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Without Jobs, Will Open Source Suffer?
darthcamaro writes in with an interview with Markus Rex, Novell's top Linux exec and the former CTO of the Linux Foundation. While some open source vendors see the current economy as a boon to open source, the interview concludes with Rex's speculation on the contrary possibility. "The other thing is in both Europe and the US the rise of the unemployment rate is something that is rather unprecedented... The open source community to a certain degree is dependent on the willingness of people to contribute. We see no indication that anything might change there, but who knows? People need something to live off." Have you thought about scaling back open source work as the economy continues to contract?
Heh... was I the only one who misread this as something to do with Steve Jobs? (And subsequently went "Murrrrrh?")
Program Intellivision!
People need something to live off
This is utterly ridiculous. It's not like work on an open source project is comparable to giving away money, or hand-built widgets. Nobody is going to say "gee, I would normally contribute this code to that open source project, but I'm unemployed, so I'll sell it to buy groceries instead."
If a job's not worth doing, it's not worth doing right.
Were I unemployed, I would still contribute to open source projects. The only thing I think would be worse than being jobless and broke would be being bored, jobless, and broke.
Don't take life too seriously; it isn't permanent.
Without jobs, everybody suffers.
If all those programmers that are unemployed want to keep their skills sharp they better find a project or two to join and keep on coding.
Honestly sitting on the couch for 3 months eating cheetos and playing the Xbox does not make you a useful coder when you finally get another gig. Laid off? go to sourceforge and find something you would like to contribute to, contact the team, and get cracking. Keeps you sharp and you will get spoiled by the no deadline freedom.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
In times of abundance, companies can justify spending on open source positions for a variety of reasons, but in times like these, it comes down to numbers: screw the public, what does it do for the company and its shareholders? If you can bring substantial value to those two, then it's business as usual. If not, then you're out of luck.
One thing is for sure, though, and that's that you cannot afford to let your involvement with an OSS project or community affect your job in this economy. If it is getting in the way by becoming a real factor in your work-life balance, then you need to drop it so that you can do the work you need to do and have a decent home life that won't impact your day job.
In Europe, unemployment benefits are good enough that we don't need to worry about starving or even losing net access, and with nothing else to do, contributing to open source projects can't be bad for one's programming career! With big enough contributions, you get a reputation, new contacts and something to reference in your CV.
I know I got my current job because I had some code in the Linux kernel. Being able to show your code to prospective employers is good advertising.
PHEM - party like it's 1997-2003!
Even with him around, they barely contributed to the Mach kernel.
This is a rather "no shit sherlock" kinda question. Yes -companies such as Sun and Novell can no longer afford to waste money throwing programmers at unending charity projects, and mainstream companies such as Microsoft need to explore revenue generating options such as more efficiently monetizing their intellectual property holdings.
Companies can no longer afford to pay for the free ride that computer users have grown accustomed to, and projects such as ubuntu and red hat are either going to need to justify themselves economically -or close shop.
TINSTAAFL, bitches!
Contrary to the dept this came from, this question is not worth asking. Programmers are likely to continue to code whether they are unemployed or not, otherwise their skills would grow rusty. And the capitalization of Jobs made me think of Steve. Kdawson fails again TBCH :P
This post was made in complete sincere seriousity; as such any attempts to derive humour are doomed to instant failure.
In short, no.
Change is certain; progress is not obligatory.
If you pay me to produce software you can slap whatever license on that software to your hearts content. But where did the idea that I should *work* for free? I can imaging giving it away, but not to work for free. Why don't farmers give food away for free? Why doesn't the car companies give cars away for free? Because their workers need to eat as well...
So, please separate the ideology from the payment. The license from the business plan. If open source will survive, it needs developers (that includes more than just code monkeys) that are paid. So let the value of your product and the quality of your product drive you, not the license.
