.
#include "coucou.h"
Can any one tell me which political parties these people belong to?
-Bill Gates
-Bill Joy (Who ever is running Sun these days)
-Steve Jobs
-Linus
-Kevin Metinick(sp?)
-Richard Stallman
-Dr. Phil
-Opra
-Marth Stewart
Can any one tell me what OS:
-Michale Moore
-George Bush
-John Kerry
-Best Buy
I am just interested to see what kind of pattern there is.
I like-a do-the cha-cha.
Exactly. Open source does not kills jobs. Listen carefully and fully. Open source bridges the way to progressive frontiers, which encourage creation in smaller venues that could not have existed otherwise due to lack of fiscal resources.
Monopolies kill jobs. Monopolies stifle life's potentiality.
Time to declare ourselves free.
The Custom Mary
That is a good point. Microsoft says that open source has a higher TCO then Microsoft. So all this money that is being loss to all these "Extra Expenses" that Linux needs to operate will pump back into the economy. Open Source has the infuse in the middle and have the money trickle up and down effect. Which has a greater economical impact then giving money to the rich (Microsoft method) then they can hold the money find ways to not pay taxes on it and let it grow without infusing it back into the economy, Microsoft has enough stored income to last them 4 or 5 years with 0 sales, now if Microsoft put 3 of those year back into the economy things would be a LOT better now. Now with Open Sources the money goes to the middle class people. The people who will buy stuff in a lot of different areas pay taxes, and actually put the money back into the local economy.
So Microsoft drop one argument or drop the other. If you use both it shows that you are lying in at least one and perhaps both.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Calling someone a Communist was an insult in the 1950's. This is 2004 now.
Microsoft kills jobs. the evidence:t scape.com// /www-306.ibm.com/software/os/warp/
a .com/en/index.jspw .palmsource.com/
http://www.borland.com/
http://www.ne
http://www.beincorporated.com/
http:
Among others.
Others who are still in jeopardy:
http://www.kernel.org/
http://www.jav
http://www.real.com
http://ww
to name a few.
That you don't get it is my problem, so I'll try to explain how IP protectionism is bad again. When other people can fairly compete with me, I don't have a problem. When government intervention, through bogus IP laws prevent me from competing, I have a problem. It is only my inability to compete that makes it possible for big dumb companies to shop around for the cheapest labor possible. When that's due to my inability, I don't care. When it's protectionism run amuck, I have a problem. When people don't understand that link the protectionism gets worse and so does my problem.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
OS X takes less time to support than Linux because it's un*x-based (therefore stable) and the primary interface of the system is a GUI, not a CLI (by definition making it easier to administer).
- different-spot-on-another-system text-based configuration file is edited, not by hand, but via a GUI.
GUI's may or may not be easier to use but they are often far harder to administer than CLIs. Especially when the only available "Administrator Interface" is a GUI.
Every single cryptic arcane placed-in-one-spot-on-this-system-but-placed-in-a
GUI's tend to be not very good at putting comments into files. Also the more complex the configuration the more complex the program you need to edit it. Note that configuration files can contain interpreted programs.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
That makes you sound like someone who's never supported any more users than your parents and that girl from 11th grade English class you had a crush on so you helped her with her computer class project.
The reason why OSX takes less time than Linux to support is - wait for it - that you don't have to spent any time answering stupid questions for users. And anyone who's actually done support knows that answering stupid questions for users is what takes up the majority of the time. Unless they've only supported Mac users, in which case they're unfamiliar with the concept.
"Patriotism is your conviction that this country is superior to all other countries because you were born in it." -- GBS
This usually happens when folks transistion from Unix to windows and don't replace teh staff with windows savy IT staff. In general your workload would have decreased rather than increased, but if you manage windows systems like unix systems, your workload will increase. Having done about 50 unix to M$ transistions in the past 2 years I have a pretty good understanding of what's involved.
