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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.
The way I see it, technology helps us get machines to do the mundane so we can spend our time exploring and creating.
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.
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!
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
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!
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.
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".
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.