Simple. Because it ultimately benefits the US. An incredible number of Silicon Valley businesses are founded by Indian and Asian immigrants.
Yes, there is a long-term benefit to the US. However, lax immigration policies in the short term would hurt plenty of people. Governments cannot totally neglect the short term in favor of the long, no more than they should neglect the future in favor of the present.
After all, in a representative government like the US, all people are supposed to be equal, right? Nobody's supposed to be able to be sacrificed in the name of the future.
If we accept this assertion combined with your assumption that the foreign programmer is working at lower wages than his american counterparts this means his labour is subsidizing US citizens.
The cheap labor directly help corporations, not people. And the majority of the money from these corporations go to banks and venture capitalists.
Without the cheap labor, the corporations would still be able to profit (after all, lots of corporations profit paying union wages for jobs that require far less skill). The only difference would be that the profit would be distributed differently.
This is why I oppose H1-B visas. Those visas are tickets that allow corporations to import labor, under conditions that reduce competition, and therefore lower wages even further (the employee basically can't leave the company, see other Slashdot articles on the subject). They're tactics used by one group (corporate interests) to get away with paying less for labor than the market would otherwise dictate.
Have you ever noticed that enforcement of immigration laws focuses on getting the illegals themselves, rather than the employers? That skewed enforcement just lines the pockets of the California (and other states) farming industry leaders.
...[Hans] Reiser sees a moment in the not too distant future when programmers outside the United States claim their rightful piece of the pie."The Internet is overthrowing the oppressive forces that have vested interests in crippling peoples lives, the forces that seek to make the location where people are born enough to exclude them from the careers they could otherwise have," Reiser writes. "Congress has made the Statue of Liberty a mockery, but the Internet is overthrowing Congress and its Immigration Laws."
This complaint of unfairness in US immigration laws can be questioned from two perspectives: US citizens, and non-US citizens.
First, the US point of view: Why in the world should the US government make it easier for US corporations to import workers? When corporations import workers from 3rd world countries (who happen to be satisfied at a lower standard of living than your typical American, thanks to being accustomed to the home country), the standard of living for *all* workers in the field. Price competition in the labor market has the same effects as price competition in other markets, after all. Ever read "The Grapes of Wrath"?
Second, the non-US view: How would it benefit anyone outside the US, in a long term developmental perspective, if the US made it easier for people to immigrate and work? US higher education creates enough of a "brain drain" already; the world outside of the US and Western Europe needs more bright minds to stay, and build industry at home.
While I think Hans Reiser's doing a great thing for Russia by working to set an example of success in that climate, that comment at the start of the article just struck me enough to comment in length.
When those two distributions and their derivatives drop tgz and deb formats for rpm, only then will I consider rpm "standard".
Why doesn't Red Hat at least *fix* the problems with RPM, and upgrade the technology to be at least competitive with Debian? I should hope that Red Hat hasn't already fallen into the pit of compatbility that killed Microsoft's quality.
I said nothing about replacing a taskbar being wrong. I just said that replacing the app launcher, with one that's tucked in a slew of cascading menus, is wrong.
Does Sawmill attempt to follow the WM-SPEC in development?
That's one of the few things that can't be different between KDE and GNOME. Without low-level compatibility like that, it becomes impossible for apps from one side, to run in the other's enviroment)
As if I needed an excuse to avoid GNOME 1.2.0
on
Gnome 1.2.0 Released
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· Score: 2
Slackware has the simplest package format around:.tgz files!
Just because computer technology evolves and improves rapidly, it doesn't mean that user interfaces need to change so quickly.
People are not like computers; they can't switch their behaviors with a simple configure; make; make install Habits are learned, and hard to break. Why go to all that trouble, to make change for its own sake?
Take the "revolution" you mention: Microsoft's start menu. The whole idea of replacing the big, easy-to-use Program Manager, with a little menu hidden in the corner, is absurd.