Hi:
We can do without Gates and his 40,000 side kicks.
Thank you.
-Saifi.
Gates, who apparently has never contended with the horrors of a VB upgrade, when on to say that '[Open source] doesn't guarantee upward compatibility.'"
Gates may not have had to upgrade VB.NET, but then again I doubt he's had to go from kernel 2.4 to 2.6, switch glibc versions, or rebuild kdelibs because it's distrubuted as source...Linux is MUCH harder for the average user to upgrade things like those... apt-get isn't always gonna save them.
If the author wanted to point out why linux is better than windows in this argument, he should point out something else...
Open source projects will kill jobs. They will also create jobs. That is the nature of competition in the marketplace. Jobs are created with the companies that produce what the customers are interested in buying. Jobs are destroyed at companies that are producing what customers aren't buying. Anyone with a grounding in economics can figure out that Gates has said quite clearly that Microsoft is bent on producing products that customers are abandoning in droves. He shows his complete contempt for his own customers when he acts as if they owe it to him to preserve Microsoft.
The problem with Linux is neither cost nor quality that prevents grandma from switching, it's complexity.
/dev directory looks foreign, and I'm unhappy. So, I switch back to familiar Linux -- why? To get the job done.
There is just to darn much of a learning curve, and Linux developers haven't understood that they need to shelter that from the basic user --yes, at the expense of features-- in order to get adoption.
Follow this. A basic user buys Windows, puts the CD in, and clicks Next a zillion times. An hour later they have a system that they can then install Office on; more clicks and done. The OS isn't tweaked for the best performance or graphics -- and the user doesn't care. What they care about is word processing and printing. That's it. They don't know how their computer works. Furthermore, they don't care.
Sad, but true, as a long time Linux advocate, I find myself in the same boat when looking at FreeBSD.
When I log into FreeBSD, my favorite commands are missing, I can't figure out what slices are, everything in the
Then along comes OS X, and they put a sweet interface over FreeBSD, and I'm willing to pay for that. Happily. Why? It makes me functional without reading a lot of manuals.
Sure, I could spend a few hours and read the FreeBSD pages, ask around and get helpful people. But this is time dealing with infrastructre and not problem solving. Point being: I'm not dumb, I'm lazy.
Basic end users are really, really, really lazy, and disinsterested to boot. How many Linux people tear their cars apart and change their own oil or transmission fluid? (pause) Exactly. You do computers, not cars. These end users do accounting, realestate, and a host of other "boring" things -- their computers are a means to an end, and they don't care how inefficient, slow, or broken they are, as long as they can get there.
I do have to say, with OS X, my understanding of FreeBSD was able to sky rocket, and all those issues I professed to have are laughable looking back. OS X increased my comfort level by removing the frustration.
Linux needs the same thing: a newbie-novice mode that shelters users from everything the community loves. When the user gains enough knowledge, familiarity, and experience, they'll crave more. And Linux will be there.
It sounds plausible, but investors would never allow this. A company, especially one like Microsoft with no debt and over 20 years old, must return a profit for investors to consider the stock of value. Even when a company returns no profit, investors buy stock in the belief that it will generate profit later. If Microsoft drops Windows and Office prices very far and loses its profit margin and starts living off of savings, investors will be very unhappy. It sounds like a strategic win for the company, but a public company will only survive if many stock holders are happy.
Of course the prices could be dropped to $30 and Microsoft would still make a tiny profit, but a company with such a huge market cap making almost no profit will not survive long operating that way.
Developers: We can use your help.
You should write a book!
I have to say, though, that most windows shops I've been in mean a lot more tedious work without ever being "done"... kind of like climbing a sand-dune and the sand just keeps sliding down underneath you.
We've hosted some meet-ups for open source organizations, and we do have a fairly extensive plan to give more back to the OS community--I was corrected this morning. So ignore my previous comment on this!