Stories like these seem to assume two rather dubious things: (1) that programmers always have a choice between work-for-nothing and work-for-something and (2) that all OSS is produced by volunteers for no money.
The second, we know is partially true, if altruism didn't exist OSS wouldn't work nearly as well; but definitely not wholly true, anybody can rattle off the list of big serious commercial players paying people to build OSS.
The first, though, seems a really weird assumption to make when talking about OMG Depression! conditions. For anybody who primarily works for a living(as opposed to primarily owning or investing) the more or less defining characteristic of bad economic times is low prices or no buyers for your labor. It isn't: "Well, times are hard, so I'm going to start selling the labor I used to give away.", it is "Times are hard, people aren't interested in buying the labor I want to sell."
There will probably be some cases where people who used to work relatively short hours at high wages will now work longer hours at lower wages, thus decreasing their OSS contribution; but I strongly suspect that, for most programmers(and people generally) the whole point of "depression" is that you can't just go and sell the labor you used to give away. If things get really dreadful, fall of the USSR style dreadful, we'll probably see less OSS and more subsistence farming and wood chopping; but garden variety economic slowdown would seem to have the opposite effect.
By driving the cost of software to zero, OSS developers have made it difficult for many people to act creatively due to the high cost of development. While OSS developers may make some money developing an open source software package, they have essentially forever undercut anyone who might have also developed something similar. This isn't to say that closed source products are somehow more encouraging of competition, but simply that OSS stakes out the monopoly position as its first step (by pricing everything else out of the picture) whereas closed source companies must work hard to make every sale.
This, I think, is the reason why OSS is generally of poor quality (generally speaking) compared to closed source competition. Whereas OSS is driven by addressing specific needs, closed source must compete on its merits and advantages. This leads to very utilitarian software for OSS (Ubuntu) and much more colorful and creative software for closed source (Apple's OSX).
In fact, there is probably a middle ground that many hardware manufacturers are already taking. By pairing the utility of OSS with the style of closed source, they are able to build very interesting devices that not only look good, but also function well. And at the same time, by focusing on developing products with merit and advantages, these hardware makers are keeping competition alive and engineers employed. So maybe the middle ground is to write closed source software and steal from the unemployed OSS guys.
FOSS sounds like a great way to keep my skills relevant and honed. It will also help fill in those blank time periods which employers hate. I see you haven't been employed for the last six months. Oh well, I've been searching for a job and working for (this particular) project. Check out some of my work if you'd like, here is the URL...
I would think that sacked software engineers would actually be more likely to start contributing to OSS ...
[I can't RTFA because of content filtering where I'm at right now. So I'm guessing about its contents.]
Every time I've been between jobs, I didn't sit around drinking 40s, eating doritos, and watching tv -- I worked on my own projects (websites and software) and some open source software. But when I spend all day working then come home and deal with dinner, running errands, other life stuf... that doesn't leave much time for working on open source software.
Do you even lift?
These aren't the 'roids you're looking for.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Speaking as a developer who uses lots of FOSS, I think as long as there are jobs there will be a demand for open-source software. I would be worried if I worked for IBM or BEA or any of the other vendors who sell expensive stuff. My company believes in open source and when we propose to use that sort of technology, our business customers don't bat an eye.
I think open source will benefit. There will be a certain number of people who are laid off that it will be extremely difficult to find a similar job. I'm thinking of people in industries and service sector jobs that were contracting before the downturn and have become much worse (the printing industry is one in particular I'm very familiar with).
These individuals will need to "reinvent" themselves to an extent. Getting involved in an open source project will give them some experience in a new field. In addition, others may consider this being a good time to start a business (I know many people who have the desire to start their own businesses but have been reluctant due to the imaginary security blanket of a corporate job). If these people want to be successful in this economy with a new venture, they will need to be very smart with their expenses which does generally equate to utilizing open source.
Lets see, whilst I'm working on programming for a living, I work in my own time on FOSS programming.
