Slashdot Mirror
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.
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?
"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.
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
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.
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.
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
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.
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
More nonsense from Gates.
He's on the losing side, but he still knows how to fight. Notice his sales pitch to the asian governments:
FTA:
In the case of software piracy, 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".
The obvious corollary to this is that if you're using free (as in beer) open source software then you aren't paying taxes either. The technological solution to both of this problem and the piracy one is the same: trusted (by Them not You) Computing.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
...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
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.
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!
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
In 10 years he will be eating out of a dumpster Maybe a platinum dumpster filled with caviar. Tens of billions don't disappear that easily.
Open Source Sushi
It does kill the job market for MCSEs.
My rights don't need management.
And US Democrats, who he gives just about the exact same amount of money to.
Oops, sorry, did I let facts get in the way or your ignorant political ranting. Republicans are always evil, Democrats are always good. Ignorance is knowledge.
Finkployd
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.
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."
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
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.
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.
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...
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 ----
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.
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.
MS FUD machine running on fumes, -1.
Slashdot in 5 Paragraphs
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.
Yes, $1,890,401 (Republicans) is the same as $800,343 (Democrats). OpenSecrets data for 2001-2002 gives those numbers.
... but I think you get the point.
Admittedly, some of the data is conflicting; see what OpenSecrets says for 2000 vs what commondreams says, and it appears to change over time so it's not that simple
American translation: When other people do not think like you, bomb the living bejeepers out of those sand niggers.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
"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
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!
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
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...)
This is what this country has come to. Half the people in the country call the other hald demoncrat and republitards. Why do republicans compare democrats to demons? Demons? Truly evil residents of hell? Just because you vote for candidate A that makes you a demon?
Same for the democrats. Just because somebody votes for candidate B that makes them a fascist nazi? Or a sadistic killer? or a religious warmonger bent on genocide of non cristians?
All I can say is that people working doubletime to divide this country have been very successful. The radio and TV stations which broadcast hate filled programs hour after hour must all be delighted.
After 9/11 the country was united. That lasted for about two weeks now we are back to being two countries who hate each other again.
evil is as evil does
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
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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."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
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.
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.
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
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
If it weren't for open source, I would be unemployed right now.
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
Poor Steve...
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
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.
What I'm not happy about is big dumb companies that get bogus patents so that others, including free software writers, CAN NOT compete.
Perhaps that is one of the big problems with the Open Source movement: it is generating far too much prior art which can hinder new patent enforceability in the future.
...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
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.
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?
... 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
>>I hope Gates makes more founded arguements next time, perhaps he will suggest that open source causes starvation or maybe malaria outbreaks.
No joke: msft has compared FOSS to cancer, and to communism. Of course msft constantly states that FOSS has a higher TCO, and now msft is saying it kills jobs. Oh yeah, FOSS is also less secure (because anybody can read the source). And of course, FOSS is a huge litigation risk.
Am I missing anything? I must be. That FOSS must some awfully rotton stuff. But then, I guess the competition always is.
* 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."
You know what else kills jobs? Microsoft.
Bill? How many jobs did you kill at Netscape? etc. etc..
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'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.
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.
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
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.
... 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?
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
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
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.
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
On a personal note, whilst I used to work 36 hour stretches at the drop of a hat (not at MS) and often did 24 runs and long weekends for the companies I worked for, I simply won't now. The ugly truth is that these stretches are always a result of poor project management, or a company trying to increase it's profits by understaffing projects. This is usually to stay "competitive" in the market. The managers would rarely ever pitch in on those weekend efforts :-/ Nowadays I work my contracted hours, and the project can be late for all I care. Bad management is someone elses problem, not mine - they can pay me for my loyalty, not exploit me for my naievity.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
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."
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
Indeed, there are also a lot of small companies doing Linux development, so spreading the money across these companies instead of driving it all into one huge one would seem to make economic sense.
I'm sorry Bill - you can't have it both ways. Either Linux is more expensive (good for the government, bad for the customer) or it's cheaper (bad for the government, good for the customer). You can't tell the customer "oh you don't want to buy Linux because it's more expensive" and at the same time tell the governments that "you don't want to support Linux because it's cheaper and you won't get so much tax".
In any case, money has a habit of getting spent nomatter how much you save, so they will still get their taxes. And infact if you save money on software and spend if on some other sector, you are helping to employ more people in that sector which is good for the economy anyway.
Open source stuff makes everyone's lives easier - if you're writing an opensource application you don't have to start from scratch, you can build on some other opensource work that already exists. This means that the software is generally more robust (if you're building on something that's 5 years old to start with you're going to have less bugs than if you start for scratch since that part of your project has had 5 years of bugfixing already). It also means that software development is faster - that doesn't mean that you're necessarilly going to take less time to produce something, but if you take the same amount of time it's going to be more feature-rich and better designed.
http://blog.nexusuk.org
If people can't or won't pay for software now, what makes you think they'll pay for a support contract? They'll just pirate the upgrades and the tutorials.
Bill Gates uses Windux.
Bill Joy uses the Network (it's the Computer!)
Steve Jobs' entire evil overlord alpine command center runs on NextStep
Linus uses FreeBSD (but on a Transmeta)
Kevin Mitnick uses no OS, he's not allowed to
Richard Stallmann bangs two rocks together in binary, but they're free rocks!
Dr. Phil runs Microsoft Bob (tm) (it cares)
Oprah uses UGoGirlnix
Martha Stewart uses OS/390 over a VT100 at the prison library
Michael Moore uses Windows (it's also bloated and stupid)
George Bush uses an etch-a-sketch
John Kerry used to use a Mac but his chin kept hitting the touchpad
Cole's Law: Thinly sliced cabbage
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.