I'm no fan of the Bush Administration, but they are right here. Outsourcing hurts the folks that get outsourced, but the rest of us win. The people that can do the job the cheapest get the job, the basic goods and services we use get cheaper, our standard of living goes up, etc
What is the value of cheaper retail products if people are out of work or in lower paying jobs?
Are the goods even going to be cheaper? The Outsourcing American IT companies are still charging full prices.
I'd add more, but the Economist doesn't have a free online site. If you don't mind paying $2.95, you can read the whole article
Hey, that is cheap but I can't afford it, I have been outsourced.
It's painful to see outsourcing move from the manufacturing sector to the service sector, but we're better off because of it. Keep your skills up-to-date folks, and think about those management jobs.
Oh Please. Nobody has proven that outsourcing will create more jobs.......let alone *skilled* jobs, let alone a sufficent number of *skilled* jobs.
Who wants to spend the rest of their lives in a menial job.....even if money is not an issue.....just to save a few dollars on a consumer good?
If there are fewer skilled jobs Americans will not get educated in those fields. We will become dependant on foriegn countries to do brain intensive things for us.
How does that benefit everyone?
So far the only Americans who are benefiting from offshoring are the rich CEOs/stockholders.
Economics is not science. Take whatever an economist says with a grain of salt. Ask for proof.
Think for yourself. If they tell you "x is good" ask for proof.....it may just be that they are telling you this because it serves their interests regardless of whether or not it has anything to do with the truth
Now, if you are going to condemn it in this case you also need to condemn it when one of "the big guys" comes to the rescue of something that *you* like.
Microsoft is not rescuing anyone. SCO is a dead company. Microsoft is just keeping their life support going so SCO kicks longer before croaking.
Many of us work in proprietary software setting and have met plenty of prima donna programmers ( some whose skills are not commensurate with their attitude ) programmers.
We have also met other IT people who just don't get that they are being paid to do something for the company rather then what they want to do.
In these respects proprietary programers are no different then open source programmers.
In case the author of the article hasn't heard it is an employer's market right now for programmers.
There is no reason for an employer to even go to the fraction of the trouble the article suggests.
Granted, I'm not at home right now to actually time it, but I'm sure it's more on the order of 5 seconds for me -- after a cold boot with nothing cached in RAM yet.
My machine has
512 MB DDR RAM
an Intel P-4 2.53 MHz chip
an Intel D845PESV Motherboard with a 533 mhz front side bus
a Knoppix/Debian installation
icewm
DMA enabled via "/sbin/hdparm -qd1/dev/hdc"
in/etc/init.d/bootmish.sh
On a cold boot
- Mozilla 1.6 started up in 18 seconds
On another cold boot firefox 0.8 started up in
10 seconds
I don't have Netscape 4.8 installed with this install. I'll download it if you think it helps make the point.
I would be interested in hearing your freshly measured startup time for firefox 0.8 on a cold boot.
A 5 second startup time is acceptable, but I have doubts about whether or not you are getting it.
I still great periodic crashes, lock-ups, and loads of resource hungry processes.
Whenever I run Gnome or KDE with Mozilla weird things seem to happen to those desktops.
The command shell debugging output is either not there at all.....or very poorly done ( ie "Hey, I am here"). Not the best situation when you want a user community to help you debug problems.
I agree.
Can the new features for a while. The Mozilla's have loads of nice features.
Put the energy into makeing the most robust, fast, and resource efficent browser around.
If Mozilla gets "finnished" there are plenty of other worthy tasks for talented OSS developers.....no need to build another slow, multiplatform platform.
Firefox, ( otherwise very NICE ) takes about 15 seconds to start on my P4.
Netscape 4.78 easily beats this.
No offense, but I think it is an indictment when such an old browser ( 4-5 years old? ) runs visibly better then the latest, greatest.
Whenver I mention this I get the retorts:
- we are working on it
- sacrafices need to be made for multiplatform stuff
Netscape 4.8 does not have all of Firefox's new features.
Well........
