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Offshoring to a Ship in International Waters
JasdonLe writes "Sourcing Mag posted an article about Roger Green and David Cook, who hope to avoid US visa regulations that usually accompany outsourcing, with their company SeaCode, and a used cruise ship, sitting in international waters three miles off the coast of Los Angeles.""
Dumbest idea EVER. I do not understand this infatuation with outsourcing professional workers. You can't tell me it's anywhere near as cost effective as they're making it out to be. (My own experience says otherwise.) I smell another crash of DotCom proportions...
But if they're going to do this thing, they should at least do it in style. By utilizing an inexpensive aircraft carrier they could at least send these people home for occasional weekends and vacations. Under the proposed plan, they're basically prisoners on the ship unless they can manage to get a Visa to enter the country. Which, of course, negates the entire point of not messing with H1-Bs. And how do they think the government is going to react to having these people parked right off our shore? (Hmm... maybe they could refit the guns on the old carrier to keep the coast guard off their backs.)
Did I mention that this is a dumb idea?
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
... I wonder what the tax implications for the workers are. And what happens if a crime is committed in International Waters? What about a guarantee of workplace safety and anti-discrimination policy?
I see lots of problems here.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
>How about outsourcing to The Principality of
>Sealand?
You can't accommodate 500 people in Sealand, and you can't take control of it. A cruise ship on the other hand, affords a broad range of possibilities. It can also be motherf*cking expensive to operate. When's the last time you negotiated a contract for diesel fuel in TONS?
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
That was my thought as well, but then I realized that they're going to need a LOT of diesel just to keep the lights on. On land, you'd sinply run off the grid. But on a boat, their entire power capacity is going to be supplied by the ships engines or generators. Those aren't quite as power hungry as when the ship is under power, but with the number of electronic toys they're going to need, it's not going to be cheap either.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
This must be a fake ....
Notice how their first "Company News" lists an Article-FORBES with no link. If you go to Forbes.com and search their site for "SeaCode" you get: "Sorry, your search for SeaCode did not return any Documents. Please revise your search and try again."
Besides, 3.1 miles makes no sense as your not in international waters.
Since the company is incorporated in California, I am sure they will be paying taxes in the US. It has more to do with skirting immigration laws and visas then evading taxes. That, and OSHA requirements and wage laws.
Sorry, teleporters just kill you and then make a copy. A perfect, soul-less copy.
If I were them I wouldn't be exploiting the lack of labor laws. You can only expect people to be so productive in something as fundamentaly brain draining as CS if you run them into the ground.
The lawlessness I'd exploit would be COPYRIGHT. Seriously.... the MPAA and the RIAA have been successfull in shutting down or going after distribution networks, never the root uploaders or the downloaders.
Set up a blatently illegal server system well off shore, enjoy the benefits of satellite based internet access. Sell movies and music an pennies on the dollar at high quality....
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oh yea....
3. Profit!
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
Umm... no. The ship, being of US registry, can be confiscated and searched by US authorities. Not to mention that the US *has* enforced its borders beyond its 3 mile claim in the past.
Javascript + Nintendo DSi = DSiCade
Corporations owe their existence to the state. Capitalists owe their ability to own such artifical property as copyright, patents, and resource exploitation rights, to the state.
In a democracy, the state owes its existance to the people. (Not individually, obviously, but en masse.)
Therefore, corporations indirectly owe their existance and capitalists indirectly owe their riches to the people.
If we're going to allow our government to funnel economic power into the hands to a few and to create legal monsters that are capable only of seeking profit, it's sensible for us to demand that it keep them leashed. That includes demanding employment practices that are not a race to the bottom.
(The better alternative, of course, would be to altogether get rid of the state's power to enrich capitalists and charter corporations.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
I rather doubt the Coast Guard or Navy will have any difficulty claiming jurisdiction over a vessel that is more or less permenently "anchored" within 200 miles of the U.S. coast.
"...work for almost nothing in exchange for having no taxes, no expenses and no home to maintane."
Gee, you just described the US Military...
Nah nuclear all the way.
Follow the lead of the US Aircraft carriers aka "The cities that float"
For Indians (or other 3rd worlders) a B visa is *also* very difficult to get. When I lived in the US, I had a few Indian friends whose younger family members coulnd't visit simply because (in particular) young third-worlders have a lot of difficulty getting any kind of visa. Older family members were OK (probably because they were judged to be settled and unlikely to be an illegal immigration risk).
This ship will be filled with young third worlders who will have severe difficulty getting a B visa, especially when their home address is a ship.
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
And how about bandwith? The best thing would be to rent a T3, if that is enough, and lay a cable. But subsea stuff like that is quite expensive.
And I doubt they could get away with the 3 nm distance. More like 12 nm.
How about security and piracy. Did they think about that? Doubt so. And safety regulations? On both oil platforms and cruise ships everyone that works there needs to take a (two?) weeks safety course. Lots of $ there too.
What about waste/sewage? I'm sure the supply ship can handle that too. Only $15000.
And how long do they think coders are willing to stay on this ship before they _need_ some R&R? I'd say max 4 weeks. What then? How do they get visas so they can visit LA? And how do they get back to LA anyway? What about productivity and retaining workers?
This is a shitty idea.
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
Conversely, would you do business with a company that leverages every advantage that they legally can to provide the best services at the lowest prices?
:) But that's my thoughts on it -- we, as developers, have to start playing a better game because I doubt offshoring is going anywhere.
Like it or not, offshoring is legal. Business often lets morality and ethics and so forth take a back seat to the bottom line and that's where many go off their tree about offshoring, not about its legitimate use in the business model. Employees are out to save their ass, and employers are out to save theirs. When you get to something like offshoring, you're talking about certain employees unable to save their ass because the employer is saving theirs.
What we really need is a better way to play the game, as employees, so that offshoring is either a) no longer appealing or b) no longer a threat to us. Note the differences in those two statements. Either developers need to make it so that offshoring is unappealing -- by developing better, smarter, faster, etc. -- or by making the threat of offshoring inapplicable to our state as employees, probably by developing skills, abilities, and knowledge that make no sense to offshore.
Now, HOW to do this is not something I've come up with.
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