Just add a comma, look at it just so, and you read it with new eyes... I swore for a second it said Gates Opens Source, Kills Jobs Which for me begs this hypothetical question: would the death of Steve Jobs be worth it if it meant Microsoft freed their source code? I mean, I'd be sad and all, but I just have to wonder...
yes. that's all I'm going to say in all comments from now on.
Our head of technology is working on a company strategy where there will be financial and in-kind contributions from the company, and where each tech employee is expected to contribute in some form. He told me in an aside how difficult it is to come up with 'donees'--there's no easy way to find eligible, worthy projects who really need the help.
Oh, and we are looking for on-site people in the New York City area...A+ people.
> Bill Gates obviously doesn't understand economics
;)
Yeah, right. The guy is the RICHEST PERSON ON EARTH but whatever
BoD
Now there's a visual metaphor for the OSS propaganda machine.
But, then your tongue is in your cheek, right? :-P
--- "We've always been at war with Eastasia."
:)
Sorry, but that is not an argument against my position. Either you can try to make a rational argument, or not. But simply saying that all of my links are from the same website shows nothing (especially since they're from different authors). If I had linked to those articles from the author's home-pages, you would have nothing to say.
/. about "information just wants to be free", I'd think people would be happy that there's a website offering up hundreds of books (many of them 1000s of pages or more), essays, videos, and even audio-lectures all for free.
I also could have linked to many books from Amazon.com covering the same topic. It just happens to be that Mises.org provides a vast array of books and articles online for free. After all the whining on
Your understanding of monopoly is flawed. A monopoly occurs when one company is granted priviledges by the State, such that competitors cannot enter the market-place. This has been the case with various utilities companies. However, simply because one company has obtained a large market-share does not make them a monopoly, by the true definition of the word. Nor should their property rights be violated.
You also don't understand competition in the free market. It is not some violent affair, like a bully dominating smaller kids. Competitors compete with eachother to obtain the patronage of consumers. Consumers can choose which companies to patronize, of their own free will. No company has the right to make a profit. Nor, really, do consumers have the right to demand anything of producers. Nor do producers (like MS) have the right to demand anything from anyone else. Everyone has the right to either engage in a voluntary transaction or not to. All that this anti-trust crap is about is MS' competitors whining because consumers are apparently choosing MS' products over theirs.
If you don't like MS, you're welcomed not to buy their products. Competitors are welcomed to compete against them and produce better products. What you shouldn't be normatively entitled to do is to violate MS' property rights because you don't like them. Grow up.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
A strange statement to make actually, Yesterday I came home from a nationally known computer chain store with a copy of SuSe 9.1 Professional. I paid the list price for it too. Why? Mainly the good old American concept of convenience. It comes down to items such as ready printed installation and administration guides, professionally made disks, support of a major Linux distro house, and Novell's involvement (I think I remember that it's SuSe they bought, Am I right?). This all means a lot to people like me who are long time Windows users but who have heard the recent case for operating system diversity vs. the "monoculture" effect. It takes a number of different commercial concerns to put ANY shrink-wrapped software product out on the shelf of the big stores. Employment! Profit!
These are just a bunch of arbitrary declarations. I could just as easily arbitrarily declare "everyone has the right to drive a Mercedes Benz". What hogwash.
The UDHR is nothing but an arbitrary hodge-podge of semi-libertarian beliefs (which is ok), mixed in with socialist non-sense, like the "right to a job". The worthless thing is even self-contradictory (articles 23, 24, 25, 26, and any other articles asserting positive, as opposed to negative, rights contradict article 17). I could criticize this junk in detail, but sufficed to say it is socialist crap.
It mandates violating personal and property rights, since these positive rights can only be secured by either taxing (stealing) from some people, violating individual's property rights (by forcing them to employ people on terms they would not do of their own free will), or simply enslaving doctors (since everyone has the "right" to health-care).