You'll notice that GNOME and KDE provide far more functionality in their panels, than Microsoft ever provided in Win95..98.. NT 4.. 2000. The ability to place buttons on there, to run frequently-used apps, is a nice way to workaround the usability nightmare of the tiny start button.
Oh yes, and don't credit Microsoft for the "start" menu. Apple had the "apple" menu a while before that, providing the same functionality.
The difference between the cross burnings, and the nazi sales, is that one is a voluntary transaction, and one is not.
If the good citizens of La France don't want to see pictures and accounts of those voluntary transactions, then let them pull themselves off the internet, or configure all routers at the border to block yahoo's subnet.
Let them decide for themselves what they see, not what everyone sees.
Helms-Burton would, if not stonewalled by Clinton, ban entry into the US the officers of corporations which accepted property stolen from US corporattions by the Cuban Communists.
If you want to bash something, get the facts first.
Well, to me, what you said and what I said are two sides of the same coin. That is, if I understood you correctly.
People should be free to make their own judgements of ideas, instead of having those judgements imposed on them by a third party by force.
If the French find Nazi memorabilia so repugnant, that they don't wish anyone had the right to possess it, then let them boycott Yahoo. If the whole country feels so strongly, then let them configure all routers at the border to ban packets from Yahoo.
Let them make decisions for themselves, and only for themselves.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple. Because it ultimately benefits the US. An incredible number of Silicon Valley businesses are founded by Indian and Asian immigrants.
Yes, there is a long-term benefit to the US. However, lax immigration policies in the short term would hurt plenty of people. Governments cannot totally neglect the short term in favor of the long, no more than they should neglect the future in favor of the present.
After all, in a representative government like the US, all people are supposed to be equal, right? Nobody's supposed to be able to be sacrificed in the name of the future.
If we accept this assertion combined with your assumption that the foreign programmer is working at lower wages than his american counterparts this means his labour is subsidizing US citizens.
The cheap labor directly help corporations, not people. And the majority of the money from these corporations go to banks and venture capitalists.
Without the cheap labor, the corporations would still be able to profit (after all, lots of corporations profit paying union wages for jobs that require far less skill). The only difference would be that the profit would be distributed differently.
This is why I oppose H1-B visas. Those visas are tickets that allow corporations to import labor, under conditions that reduce competition, and therefore lower wages even further (the employee basically can't leave the company, see other Slashdot articles on the subject). They're tactics used by one group (corporate interests) to get away with paying less for labor than the market would otherwise dictate.
Have you ever noticed that enforcement of immigration laws focuses on getting the illegals themselves, rather than the employers? That skewed enforcement just lines the pockets of the California (and other states) farming industry leaders.
This complaint of unfairness in US immigration laws can be questioned from two perspectives: US citizens, and non-US citizens.
First, the US point of view: Why in the world should the US government make it easier for US corporations to import workers? When corporations import workers from 3rd world countries (who happen to be satisfied at a lower standard of living than your typical American, thanks to being accustomed to the home country), the standard of living for *all* workers in the field. Price competition in the labor market has the same effects as price competition in other markets, after all. Ever read "The Grapes of Wrath"?
Second, the non-US view: How would it benefit anyone outside the US, in a long term developmental perspective, if the US made it easier for people to immigrate and work? US higher education creates enough of a "brain drain" already; the world outside of the US and Western Europe needs more bright minds to stay, and build industry at home.
While I think Hans Reiser's doing a great thing for Russia by working to set an example of success in that climate, that comment at the start of the article just struck me enough to comment in length.
No, slashdot isn't "news for programmers."
If gdb 5.0 wasn't newsworthy, then why would mod_python 2.1 be important?
If it's custom, in-house apps that are the problem, why not just have them ported?
Well, sure.
rpms compiled on a Red Hat system will depend on Red Hat-installed libraries, and configuration.
Every difference between Red Hat, and the other distributions, makes it harder to use rpms across distributions.
