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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."
Efficiency is evil.
There isn't much need for cotton spinners or candlemakers any more either. Are we to mourn those jobs as well?
Hoist Number One and Number Six.
There are jobs in the cloud too. They're just smarter jobs, not I-run-a-server-in-my-spare-time-so-I'm-qualified jobs. And who says you don't need support staff for open source software anyway? Hell if anything you probably need more when people can't find that button that does that thing in Word but isn't there in open office.
Software that isn't designed to require constant hands-on maintenance costs jobs.
OSS is not always in that category, sadly.
The way I see it, technology helps us get machines to do the mundane so we can spend our time exploring and creating.
Sounds like public transportation cuts jobs. If everybody rode in buses or trains, the number of auto mechanics would go down drastically.
Being open source doesn't eliminate the need for support.
You know what costs jobs? Efficiency. Economic efficiency always costs jobs. Often, it's creating other jobs elsewhere, but maybe not. Maybe it just means that job doesn't need to be done anymore.
You can create jobs by paying people to dig ditches and then fill them back in. Or you can create jobs by hiring support people you don't need, building infrastructure that can be handled more efficiently elsewhere, or paying people to write software that you don't need because an open source alternative is already available. It's the same as digging useless ditches.
Do you really want to create jobs? Great. Hire people to do something useful that can't be handled more efficiently by open source software. Or hire them to improve open source software-- god knows there's work to be done.
Since when have jobs become the be-all and end-all of everything? Sometimes, technology means less human intervention is necessary. Deal with it.
It's better to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don't want and get it.
- E. Debs
Yeah and so what?
One person not doing a redundant/unnecessary job is an opportunity for that one person to find another way to productively contribute to the community.
Bemoaning job loses in areas of progress and innovation? Lets bemoan the how computers superseded the profession of clerk.
Electric lamps cost jobs when they were new, all those candlemakers in the street! The horrors! And the car companies put the buggy makers out of work, the whip manufacturers kaput, the ferriers all bankrupt.
Look at all that open source water that falls from the sky, depriving honest water sellers from making a living. Damn it, this is terrible! Nothing should be free, right?
Someone is complaining because Joe will do for free what Jim has been paid for? *sigh*. What a load of bull-oney.
Free Martian Whores!
Obviously if less IT staff is required, the school can get more certified teachers. If you studied C.S. you might apply for a job as math teacher.
Support Eachother, Copy Dutch Property!
http://quoteinvestigator.com/2011/10/10/spoons-shovels/
At one of our dinners, Milton recalled traveling to an Asian country in the 1960s and visiting a worksite where a new canal was being built. He was shocked to see that, instead of modern tractors and earth movers, the workers had shovels. He asked why there were so few machines. The government bureaucrat explained: "You don’t understand. This is a jobs program." To which Milton replied: "Oh, I thought you were trying to build a canal. If it’s jobs you want, then you should give these workers spoons, not shovels."
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
Once you've basically turned the computers into dumb terminals managed remotely and the only thing required is a connection to the net, you no longer need a network administrator.
... until one (or more) of those dumb terminals is unable to connect to its remote services. Then you'll be right back where you started, except now you have to pay that same netadmin outrageous consulting wages 'cuz he's not on the payroll.
Hindsight is always 20/20.
An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
That's not creating a job, that's creating a worker's skills.
Creating a job means that there is a need for work to be done, and a flow of money sufficient to hire somebody to do it.
A rising tide lifts all boats, but only if there are enough boats. What happens when automation removes all the jobs?
We know technology and efficiency remove the need for some jobs, and some people are out of work and have to do something else, but it's improving the standard of living, it's a good thing for society, Luddite fallacy, etc. all that. The thing is, history has shown than up till now, automation and technology may have eliminated some jobs but have created a roughly equal number of other jobs, such that people can still make enough money to support themselves and their families and enjoy this higher standard of living. What happens if automation removes jobs faster than it creates them? Or removes too many jobs all at once? I've read some stuff on post-labor economics, but it basically requires socializing or communizing (what a dirty word nowadays!!!) the ownership of the automation/technology for everyone to benefit, and I don't see that happening without a revolution of some sort.
As western civilization has grown through the industrial revolution we have found that as technology replaces skill sets and workers it typically frees them up for more profitable work. A specific set of jobs is replaced, but those workers are then put to work on something that is ultimately more productive. In a command economy this would be a problem, in a capitalist economy those workers will be employed in the next role until that one is replaced as well.
KK4SFV
Well, I can see for an individual who wants an income in the IT sector it may be the right question for performing sub-optimization for that individual.