The worthlessness of this doctrine can be understood once you realize that the demands it makes could only possibly be achieved in a highly technological society; in other words, philosophically, it is worthless, as it cannot apply for any non-technological society.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
That if we ever want to come anywhere near to accomplishing all of the things that the UDHR calls for (and indeed, if society can provide for all those things on a voluntary, not coerced, basis that would be an accomplishment), then the fastest way to make such a possibility is to allow the free market to work, absent State-intervention which hampers progress and prevents prices from lowering (e.g., inflation).
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
"As far as Gates' comment goes, it's about like standing waist-deep in a room full of gasoline and pleading for no one to light a match"
:o)
i'm just thinking, "can the multi billion dollar gate really afford to tell his associates that open scores means as much to him as the todays temperature on mars?"
That's an interesting point. What's funny, though, is that a even though it's hard to make a living as a writer, there are a lot more people doing it than there were a couple hundred years ago. I recall reading that Charles Dickens was the first person to make a living as a novelist.
I might suggest open source software-based companies consider creating hardware if they already aren't- like M$- and that some pro-OSS advocates take their apparent focus off M$ as an apparent Software Company.
We all know that rich people don't necessarily understand much about economics. Warren Buffet, for example, doesn't fundamentally understand what causes a business cycle. He's brilliant at finding quality companies that are under-valued, but one skill doesn't imply the other. Of course, Buffet knows the proximal causes of a crash (the mass over-valuing of business' and of various product-lines), but he doesn't know the ultimate cause (what causes those factors, which is what Austrians like Mises, Hayek, and Rothbard have explained).
Also consider John Maynard Keynes, who had an exceptional record as an investor, following Benjamin Graham's principles. Keynes was a terrible economist, and his idiotic non-sense has been responsible for much misery in the past century.
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
what the fuck??
there sure are some grade A blinkered assholes on slashdot.
http://slashdot.org/~GuyFawkes/journal
Open source creates jobs by lowering the barriers to entry for small business. I know this personally to be true, as I could never have afforded the commercial equivalents to Gimp, Blender, Apache, SDL, etc. Even coding with Java is better and freeer than anything Bill Gates ever offered. While Open Source might kill jobs at Microsoft, I honestly don't care about them, as my chances at building a new business have never been better.
create jobs for auto body repair personnel
create jobs for auto parts suppliers or auto mfgrs
give ambulance personnel, nurses and doctors job security
create demand for more shopping carts
give the store clerks some exercise and fresh air
provide mobile storage for housing-challenged individuals.
From a development perspective, it's hard to be in the tool space. O.S.S. contributes to this affect as does Microsoft itself. Why purchase Mind Genius when I can just download and use Free Mind for free? Why purchase Eudora when Outlook Express is already bundled (for typical users) with the machine?
Does OSS hurt I.T., E.R.P., or niche programming? No. In fact, O.S.S. enables development in these spaces dramatically by lowering the barrier to entry.
Well I could do that, but while I'm pro employment creation, I'm mildly against hurting random people.
"Who is the Journal of Quantum Physics going to believe?" --Stephen Hawking
The 2000 presidential debates were televised by almost every network. Inside the two candidates (in dark suits)debated the virtues of square patterns on the neck tie versus round patterns on the neck tie. Outside, protesters (carrying signs and chanting slogans) were being clubbed by mounted policemen. Only one network covered that. The only candidate I saw outside was Nadar - wearing a t-shirt (i was spending a lot of my evenings in hotels during the 2000 campaigns and hence, watchin' a lot of the tube - it beats drinking although not by much:-)
I wouldn't expect any change from anybody inside, they're too happy with the status quo. The people outside are the ones that are feeling all the pain. Without pain there is no change.
Furthermore, the first part of the 17th article is "Everyone has the right to own property alone as well as in association with others." If someone can take one of your possessions away against you will, then it is not really your property (unless it's being taken away because you committed a crime and are obligated to make restitution to the victim).