Why would I stop using my own time on FOSS programming when I'm unemployed? I have even MORE free time and I get paid exactly the same no money for it still, so no loss there.
If I were to have to work in some menial task for money, why would McDonald's have an employment contract that says "and you cannot work on FOSS projects even on your own time"?
It's a weird question.
Earlier I thought the article was about the economy, now I thought this article was about Steve Jobs.
*Sigh*
- Dan
Get a MacArthur Genius Grant, and get paid to speak. Then you can do whatever you want in the rest of the time. After all, he's making a living without getting paid for writing code. It's good enough for him, it should be good enough for you.
"Except that contributions to open source projects are both good resume-fodder and a good way to get noticed by potential employers."
And how many contributors have actually gotten jobs in this recession and subsequent layoffs? Remember we're really just getting started with this downturn. The story's basically asking what if it continues on much longer? Not saying, "well in the past..."
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
I think Steve will be just fine. :P
I don't think those companies contribute to Linux as charity in the first place. More likely, they wanted to have some input in a system with growing market share. Red Hat is actually making a profit according to its latest quarterly report, so I don't expect them to close shop soon ;-)
Ubuntu might be an exception, as its founder Mark Shuttleworth has said he is doing it partly to return something to the community.
C - the footgun of programming languages
If I'm looking at fairly equally qualified candidates and one of them spent their off time contributing to an open source project, I would tend to see that as a very big point in their favor. To me that says they really enjoy what they do and have concerns that go beyond the bottom line. And that they care enough about their skills to keep them sharp while they were off.
Community service always looks good, even if that community is virtual. And that can make those of you coming out of college stand out from your peers. An open source project can give you very marketable experience.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Engineer A who was laid off and did nothing for 3 months except take his unemployment check..
OR
Engineer B who was laid off and did some work on an open source project where he/she learned some new things and kept their skills sharp?
I think the exact opposite would occur, No jobs equals more people who now have the time to jump in.
Most software developers that I know, myself included, lean towards the artistry and expression outlet, and the money is a bonus. Most of us would be coding as a hobby even if we had to get a job at WalMart.
The free software landscape is an amazing resource. 20 or so years ago, to create a software product, beyond the couple grand for the computer, would cost an additional few grand for compilers, operating systems, and tools.
These days, a few hundred bucks for a computer and a free Debian/Fedora CD you can create virtually any software product you want. Furthermore, with libraries like wxWidgets, GTK, QT, etc. it is pretty trivial to make cross platform programs and services.
With the downturn in the jobs market, more and more people will be creating more and more different and interesting products in order to make more money. Proprietary software will be too expensive to do this, so developers will be driven to free software in order to survive. Licenses like GPL will require an amount of "give back." So the free software environment will expand.
Once developers get the hang of the GPL and figure out the boundary issues, they will discover more and more how much code is really available and how much easier it is to use it as a development base.
Getting a job *IS* a job. So what's the difference? Unemployed who want to contribute to open source will "just call it a day" and start relaxing and code something they'll like.
Or who knows? Maybe they'll join an open source project to add it to their Resume.
Yes one of the Apple founders has some health problems we get it already. This has nothing to do with open source. RTFA already people.
People who were responsible for me losing my job:
1. my incomplete skillset and my imperfection of my skillset
2. wall street
3. my boss and his lack of farsight
4. corporate frauds, malpractices which went unchecked
5. any cartel of companies who had a strangehold on the market that i could make money serving
6. my inability to sell PCs loaded with my OS and my programs
7. my govt not providing me with cheaper internet access
8. my overspending lifestyle where i did not bother saving part of the money i earned
9. now i'm panicking with everyone else
10. my inability to switch from employment to businessman mode
Let's see if opensource helps me undo or prevent any of these:
Points 1 and 10:
my incomplete skillset and my imperfection of my skillset
Ease of obtaining complete documentation - complete understanding rather than hasty patches and jargon that might come with "unstable" technologies. What about software that I can test and install on my home workstation, which is not as high-end as my office workstation? What about needing to pay for licenses to get developer versions? What about the price-value bargain in certifications on any technology? Did I get time to stick to a couple of skillsets and master them? Or did I choose the wrong company which gave me no time to master any skillset. All I'm left with is working knowledge in the skillset and partial domain knowledge in the vertical i wrote code in. Google helped my like nothing else. Would Google survive without FOSS?
