Re: [PLUG] Interesting Outsourcing Article...

[kmhryhpdblyx@spammotel.com]

At 09:10 PM 9/12/2003, Paul wrote:
> William H. Magill wrote:
>
> > From my perspective, the whole outsourcing thing is actually overblown. 
> > The problem really is that the Companies are gone, not the jobs.
>
> Hmm.  Just a thought.  Maybe there is a solution within the crowd of the 
> under/unemployed.  Just as Open Source is a collaboration of interested 
> individuals and companies which produces impressive results, maybe the 
> under/unemployed could join together, not to find jobs, but to /create/ 
> jobs for each other.  Could this be done by working together to create 
> business opportunities through product development, skills enhancement, 
> support networks, etc.?  Could it hurt to think in terms of small business 
> and collaborative employment?

I've had the same idea myself.  There seems to be a lot of under-utilized 
creation of open-source software.  But the problem as I see it is that most 
of the money is in boring, vertical-market software.  It's not the kind of 
code that programmers like to write for fun.  Lots of people want to work 
on a compiler, but very few care to do a billing application.

As an example, I work in the non-profit sector.  It's not unusual for 
agencies to spend tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars on software 
that isn't always very good.  I bet mine isn't the only field where that's 
the case.  There might be a good opportunity for an open-source application 
to enter the market and take away share from the established 
vendors.  Where's the money?  Installation, customization, support, 
training etc....everything that the commercial boys provide minus the 
license fees.

--
Jim Foster - jif "at" computer .org      http://www.voicenet.com/~jfoster
"Being on a Beemer and not having a wave returned by a         ICQ 
679709
Sportster is like having a clipper ship's hailing not    RAM 2500 Cummins
returned by an orphaned New Jersey solid waste barge." -OTL   '03 GL1800A 

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