"working on it" will go a lot faster if Mozilla doesn't start building a whole new platform or gets involved in more projects/features beyond making Firefox a dam good browser.
Developers want the multiplatform code. User's couldn't give a rat's behind as long as what they get is nice. Software is for the end users, not the developers. If multiplatform code can't be made fast, go native.
It is true that Firefox has many more better features then Netscape 4.78.
Think of buying a car. While you are test driving the salesman's latest greatest you see an OLD car speed by at 60mph that gets 20 mpg.
You mention this to the salesman since what he is showing only goes 30mph and gets 10mpg.
"Yah", he says, "thats true, but we have power windows, computerized door locks, gps, and a cell phone holder".
Firefox was created to get Mozilla.org back to the *nix philosophy of being modular......doing one thing, doing it well.....ie just a really nice browser.
Building an entire platform would be in contradiction to that.
Contradicting the *nix philosophy is not such a bad thing, but where would be the utility in *nix platform.
The stuff they make already has speed and resource issues.
Assuming they could get over these, what is the need for such a platform and why?
Back with the mess in Florida in 2000 engineers testified before the supreme court that the only reasons the old punch card voting machines malfunctioned is because the paper trays were never emptied ( think of a hole puncher )
Most communities already own these
Nobody wants electronic voting without a verifiable system of reciepts.
That doesn't seem like asking for a cure for aids by the end of the week.
Why aren't we seeing better voting machines or unified laws to cut down on the crappy operation of elections?
The "free(dom) software will erode jobs/money for programmers" argument made me pause at one time, but not anymore.
It is proprietary software ventures that are shipping jobs out of my country.......not free(dom) software.
Who knows, maybe free(dom) software development will bring a few of those jobs back?
Out of work developers can form companies to augment/improve/support popular free(dom) software.
What they have in higher worker costs they will more then make up for in not having to pay huge wages to executives/ceos/stockholders.......so they could probably compete in price. That is, assuming the US IT companies ever plan to reduce their prices to reflect there cheap overseas labor.
At some point the software a company works on will not be able to be improved anymore or a competeing company will do it better. In that case the developers could move on to new projects....business as usual
Who knows, maybe these free(dom) software companies will improve so much free(dom) software that they might out compete the proprietary counterparts.
They might return the favor to American CEO's and put them out of a job:)
Yeah and then I would be paying more for the OS then the computer. Sorry worked it IT.
You already are if you are using windows.
I think the fact that ( at least as of a few years ago ) that M$ executives had several places on the list of the most rich people in the US would indicate that your high prices might be more about excessive coporate profits rather then paying IT wages.
American IT companies outsourcing overseas are still charging American prices despite their savings in IT wages.
Many of those people get paid too much more then thier skills dictate. As is evident by someone elsewhere wanting to get paid less for the same task.
Overseas get paid less because they don't have a choice. The foriegn IT firms get away with because those countries have underdeveloped economies that make the cost of living in those countries drammatically lower.
Someone willing to be underpaid != someone else beign overpaid.
The article did not describe the problems Munich was having converting over to Linux.
Odd, considering the article was about how such problems were costing them more money then they planned to spend.
Even more odd, the article did not mention how much more money Munich was spending as a result of these unmentioned problems.
The article would have been interesting if it stated either.
BTW, the article has an email address for the author.
I emailed these points to him, I encourage you to do the same.
This article may be a red herring.
Not knowing what the coversion problems are nor how much more they forced Munich to spend can make the problem seem worse then it really is
( to microsoft's benefit ).
For all anyone knows the problems could be minor and the cost overruns modest.
Wouldn't it be neat if you could go to a website, enter in a list of all the hardware on your computer, enter in the applications or types of applications you want to use, and then download a customized installation CD with only what you want included? Then if you changed any hardware or wanted more software, you'd revisit the site, enter in the changes, and then download a patch including required modules, applications, and a script that installed/configured the changes?
Yes, but it would be even neater if you did not have to enter your hardware information, the web site detected everything for you, and you got an iso custom compiled to your processor.