Points 2, 3, 4, 5, 7:
No brainer - these guys put all the focus on the stock market index and took away focus from innovators - they've never used their vote to prevent the executive from enforcing IPR threats and maintaining a stranglehold on the market. The justification that the monopoly/cartel/oligopoly gives for every perceived unethical decision or inflammatory policy is shareholder value which governs every act. Are the said shareholders really that trustworthy? Are they really asking the executive to do what they are doing? Is the executive hoodwinking both the public and the shareholders and enjoying exclusive benefits? Is the corporate promotion of business being investigated at all for possible economic crimes? Unpaid taxes, loopholes, acts of ommission and commision? Corruption? Preferntial treatment due to personal contacts?
Can opensource do this? This is systemic and the relation is not obvious until you find that as an ISV or VAR, your products are NOT preferred because the oligopoly's products are the ones that the local string puller advocates, often because of kickbacks and barters. Has it directly hurt my product. Dman well it has. MegaCorp needs relatively much less effort to produce the app that competes with mine. I have to put great effort and make a beautiful product. But it does not sell because MegaCorp has asked partners to say no to any competitor as they get promotional incentives.
Points 6 and 10:
If my next employer or my customer wants to pay ZERO money for hardware and sofwtare, what can i use to legally achieve this target? Will it sound more competitive to my prospective customer if I tell him that there's no license fees and that he owns the thing he runs? What if I tell him that NO, he does NOT need to upgrade and hardware at all, all he needs to do is just pay me well for my work. Will FOSS help me
Points 8 and 9:
Did I ever know that products with the same functionality or better existed at all which could be obtained at astonishingly lower prices? Have I totally, completetly been ignorant of a whole array of production grade software which comes with very little upfront investment on procurement which eases my finances a bit for the next 6 months to one year by which time I hope to be able to improve the condition and get things into better shape.
Do people want to buy stuff that is functionally equivalent and nearly zero price from me, a small time developer, instead of Megacorp, whose money goes into
I very recently came across a situation where an open source (driver) developer put a paypal donation button on his homepage to let potential consumers motivate him to continue coding.
I'm not sure how well it's working out (as the drivers are still stagnant) but his reasoning was legitimate; He's working on other projects that generate a profit for his household and driver development would take time away that.
Like with everything else, there is an optimum level of employment that supports open pro bono open source activity. Note that producing open source can itself be a paid job - especially as a freelancer with the right clients. If Stallman had his way, *all* paid programming work would be on GPL software. Two years ago, it looked like my company might go under, and I was doing a lot more pro bono on the side. Now there is tons of work, and it is hard to squeeze in even a simple Fedora packaging project. On the other hand, I wouldn't be contributing much as a homeless person either.
How about a pledge drive? Let people know what software they use that has its origins in open source. Tell them if they want more to pledge. Some group can do this and distribute it to programmers in need. I bet google would sponsor it for publicity.
The lack of money in the system is driving major corporations to use OSS in order to cut costs. As this trend continues and the tech economy continues to shift more and more towards OSS, many programmers will find that OSS programming becomes their full time job. When OSS is your full time job, maintaining your project becomes mission critical. We can only expect better OSS from the current economic trends.
This is utter nonsense. Everyone I work with in the IT industry is swiftly dropping expensive proprietary apps for much cheaper open source alternatives. As a result the amount of time available for engineers to work on open source is increasing not decreasing. This trend will accelerate, the longer the downturn continues, as licensing agreements and support contracts with big vendors expire.
