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Does Open Source Software Cost Jobs?
jfruhlinger writes "John Spencer, a British blogger and tech educator, is convinced that free and open source software, which he's promoted for years, is costing IT jobs, as UK schools cut support staff no longer needed. But does the argument really hold up? It turns out that the services he's focused on are actually cloud services that are reducing the need for schools to provide their own tech infrastructure. Of couse, it's also true that many of those cloud services are themselves based on open source tech."
The way I see it, technology helps us get machines to do the mundane so we can spend our time exploring and creating.
Putting all your eggs in one basket is never a good idea.
Putting all your eggs in someone else's basket, one that is hosted God knows where, is an even worse idea.
Something tells me this cloud fad is just that; a passing trend. Oh, sure, non-technical management might love the idea of being able to cut staff and equipment costs by putting all their eggs in the cloud basket, but the first time said non-technical management is unable to access their remotely-stored eggs, for whatever reason, the shiny luster will fade and they'll come to the realization that the sysadmins they let go were far more valuable than previously thought.
Remote backups are always a good idea, but remote everything is not a winning strategy, IMO.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
Efficiency is evil.
It's more insidious than that. If you do a job that can be automated, you are already redundant. Automation will only increase. On the flip side we have ever cheaper labour due to globalisation. The idea of earning your living doing an honest day's work is coming under severe pressure. Artificially retricting the automation is a band aid at best. Imagine what would happen if we were to suddenly have robots with human like abilities but not wants and desires - if that sci fi dream is ever realised the idea of having a job is going to become rather antiquated.
So if we don't destroy ourselves we will eventually need a change to our economic systems and our ideas on earning - that will be a huge and devasting change to make - unlike any other in history. Earning a living is an idea deeply ingrained into most societies. Our entire economy will need to be reworked if the vast majority are not to starve. What's more it must be done sustainably with the finite resources we have. The change isn't going to be pretty..
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
There are two San Francisco bridges - among the most used and photographed in the world - built within 6 years, during the 1930's.
The Golden Gate was a WPA project - approved and built in 4 years. The Bay Bridge, not formally WPA, benefited immensely from the large-scale mobilization of labour and planning that WPA enabled.
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
This isn't a problem with the software, it's a problem with the economic system. Humans don't exist merely to fill jobs. On the contrary, jobs exist to fulfill humans.
If we've invented a technology that lets 1 person do the job of 2 people, then we've freed one person from the need to work. We've literally saved his life, or at least 40 hours a week of it. This is a good thing. The fact that this guy has to go supplicate himself to yet another capitalist in order to eat is simply indicative of the perverse incentives inherent in capitalism.
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
He's blaming Open Source for automation.
But it doesn't matter if the "cloud" vendor is running Apache or IIS or whatever. Services will be consolidated and automated. It's about the economies of scale.
He talks about being "an Open Source apologist". Fuck that. That's all you need to read to know that that article is going to be worthless.
He's confusing:
#1. Open Source (Free) Software.
#2. Consolidation / Automation.
#3. The recession / depression / economic restructuring / whatever.
#4. Hardware / software / services (his example of Apple).
And then he complains about the loss of "fat profits". But he doesn't understand that someone has to PAY those "fat profits".
It's only a good thing if the standard of living is improving. Back decades ago it was commonly believed that by the 21st century people would be working only a few hours a day to provide for themselves and having a large amount of time off.
That didn't happen primarily because they underestimated the willingness of a willfully ignorant subset of the population to vote for class warfare against the lower and middle classes and for the wealth to accumulate at the top even at those at the bottom suffer.