For people with crappy connections the company could offer to ship you your custom made CD for a fee.
With many of the distros competeing to do something someone else has not already done an on demand distro could be the next cool thing.
Jokes comparing cars to computers are a time honored tradition in the IT world.
IMHO these kind of comparisons also have a strong element of truth and usefulness in them.
Cars are technically complex products made to be sold and used by people who are not as a rule tech/car enthusiasts.
If a car salesman has to ask a customer to do more then adjust his/her seat and mirrors to get a car running then that car is less likely to be popular.
The OSS community also wants to "sell" a technically complex product to user base, most of whome are computer users and not computer enthusiasts.
By the same token it should become a token to build products that require less and less input from the user.
Slashdot Mirror
The title made me think this article was about SCO
What is the value of cheaper retail products if people are out of work or in lower paying jobs?
Are the goods even going to be cheaper? The Outsourcing American IT companies are still charging full prices.
Hey, that is cheap but I can't afford it, I have been outsourced.
Oh Please. Nobody has proven that outsourcing will create more jobs.......let alone *skilled* jobs, let alone a sufficent number of *skilled* jobs.
Who wants to spend the rest of their lives in a menial job.....even if money is not an issue.....just to save a few dollars on a consumer good?
If there are fewer skilled jobs Americans will not get educated in those fields. We will become dependant on foriegn countries to do brain intensive things for us.
How does that benefit everyone?
So far the only Americans who are benefiting from offshoring are the rich CEOs/stockholders.
Economics is not science. Take whatever an economist says with a grain of salt. Ask for proof.
Think for yourself. If they tell you "x is good" ask for proof.....it may just be that they are telling you this because it serves their interests regardless of whether or not it has anything to do with the truth
Steve
Steve
The windoze community seems detached from the issue.
Does the non-tech sector take SCO seriously?
Steve
Watch how fast people don't buy these cars.
People who want control definately will not like this.
People who don't want to deal with their cars themselves will not care enough to seek these cars out.....they take their cars to mechanics anyway.
Steve
We have also met other IT people who just don't get that they are being paid to do something for the company rather then what they want to do.
In these respects proprietary programers are no different then open source programmers.
In case the author of the article hasn't heard it is an employer's market right now for programmers.
There is no reason for an employer to even go to the fraction of the trouble the article suggests.
Steve
- 512 MB DDR RAM
- an Intel P-4 2.53 MHz chip
- an Intel D845PESV Motherboard with a 533 mhz front side bus
- a Knoppix/Debian installation
- icewm
- DMA enabled via "/sbin/hdparm -qd1
/dev/hdc"
in /etc/init.d/bootmish.sh
On a cold boot - Mozilla 1.6 started up in 18 secondsOn another cold boot firefox 0.8 started up in 10 seconds
I don't have Netscape 4.8 installed with this install. I'll download it if you think it helps make the point.
I would be interested in hearing your freshly measured startup time for firefox 0.8 on a cold boot.
A 5 second startup time is acceptable, but I have doubts about whether or not you are getting it.
Steve
Is Mozilla "finished"?
Have the startup speed problems been solved?
Is Mozilla as robust as they would like it to be?
Why not stamp out all of the performance issues before thinking of moving on?
Those issues are *THERE* .
If Dillo ever got finished you would see people dropping Mozilla like an Atkin's dieter dropping a hot potato.
Peformance still counts, even if you try bribing the end user with nice features.
Steve
The Mozilla's still run like crap on linux.
I still great periodic crashes, lock-ups, and loads of resource hungry processes.
Whenever I run Gnome or KDE with Mozilla weird things seem to happen to those desktops.
The command shell debugging output is either not there at all.....or very poorly done ( ie "Hey, I am here"). Not the best situation when you want a user community to help you debug problems.
I agree.
Can the new features for a while. The Mozilla's have loads of nice features.
Put the energy into makeing the most robust, fast, and resource efficent browser around.
If Mozilla gets "finnished" there are plenty of other worthy tasks for talented OSS developers.....no need to build another slow, multiplatform platform.
