Crowdsourcing Software Development to the Masses

Lucas123 writes "Computer World is running a piece on Crowdsourcing. That's a catchy term for the practice of taking a job traditionally performed by employees or a contracted company and outsourcing it to an undefined, large group of people in the form of an open call on the Web. Article author Mary Brandel views it as a viable way to develop cheap but innovative software. Sites like TopCoder and their coding competitions are becoming more popular with big name companies like Constellation Energy because programmers who take on the job are global, offering many different perspectives on any one job. 'The creativity and innovation of how people are rationalizing these designs and building components enables us to interject a perspective and approach that normally we wouldn't have access to,' Constellation's director of IT said." Is there any potential here, or is this just a buzzword bad idea?

Comments

Re:I call it... Let's not pay people...

[beadfulthings]

I'm especially interested that the company involved is Constellation Energy. They're the parent company of Baltimore Gas and Electric, which serves my hometown. BGE recently railroaded through a 72% rate increase for electricity. That took effect in July after much controversy. The utility now wants 25% more. This more recent increase is supposed to enhance their profits; the previous increase was supposed to cover the cost of energy they purchase from Constellation. Actually, they sell electricity to Constellation, then they buy it back at inflated prices and pass the cost on to their customers. There's no shortage of technical talent in Maryland. I suppose it's too much to expect that Constellation would pay fair wages to Maryland-based programmers.