But looking at it from a macro-perspective, it is interesting to observe how the skewed distribution of wealth makes "workers" so eager to work and find new ways to spend all our waking moments generating even more wealth for the super-rich. It is a perfectly self-enforcing system where as soon as a "worker" has nothing to do (s)he focuses all energy of finding new ways to please the overlords. Because if we are not working, there is no income. And somehow nothing less than working 100% seems to cut it in order to live the lives we have come to expect. So we willingly spend most of our lives working until we are old and die, and most of the output of that work trickles up the pyramid to that "1%" group.
So instead of celebrating efficiency ("hooray, now we can all spend a little less time working without sacrificing our lifestyle"), we start worrying about this type of progress. Just shows that humanity has still not figured out the right way to organize as a society. Democracy and capitalism seems to be the best answer we have come up with so far, but these days with the Internet etc. it is becoming all the more visible how plagued our Western systems are by corruption and self-serving people in positions of power.
so we should all go back to manual looms and employ millions.
The Law of Large Number (of People).
If something happens once in a million it is often considered a rare event. But that is wrong. If something happens once in a million for a million people, then it has happened to more than 300 Americans. If it happens once a year for each person it has happened 6000 times in the last twenty years. That is for the Americans alone. If we expand to a larger area, Europe + South America + Asia, those rare events aren't so rare. (If something happens once in a million years, well that is another story...)
Good ideas are rare. How many times can one come up with a really, really good idea in your life-time? Well, let us say that 1% of the population can come up with one good idea during their life-time. With 100,000,000 people coming up with good ideas then there are many. Good ideas get stuck. And software doesn't change their ideas as often as hardware (due to API, ABIs, spaghetti-complexities, NP-hard solutions, etc), there will be a increased difficulty in finding new ideas. On top of that we have patents... Patents suck. With more than a million competent developers around? The Law of Large Numbers makes its voice heard, prima facie.
That doesn't mean that innovation is gone, only that it takes _new_ efforts to find what is relevant, in an ever increasing cyberspace. The diversity of the platforms change, too! Thefore there contact surfaces for new developers are expanding. Expanding developer universe? But the contact surfaces are there. Just harder to find. Still, they are there! Yes. Use them.
What do you think all the surveillance is for?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
... is to cost IT jobs.
The whole point is so that you don't need to re-invent the wheel as much, because you can extend what you have been given instead. That any value any programmer gives to open source is available to all, not just the one company who paid the programmer. Less work to do is going to mean less jobs to do it.
Is this a bad thing? Hell No. Every time a job has been taken to benefit efficiency its gone hand in hand with higher quality of life across the board. Its bad for the individuals who don't or can't re-skill, but of benefit to society as a whole.
Quite frankly I feel that some of the software stack, from the core OS to the most common work programs, should be funded as open-source by governments. Its no different really than public roads. The government doesn't fund trucks, but it does fund the common infrastructure the trucks use. I don't think governments should fund games or media centers, but it would make sense to fund the OS and Office Suite.
Paid for = jobs
free = no jobs
not really a hard concept
Actually, it is kinda hard. HTML and Apache are free and open, and yet they provided an explosion of jobs and practical use for businesses, mostly _because_ they're open.
If it wasn't for Open Source, I'd be bust by now. I'm a graphics artist, and thanks to Open Source I managed to work my way up from poverty to success.
I could offer cheaper labor and in-house services to small rising companies that needed ad-work due to lower software costs, and that made me very popular. As well as getting much faster help from idealistic programmers that took pride in correcting bugs rather than trying to protect a corporate image (and thus deny every bug report ever given to them).
3 times HURRAH for Open Source! It's the new way of life.
What this world is coming to - is for you and me to decide.
The main point is "so what?" Suppose detailed research actually shows that open source software is killing jobs, are we going to do anything about it? No. Open source software is here to stay and if it kills jobs, too bad.
A common misconception related to piracy, foss, etc (anything where you are not paying) is that not paying = reducing the number of jobs. In reality, money doesn't just disappear, but rather it is spent elsewhere. Pirating software or using FOSS instead might cut some jobs in the software industry, but, for example, I might spend the money on more/better food, thus creating jobs in the food industry. Of course, the effect is largest with businesses which will almost always choose to spend money rather than save it.
Saying that FOSS or piracy or whatever is killing some industry or costing that industry jobs isn't necessarily false, but it doesn't hurt the economy. It's like when cars became popular. Sure, the horse-drawn carriage industry suffered, but the jobs and economy lost were made up for by the auto industry.
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".
Did you do any of that? I bet you did less to access your conclusions that Milton did!