Steve
improve startup time
Firefox, ( otherwise very NICE ) takes about 15 seconds to start on my P4.
Netscape 4.78 easily beats this.
No offense, but I think it is an indictment when such an old browser ( 4-5 years old? ) runs visibly better then the latest, greatest.
Whenver I mention this I get the retorts:
- we are working on it
- sacrafices need to be made for multiplatform stuff
Netscape 4.8 does not have all of Firefox's new features.
Well........
"working on it" will go a lot faster if Mozilla doesn't start building a whole new platform or gets involved in more projects/features beyond making Firefox a dam good browser.
Developers want the multiplatform code. User's couldn't give a rat's behind as long as what they get is nice. Software is for the end users, not the developers. If multiplatform code can't be made fast, go native.
It is true that Firefox has many more better features then Netscape 4.78.
Think of buying a car. While you are test driving the salesman's latest greatest you see an OLD car speed by at 60mph that gets 20 mpg.
You mention this to the salesman since what he is showing only goes 30mph and gets 10mpg.
"Yah", he says, "thats true, but we have power windows, computerized door locks, gps, and a cell phone holder".
True, but does that satisfy you?
Start up time is a user friendliness issue.
No offense
Steve
Building an entire platform would be in contradiction to that.
Contradicting the *nix philosophy is not such a bad thing, but where would be the utility in *nix platform.
The stuff they make already has speed and resource issues.
Assuming they could get over these, what is the need for such a platform and why?
Steve
Most communities already own these
Nobody wants electronic voting without a verifiable system of reciepts.
That doesn't seem like asking for a cure for aids by the end of the week.
Why aren't we seeing better voting machines or unified laws to cut down on the crappy operation of elections?
Steve
It is proprietary software ventures that are shipping jobs out of my country.......not free(dom) software.
Who knows, maybe free(dom) software development will bring a few of those jobs back?
Out of work developers can form companies to augment/improve/support popular free(dom) software.
What they have in higher worker costs they will more then make up for in not having to pay huge wages to executives/ceos/stockholders.......so they could probably compete in price. That is, assuming the US IT companies ever plan to reduce their prices to reflect there cheap overseas labor.
At some point the software a company works on will not be able to be improved anymore or a competeing company will do it better. In that case the developers could move on to new projects....business as usual
Who knows, maybe these free(dom) software companies will improve so much free(dom) software that they might out compete the proprietary counterparts.
They might return the favor to American CEO's and put them out of a job :)
Steve
That is almost as much of a breakthrough for the advancement of humanity as a sedgeway scooter.
Steve
http://www.congress.com/
That is what matinees are for.....
Steve
Someone willing to be underpaid != someone else beign overpaid.
Steve
That would sure help preserve the US IT industry.
Then again, Bush would have to care first.
Steve
This article gives a few more details: http://www.wired.com/news/infostructure/0,1377,622 36,00.html
I emailed these points to him, I encourage you to do the same.
This article may be a red herring.
Not knowing what the coversion problems are nor how much more they forced Munich to spend can make the problem seem worse then it really is ( to microsoft's benefit ).
For all anyone knows the problems could be minor and the cost overruns modest.
Steve
Odd, considering the article was about how such problems were costing them more money then they planned to spend.
Even more odd, the article did not mention how much more money Munich was spending as a result of these unmentioned problems.
The article would have been interesting if it stated either.
Steve
For people with crappy connections the company could offer to ship you your custom made CD for a fee.
With many of the distros competeing to do something someone else has not already done an on demand distro could be the next cool thing.
Steve
IMHO these kind of comparisons also have a strong element of truth and usefulness in them.
Cars are technically complex products made to be sold and used by people who are not as a rule tech/car enthusiasts.
If a car salesman has to ask a customer to do more then adjust his/her seat and mirrors to get a car running then that car is less likely to be popular.
The OSS community also wants to "sell" a technically complex product to user base, most of whome are computer users and not computer enthusiasts.
By the same token it should become a token to build products that require less and less input from the user.
Steve