Linus was a student with no corporate sponsorship when he started on the kernel. Hobbyists and uber-coders are driven to do it, and they will.
Here in Europe, it is quite usual to receive some financial help while unemployed - a "by product" of various taxes and/or insurances we have to pay.
So, if the developer get unemployed, he can spend that time with such financial support doing what? Yes, making his resume look better by participating on some FOSS development. Or simply enjoying the participation like some kind of vacation.
That of course for all those few days any good developer will stay unemployed. :)
hany
Picking an Open source project to contribute to is on my short list of things to do when/if laid off.
I also plan to work on for profit code (or code I hope will make a profit), but contributing to OSS is something I plan to do with the new found 50 hours a week of free time, should that happen.
Think Deeply.
Certainly some people will cut back on their projects to devote more time to paid work. Others will probably increase their involvement, in an attempt to build or enhance a portfolio of work that could help get or secure a job. In the end, it'll probably be a wash: not much net increase or decrease.
After giving it some thought, I have decided that "Sentence case" is superior to "Title Case" from the viewpoint of precision. By capitalizing words in headings and titles of publications (of which there are many different ways to do it!), information is lost as to whether a particular word was a proper noun or not.
Furthermore, there are words (capitonyms) that completely change meaning and possibly pronunciation depending on the capitalization. For instance, "polish your shoes" vs. "eat a Polish sausage", or "measure the mass" vs. "go to Mass".
Using title case is a lossy operation.
Dr Superlove 300ml. I use my powers for awesome
Think I know why it's ridiculous. From the article:
Seriously Slashdot, I know he works for a Free software company, but Rex (the interviewee) is a PHB. PHB's are clueless, that's their job. Putting an interview with a PHB on a community full of nerds and hackers is like interviewing a monkey, then handing the result to the organ grinder.
/me sends copy of entire Dilbert back-catalogue to kdawson.
;-)
If you look back at the history open source, as short as it is, it was the .com bust that really pushed open source development over the edge and in to have a self sustaining momentum as thousands of out of work or under employed IT people sat at home working on projects for free. Those launched the next generation of open source, and I bet it will launch the next great generation of open source and this time I believe we will get a big piece of new open source economy as companies cut back on expensive closed source systems.
What money is out there will go to open source projects, developers, IT staff, and so on. By the time this recession is over, anyone that does not have their hands dirty in open source likly will not be able to find a job, and companies that are not seriously using it might not be around.
Might I site for example the performance of Red Hat, IBM, and other companies with strong open source relationships on the stock market, and other companies with their fingers in the open source pie. This is going to be just the tip of the ice berg. A million little open source companies will emerge, doing everything from building open source software to simply companies that are built on daily work using nothing but open source software.
My small company is one of them. I save over $250,000 a year in software, licenses, support, and going in to a recession I can afford to run my old hardware right through the other side of the recession. I have a very positive balance sheet, because I don't use closed source software. I make all my IT purchase decisions around support for open source.
Anything customized I need, I can typically throw a couple hundred dollar reward at a particular project and get whatever. hell, half the time the developers never even ask to collect the reward. They are just happy to see there is serious demand for some say x, y, or z type extension or function to whatever software and take up the challenge.
Living in Chile
I'm retired and have been working on some game support app for some time. I would never had done it during the time I was working. There is a lot of "old" programmers around who might be put to contribution. The grey revolution is coming. Only old programmers have the time: the young one don't have any!!
I don't get paid for any open source work I do.
If I find myself without a job, I oftentimes find myself more driven to work on open source things and personal projects, rather than coming home from work and vegging out with wikipedia all night.
I like having the income a job provides, but by the same token, I also like having the energy and drive that a job takes out of me.
