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OSS Provides Opportunity, Challenge for Developing World
NewsForge has an interesting article looking at open source in the developing world. From the article: " Open source software and development can push governments of developing nations ahead in the world, but only if they participate as producers of the technology themselves, United Nations University (UNU) researchers say. While they say developing regions such as China, East Asia, India, and South America are among the biggest markets for open source software, UNU officials worry that there may be too few open source developers in those regions."
United Nations University (UNU) researchers say. While they say developing regions such as China, East Asia, India, and South America are among the biggest markets for open source software, UNU officials worry that there may be too few open source developers in those regions.
Also from the article:
Still, Krishna stresses that limiting prospects to only open source solutions and development may deprive these nations of access to other resources, which might include proprietary solutions, companies, and their money. "A lot of people argue there are more opportunities from proprietary solutions, and they might not get it if they are so open source oriented," he says. "The proper course of action is not to be tied to one or get into any religious wars.
The way I see it, open source is an opportunity for everyone. This is just as true of small towns and rural places in the USA and Europe as it is for third world countries. Rather than sending off money to Redmond and Silicon Valley, these countries and cities and towns can hire locals to develop the software. If it is an open source product, they will already have a starting point. I think the biggest advantage of open source, which is constantly over looked, is that it basically combines the best of two worlds: commercial-off-the-shelf and custom development.
Have a problem that can almost be solved by an available commercial app? Tough, it will be close to impossible (unless you are IBM or the U.S. or Eurpean government) to get the developers to change it for you. Have a problem that can almost be solved by an existing oss package? Great bring in some experienced local contractors to modify it to your organization's needs.
Everybody wins: your organization gets something it may not have gotten before; money stays in the local economy; the community around that product benefits (if changes are contributed back); and so on. The only people who lose are the established software companies, because they now have stiffer competition that is more agile than they are.
Wow. I read
"That is a mindset that should be discouraged from being advocated."
And thought I was still not awake. Then I read it again - still didn't make sense. Then I went to the website for Frost & Sullivan to see where they found this bozo...
"Our partnership services provide you with the innovative solutions to maximize your growth opportunities and dominate your competition. Our methodology is designed to empower you with global perspective in four distinct disciplines: technical; econometric; application; and market."
Couldn't they have found somebody else?
Using plain ol' text since 1968
Sure, empowering people is a great thing.
0 30248 discusses the future of IT in America.
But then we have to look at the realities of what happens when the rest of the world gets empowered. For example, this recent Slashdot post: http://ask.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/04/22/2
For many of the people who responded, the outlook was bleak due to outsourcing to countries where the labor is cheaper. Thus, the IT industry in the U.S. weakens, keeping recent college graduates out of the positions they went to school for.
Should we care? Should we keep the knowledge to ourselves, in order to keep our economy strong?
Usually that depends on which side of the issue you are on...are you one of the people negatively affected by the world-wide expansion of tech professionals, or not.
So while it may seem like something we should do (empowering the rest of the world) not everyone agrees. And this does not just apply to the US, and not just to the tech industry.
Do you think that the people who run the banana plantations want their employees to be educated?
No reason to lie.