Well, unless he copied his conclusions he probably did more since it looks as if Milton just copied the story from somewhere else. If you look at the Quote Investigator link you'll note that an incredibly similar story originated in Alberta in 1935. The Milton version is certainly far better put but it is not the original source.
Let us remember that the money comes from somewhere.
Let us remember that most of the open source movement comes from a time where software was subsidized by other selling points.
A lot of software was developed by the old BELLs. They ran huge research facilities knowing they had constant cash flow. The government broke up the monopoly, spawned off the R&D labs... the rest is history.
Other kinds of open source eco-systems can from companies selling hugely expensive hardware.
You have to look at how your industry is funded.
Professionals like Doctors and lawyers protect their field via regulation and ensure their jobs and quality. Heck, you can't even write a prescription. Now, you can write a thousands pages on why this is done for quality... but it always seem to work out financially for them as well :P
Governments around the world basically gave a big 'screw you' to engineers. The exception being the military industry in the US.
The result is... what funds your industry? Proprietary software, licenses, strong arm business tactics of the evil corporation. There's a reason MS employes nearly 100K engineers, and has world class research facilities.
While people mock their suing of Android phone, I embrace it. Why on Earth do we, as an industry want less money coming into our industry? Free software... less money coming into our field... less jobs...
I don't pretend for one second to think corporations can about people. But a rich corporation which good stable cashflow keeps its employees well off.
And for anyone who talks about efficiency... let me just say... I don't care at this point. The world is not all about efficiency. Making a good living seems like a better idea. Doctors, lawyers, accountants, teachers, nurses, insurance people, bankers, trades people... all protect their field as much as possible. I'm not going to be the martyr in this world.
Broken window fallacy? Screw it. If everyone else is breaking windows to fund their field... I want to break windows as well to fund my field.
Under the current system... you are darn right... open source kills jobs.
Professional == You are paid what you do
Amateur == You are not paid what you do
Skilled == You have learn to do well what you do
Talented == You are fast learner or adapt quickly what you do
Someone can be a amateur, but still skilled programmer.
Someone else can be professional but still bad programmer.
And on what point did we really turn out that ranking of people is based their wealth and not to what they do?
I rank a school teacher higer than a CEO of big company.
I rank a worker higher than a CEO of that company where that worker works.
After all, technology should help people, allow people to enjoy the life. Not work harder or longer. People should have less working time, more free time and we should have already taken care of poor and other people who can not get their life working so they do get their life working. We have technology, we have way to do so. But we do not do so if CEO do not profit from it so much that you can buy a few airplanes and fifth house. And we rank those people so high that people coming after them, are ready to do anything to get their positions before them.
Competition does not help anyone, alternativies does.
Competition != Alternativies
Alternativies != Competition
We can have alternativies without competition.
Prise the alternativies and freedom, not competition and suffering.
Exactly. This is why we need to privatize breathable air. By having all this air floating around that people can just breathe for free, this is costing jobs. People could be getting paid to provide bottled air to people.
Just think about all the people that could be employed making bottled breathable air, if people weren't allowed to just breathe naturally-occurring air.
This all goes back to the Broken Window Fallacy.
Linux, PHP, Apache, MySQL, Drupal, Wordpress...I get paid quite well for using that lot, thank you very much, and I still hand code 95% of the new stuff I do, they just make my life easier. The very question sounds like somebody who's trying to sell old software rather than write new stuff.
Please consider this account deleted, I just can't be bothered with the spam anymore.
Simpler than that. A company can takes in some amount of money. If it spends less on office software, say, it can spend more on hiring people, produce more, and make more money. Net increase in jobs.
Intron: the portion of DNA which expresses nothing useful.
Oh sorry, forgot to address the money: the money Photoshop customers would have sent to Adobe gets saved, and spent on something else more useful.
If you disagree, you're free to spend 10x as much for everything you buy. I'm sure merchants will be happy to take your money.
You saved money. How is that "trouble?" If you were "creating jobs" and all else were equal, that would have wasted money.
Whoever said that didn't understand anything about economics.
Free Markets vs Central Planning: Free Software is about extremified free markets. You hire anyone you want to get your maintenance, instead of a single source. This is basically opposition to commie ideals, IMHO (though I realize there are other ways to look at Communism; they just happen to be ways that I disagree with). On the commie centralization scale of color, GPLed software is blue as the zenith sky, proprietary is crimson as blood, and stuff like BSD is an intense purple blur as it bounces between the two on a case-by-case basis like a Republican talking about federal spending.