Disclaimer: The opinions and actions of the US Gov't are in no way representative of those held by this author or its ci
I see the current economic correction as a challenge, for sure, but (minus stupid government attempts to "fix" it) also a great opportunity. Any business that wishes to survive must become more competitive, and must learn to do more with less. Free Software is one of the tools that will help many of them to do so.
I expect to be laid off soon by the financial services megacorp I work for. The moment that happens, Free / Open Source Software will benefit in two ways. First, I will have vastly more time to contribute toward the software itself. Second, I'll be working with small and medium sized businesses to assess their software needs and find them ways to save money. I expect to find a great deal of unnecessary proprietary software, and therefore to introduce many of these businesses to Free alternatives where it makes business sense (which is not always, but quite often). I also expect to be able to make a decent living installing, configuring, supporting, and training people around these installations.
Nonaggression works!
Amen to that, brother. I wish I had more time to work on my OS project too.
Certainly those software developers who still have jobs will likely spend less time on open-source projects, they'll be spending more of their time picking up the load as their employers lay other developers off and try to get more work from fewer people. But developers who're out of work will have more time to work on their own projects, even allowing for time spent hunting for work. And open-source projects make for good resume fodder: things to fill out a resume and provide code they can show to prospective employers to demonstrate actual ability. And as the economy gets worse, employers are only going to be more interested in candidates who can show actual working code over candidates with only paper qualifications. And open-source will be in more demand by employers who'll be interested in software that can do the same job as their expensive commercial stuff without the high license fees and support and upgrade headaches.
First: I probably only spend about 100 to 150 hours a year working on open source projects.
That said, open source is a key resource in my business. I live in a remote area in the mountains of Arizona so I mostly work remotely from home. This means that I compete with friends and colleagues in Russia, Vietnam, Brazil, and India whose cost of living is a lot less than in the USA.
One way I compete is by very aggressively using open source projects and building on them for consulting jobs. Customers, especially in this shitty economy (which is going to get much, much, much worse) care a lot about getting things done inexpensively.
The other way that open source makes money for me is that I write a lot (really enjoy writing both free material ad published books) and open source projects are good material, and any form of extra documentation is a good thing.
-Mark
Since being laid off I have been finishing up many personal projects and contributing to open source projects. The lack of an employer doesn't mean a lack of work. I have plenty to do.I sure I'm not the only one who finds that more time to contribute to FOSS is the silver lining in this dark cloud.
Likely, some of those who have lost their jobs will moan that they don't have time to work on open-source projects; they'll move into their parents' basements, read job postings on Craigslist and send off a few dozen resumes each day, then spend the rest of their time playing World of Warcraft.
These people are losers. They weren't going to work on open-source projects anyway, so a recession and layoff doesn't make a bit of difference to their usefulness to the world. It just gives them more time for World of Warcraft.
For the rest of us, though, a layoff would be an opportunity to learn and to create. Job-hunting does not take eight hours a day - especially in a weakened job market, when few interviews are being granted. Does anyone really expect to go to four interviews a day? If things really tank, you'll be lucky to get one or two interviews a week. Mailing out resumes and reading advertisements doesn't take more than a few hours a day. What is a laid-off programmer going to do with the rest of the day?
The good ones will still be programming. Learn a new language or framework; study for certifications; work on an open-source project. All of these things will make the person more marketable.
(There are exceptions, of course. People with no savings and no family or friends who they can move in with might have to work twelve hours a day slinging hamburgers.)
When the job market improves, what will you say to a hiring manager at an interview about the missing year on your resume? "I learned Ruby and Haskell, and contributed Feature X to Project Y" or "I sent out lots of resumes and no one was hiring. But I got my Arch-Druid to level 80!"?
Also a more desperate person may end up taking whatever work they can get, which may be part-time and non-technical. This can lead to even more hobby action on OSS projects, if they were the kind of techie at heart who needs to keep tinkering with something.
Not every technical thought or action is convertible into cash on the spot. OSS is perfect for those situations, as you can convert it into other benefits such as recognition, reputation and personal satisfaction.