When those two distributions and their derivatives drop tgz and deb formats for rpm, only then will I consider rpm "standard".
Why doesn't Red Hat at least *fix* the problems with RPM, and upgrade the technology to be at least competitive with Debian? I should hope that Red Hat hasn't already fallen into the pit of compatbility that killed Microsoft's quality.
You're telling me that Mandrake and SuSE both package the same libraries with their releases as Red Hat?
Dependency traps get bad enough using Red Hat alone - it has to get worse if you try to mix Red Hat with SuSE and Mandrake.
I said nothing about replacing a taskbar being wrong. I just said that replacing the app launcher, with one that's tucked in a slew of cascading menus, is wrong.
:-)
And, as for your problem... Alt-Tab is handy.
Does Sawmill attempt to follow the WM-SPEC in development?
That's one of the few things that can't be different between KDE and GNOME. Without low-level compatibility like that, it becomes impossible for apps from one side, to run in the other's enviroment)
Slackware has the simplest package format around: .tgz files!
Somebody at Helix needs to get slack, and fast!
Yeah, and when the directive came down to "Obey Fitts law," the team delegated that task to the lawyer.
Just because computer technology evolves and improves rapidly, it doesn't mean that user interfaces need to change so quickly.
People are not like computers; they can't switch their behaviors with a simple configure; make; make install Habits are learned, and hard to break. Why go to all that trouble, to make change for its own sake?
Take the "revolution" you mention: Microsoft's start menu. The whole idea of replacing the big, easy-to-use Program Manager, with a little menu hidden in the corner, is absurd.
You'll notice that GNOME and KDE provide far more functionality in their panels, than Microsoft ever provided in Win95..98.. NT 4.. 2000. The ability to place buttons on there, to run frequently-used apps, is a nice way to workaround the usability nightmare of the tiny start button.
Oh yes, and don't credit Microsoft for the "start" menu. Apple had the "apple" menu a while before that, providing the same functionality.
Comparing KDE 1.1.2 to GNOME 1.2.0 will probably show that GNOME has "caught up", because KDE 1 hasn't been updated since September.
How is outright theft a "trade dispute"?
When Castro's revolution succeeded, the communists just stole all that was owned by foreigners, that they wanted.
If Cuba's allowed to take action against foreigners, to benefit its people, then what's wrong with the US taking action, to counter it?
Then do you support the attempts to destroy Mein Kampf?
The difference between the cross burnings, and the nazi sales, is that one is a voluntary transaction, and one is not.
If the good citizens of La France don't want to see pictures and accounts of those voluntary transactions, then let them pull themselves off the internet, or configure all routers at the border to block yahoo's subnet.
Let them decide for themselves what they see, not what everyone sees.
No.
Helms-Burton would, if not stonewalled by Clinton, ban entry into the US the officers of corporations which accepted property stolen from US corporattions by the Cuban Communists.
If you want to bash something, get the facts first.
How can you be expected to remember it, if you quash it?
Well, to me, what you said and what I said are two sides of the same coin. That is, if I understood you correctly.
People should be free to make their own judgements of ideas, instead of having those judgements imposed on them by a third party by force.
If the French find Nazi memorabilia so repugnant, that they don't wish anyone had the right to possess it, then let them boycott Yahoo. If the whole country feels so strongly, then let them configure all routers at the border to ban packets from Yahoo.
Let them make decisions for themselves, and only for themselves.
The whole point of free speech, is not to allow those in power to decide which views are acceptable, and which are not.
Wake me when I can get a pocket device, running on two AAA batteries, with a back-lit truecolor display.
The FSF is who you turn to for support, if you turned over copyright to the FSF.
They don't have legal standing to go after any GPL violation, unless they own the copyright.
Cancel the account of the person who gave heunique a -1. :-)
Why would AMD go to all that trouble, when the chip runs to its specifications perfectly fine?