Control of the Means of Production: Free Software is about code reuse and code reuse is neutral toward this, but in a way that subverts the whole question with its explosive torrent of wealth. It's like millions of factories falling out of the sky, right during an argument between a Communist and Capitalist about who should own the previously-limited number of factories. Without the need for expensive capital, nobody cares who controls it. Both the management and workers look on helplessly, as whoever used to buy the old factories' output says they don't need either one of 'em anymore.
If paychecks for programming are your main source of income, then code reuse may be a Capitalist Running Dog Murder of Brotherhood. If software company dividends (as opposed to consulting fees) are your main source of income, then code reuse may be a Ruthless Communist Plot to Impurify your Precious Bodily Fluids. If you do something else but use software, then you're shrugging and saying "whatever" to those so last-century luddites.
"Believe me!" -- Donald Trump
A common misconception related to piracy, foss, etc (anything where you are not paying) is that not paying = reducing the number of jobs. In reality, money doesn't just disappear, but rather it is spent elsewhere.
Technically, that's not true. Money can very easily sit it wallets and bank accounts being economically rather inactive (especially as banks' willingness to lend is low at the mo). It doesn't disappear, but a $5 note that sits under a mattress forever is economically equivalent to it having disappeared. Economically, you might hope that in that case the saved money goes to paying down debt, again but that depends on the demographics of the customer base -- are the people saving the money the same people who are indebted? To use a very crude and very hypothetical analogy, if it turns out the "1%" are saving all the money by being able to use free software, but not then putting it to economic use, and the heavily in debt and jobless "99%" are losing all the money by not being able to sell their product, it could be very bad for the economy. Hopefully it's not the case, though it is known for instance that technology companies employ far fewer people than manufacturing companies of equivalent revenue -- so a rise in the technology sector struggles to completely compensate for a decline in the manufacturing sector.
A common misconception related to piracy, foss, etc (anything where you are not paying) is that not paying = reducing the number of jobs. In reality, money doesn't just disappear, but rather it is spent elsewhere. Pirating software or using FOSS instead might cut some jobs in the software industry, but, for example, I might spend the money on more/better food, thus creating jobs in the food industry.
Wait, what? How about this: instead of pirating software, you pay the software developer then the software developer "spends the money on more/better food, thus creating jobs in the food industry". In that context, how does piracy improve anything - given the fact that it allows you to spend more money and forcing the software developer to spend less money?
And given your setup, you could argue that all theft has no negative effects on the economy, because if I shoplift something instead of paying for it, then I have extra money in my pocket to spend on other things. Hey, I might "spend the money on more/better food, thus creating jobs in the food industry". Thus, the economy doesn't suffer from shoplifting.
There was once an actual job called a computer. You were a slow human version of excel or matlab. An engineer would give you an equation or some data and the functions they wanted and you would sit there with a slide rules and solve and plot these things by hand. Well that job is gone and good riddance. Now everyone has the computwtional power of an army of these people on their phone,
I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
I'm no luddite, but I find it hard to deny that technology in general kills jobs. Secretaries still exist, for example, but not as many (%-wise). Computers (and interns, har har) make them pretty pointless. A PC for a file cabinet, a smartphone/laptop to access that file cabinet from anywhere, voice-mail to take messages. There are many professions where a secretary was once essential - but technology has supplanted this job in most cases.
When it comes to manufacturing, a one-word explanation works: robots.
I think in the late 90s we hit the top of a bell curve. Up until that point more technology meant more jobs. But now we're the victims of our own success, and it's ridiculous to think that our old economic models will continue to be relevant. Labor is usually a business' most costly expense. A high efficiency business minimizes labor costs. In the past this was often achieved by exploiting labor in some way. Now it's being done by eliminating labor.
I'll address this before someone brings it up: I understand that car vs. horse and buggy analogy. That's not relevant to the current situation. Jobs are being replaced by machines on a broad scale across a broad range of markets: From mechanical jobs such as manufacturing to intellectual jobs such as analyzing stocks. This isn't one technology supplanting another. This is technology supplanting people.
Clinging to proprietary software to keep software jobs around is futile. It's like imposing tariffs to keep manufacturing jobs in the U.S. It may have some short-term effect but open source will eventually take over just as robots will eventually finish taking over the manufacturing sector. Not to mention, even with proprietary software, once it attains a certain level of functionality and stability the programmers are no longer necessary. You don't need a programmer to click 'copy.'
Ten years ago a lot of geeks scoffed at Bill Joy, called him a luddite or at the very least a pessimist. His manifesto was inspired by Kurzweil and The Unabomber, a couple of crazies, fer god's sake. But every year the reality of our situation becomes more clear, the future really doesn't need us.
"From the depths of my skeptical and rationalist soul, I ask the Lord to protect me from California touchie-feeliedom."