Last recession we took on someone who had been "unemployed" for six months, but had lots of testimonials and thanks for work on OSS projects. Given the choice between someone who did that, someone who spent the time sending hundreds of CVs, and someone who watched tv for six months I would always go for the person who kept working. He had useful skills too, and we incorporated some OSS into our systems.
I read it on Slashdot.
February 2009 - Present: Unemployed
vs
February 2009 - Present: Full-time contributor to [insert your itch here]
-- 'The' Lord and Master Bitman On High, Master Of All
Right after the dot bomb bust, many of the open source project I was following gained a lot of momentum. All those techies out of work, what're they going to do, sit around and not use their computer?
Oh, jobs, no Jobs.
I read Slashdot for the headlines, because the headlines, unlike the articles, are usually original and never duplicated
people who are actively involved in open source projects are ones who can show many strong portfolio items whichever job they apply. they would probably get preference because of solid examples of prior work, and in some cases, name recognition. i dont think they will be out of job for too long. lower wages maybe, but dont think so.
AND in any case, there is elance etc, where they can do freelancing easily, with the help of same strong resume.
Read radical news here
With all this recession talking everyone is thinking about saving money.
Going open source on ALL levels will greatly reduce the costs now and in the future. And I'm quite positive it will also improve the reliability.
Now everyone is scared enough to try something new to save money.
Love many, trust a few, do harm to none.
Rex's statements are so common to large corporate tech providers. They all state that open source solutions seem "ineffective", but in reality they are more powerful, and cheaper than the bloated, blanket solutions their proprietary companies offer. It's BS because they just feel the ever-present threat that if open source was even largely considered by the market it would bring their profits plummeting to the bottom. It would just show the world markets what their software solutions are really worth. Absolutely NOTHING! http://www.odeweb.com/blog/post/view/it_recruiters_the_elite_buffers
Open source software will not suffer as a result of economic downturn because many of the applications out there are also hobbies and labours of love. In fact, in these economic times, quite the reverse. I would expect open source to thrive and flourish because businesses will be looking for less expensive, more attractive alternatives. Plus, open source development is a way of keeping programming skills fresh and gives the out of work software engineer a chance to hone their skills and practice writing better code. Sometimes, necessity is the mother of all invention, and in this economy, it is necessary to provide a more competitive product than the Microsofts of the world.
With the economy in the shitter it's unlikely that the job search will consume all that much time until things turn around. Assuming expenses can be cut to the point where unemployment can cover everything, sending out the requisite couple of resumes a week would leave plenty of free time for coding.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Not the reality.
The OP said that FOSS was worse AND would drive the cost of software down.
HOW?
If it's worse, then it won't replace a paid-for solution unless someone PAYS to have the code fixed.
This is NOT saying that FOSS code is broken, just that the OP's point, even if it were true, was self-defeating.
But I guess you'll take any idea to ensure that your buggy-whip job remains anachronistically alive.
I'm a software developer. I've had a few periods where I was unemployed. I think that is when I wrote the most open source software. I had time. What else does a software guy do when he has plenty of spare time?
Your plentiful free time, which was used previously to work, can now be used to find a new job.
You can continue your contributions as usual after that.
In other words, for unemployed people their new job is to find a new job.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
If the only thing you can do is flipping burgers I find very unlikely you will find a job in IT, or that you held one that gave you the skills to contribute to any serious FOSS project anyway.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
"In times of abundance, companies can justify spending on open source positions for a variety of reasons.."
You make it sound like FOSS is a flight of fancy done as some kind of charity.
Companies that rely on FOSS just can't decide all of the sudden to stop buying, providing services or contributing to FOSS because it is actually what brings business home.
So you may want to clarify which dire situations you have in mind in which companies will change such an important strategic decision....
"you cannot afford to let your involvement with an OSS project or community affect your job in this economy"
If you job has not being affected before, why should it be affected now all of the sudden?