If we wanted to have a universal declaration by which to judge all societies, we could put it in one sentence:
No-one shall initiate aggression against anyone else, and the initiation of aggression shall be a crime.
Any action which involves the initiation of aggression against someone else -- whether performed by individuals acting alone, or acting in concert via the State -- is a criminal act. Simply because the UN and US agree on something doesn't mean it's not arbitrary (determined by chance, whim, or impulse, and not by necessity, reason, or principle).
The entire thing is also hopelessly vague.
Furthermore, you haven't addressed the main problem with this bullshit, which is that it demands something which is impossible except in a very highly technological society. Certainly, none of the vast array of "positive rights" that this worthless doctrine lays out can be achieved by State actions (initiating aggression against individuals); they can only be accomplished, in the future, by allowing the free market to operate without hamperence.
Simply because a bunch of crooks (and these people are all crooks, as their salary is provided for by robbery and thievery at the tax-payer's expense) get together and write down this crap doesn't make it true, morally correct, or legally correct by natural law. The Nazi's also got together and wrote a whole bunch of "laws", as well. Most of this, if we were forced to adhere to it, would necessitate initiating aggression against others, either against their person or their property. Employers would be forced to hire people they don't want to hire on terms they don't voluntarily agree to, for example. It is morally bankrupt.
Let's go over this bunk in detail...
All fine and good.
Since most the "rights and freedoms set forth" in this article are arbitrary and wrong, this is also wrong (albeit, if the rest of the declaration weren't bunk, it would be true). The problem here is with the idea that man can legislate the morality of right and wrong, and of what we should and should not be prevented from doing by force. For this robs the meaning of the word "should", as if there's anything that we think we "shouldn't" do, we can just draw up some legislating saying that we can and should be able to do it.
For the most part fine, so long as it is properly understood. My right to life means I can take measures to preserve my life and protect myself from criminals. It does not mean I can steal from anyone else or initiate aggression against an
social sciences can never use experience to verify their statemen
I remember a software package for Windows 3.X called "Internet in a box" it included a Winsock program and a copy of Mosaic. It was very popular around 1994-1995, IIRC. I had a small business that sold it to clients to get them started. Usually they just downloaded Netscape 2/3 or whatever existed back then and skipped Mosaic. After Microsoft bundled IE with 95B (95 OSR2, etc) and 98, that package was no longer sold. Many ISPs had the Windows 3.X and 95 versions of IE on a CD ROM or Floppy Disks, the Win 3.X version had Wolverine or whatever the WFW/Win 3.X TCP/IP stack was.
Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
Well, when Quicken comes out with a copy of Quicken for Linux, and TaxCut (I know, HR Block, but QUicken pissed me off with their licencing fiasco so I switched)... personally, I wouldn't *care* if there were free versions around, I'd tend to trust a company with support for their product (and the latest tax updates, etc) come tax time.
Right now, I know of nothing even *close* in the OSS world.
The key is, there will *always* be proprietary software houses. You sell auto parts, you want a web-based software system to handle inventory/orders, no problem... a MySql server, Apache, some coding... Sure, you want real robustness in the database, go with oracle. But, me as a consultant could make good money, and I don't know of any 'canned OSS apps' that would fill their bill. I don't think it boils down to 'no more proprietary software houses', I think it boils down to a change in the type of work.
Interestingly, at my job, a lot of the apps we've *purchased* lately have come with apache. I guess they are taking jobs away from the IIS team at microsoft. JBoss is the next thing, will it kill Weblogic/WebSphere/whatever? Could be... is that going to put all the java developers writing java web applications out of work? no, its just gonna change where there code runs. And seeing as Weblogic/Websphere have a good market share, and it'll take years for everyone to migrate to JBoss, if they deem it mature enough, I think the development teams for the products are fairly safe for oh, the next 5 years. The way the IT world works anyways, if any of you think you are safe for more than the next 5 years, I have a bridge in Brooklyn that *I swear* I have the title to, and can sell you...