Is the economic situation like voodoo, or what exactly is your point?
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
As somebody from a "third world country" living in Europe I do lots of IT work and contribute to some FOSS projects, the minority you refer to has not many programmers, so the rest of us will keep programing and promoting FOSS, but thank you for your kind concern anyway, it seems to be misplaced.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Sometimes I really wonder if they understand at all how FOSS works.
With friends like these .... gee....
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
before OSS came along.
And you have no idea how many problems can be solved, but aren't yet, because people have been reinventing accounting and CRM and HRM applications.
Wake up dude, you're on slashdot. Do you read any of the other science and technology articles?
Have you ever visited worldchanging.com?
Have you listened up a few TED talks?
Why don't you even know the fields where engineers with CS degrees can actually do some real computation?
Not everything is done with supercomps and we're going to personal/cheap/affordable supercomps much faster than you estimate.
NVIDIA GPUs for instance.
Science has enough to keep you busy for the next century or so, at the rate at which we make applications. You seem to have thought only about the business apps and you also have no idea of just how many people are using ZERO PRICE Microsoft software and mesing up their work schedules without paying either Microsoft or an independent consultant any fees. All they're doing is calling the hardware guys who promptly take some backups, format the drive and reinstall everything. And the guys who work for these assemblers/sellers so to say are exploited pretty miserably. That's outside the US, of course.
web2.0 has given you a huge platform. There is a sea change in "verticals" that we are going to witness over the next decade. Prepare technical skills or move out into retailing and margins.
Opensource and cloud computing is helping prepare people's skillsets for the coming technology revolution. OSS devs are NOT cannibalizing - you simply dont see the size of the market that even m$ sees quite clearly. That's why they have research labs in India and Brazil - they want a share of local innvoation and business, because there's no one-size fits all for tech software or software supporting a technology revolution.
And then there's natural language interfaces and stuff like that. Read up a bit about globalization too.
I don't know why developers don't charge for their software!
Put it under the same exact license, allow people to modify if they want, heck even allow people to distribute (if they really want to) include full source code... but charge something for it.
The "perceived value" of FOSS ("F" as in "Freedom") is suffering precisely because developers don't charge for it. People see "free" and they equate it with "not good".
This current economy brings with it the opportunity for developers to open their eyes to this side of it, but that'll never happen.
If U don't expect to be employed in the future, you need to make your own work. In 1980, 1991, & 2001, we expected future jobs. Not any more. There's still programming, but it's more focused on making money.
You understand you are a nerd when your friends ask you whether you are looking for jobs and you say you want his autograph on the label of your first 1980s Macintosh floppy diskette.
When we all got laid-off from the Gnash project, work on it came to a screeching crawl. When we raised money, we took hardworking volunteers and asked them to work harder--for money! That they did. Now, every one of us has had to find another job and, with that taking up most of our focus, there is less time to contribute to a FLOSS project. Most people are still contributing, but it's certainly not at the same rate.
That's because Novel got wrong model, trying to make money on open source. They might be going as a company really soon. But it's completely not true for the rest. Opensource started by students, ie then you don't have money and not willing to pay any. Just imagine: you don't have money. You parents don't have money. $10 can help you to live for week. But you like computers a lot. You would still play with it, "share" commercial software with your friends, write your own or modify other opensource projects. Don't forget that most popular kubuntu came from Africa. How many more examples do you need?
"Graveyards are full of indispensable men."
If the economy gets bad enough, even the most talented IT people won't be able to find IT jobs. But McDonalds and WalMart are doing better in this climate. Not to mention, I would hope an IT person would at least be the manager at McDonalds, not flipping burgers, but whatever.
If I read this correctly, Mr. Rex seems to be saying that the problems due to the economy are unique to open source (true, others don't depend on contributions, but they do depend on sales, which are similarly impacted). If that is what he meant, he is the one who has a problem.