What will happen if open source wins?

[ITR]

I just read microsofts SEC filing where they stated that open source is a threat to their business model, and it made me think.

If open source wins, will there be no more high paying computer programming jobs? Will CS majors be out of luck unless willing to work for free?

The biggest selling point to free operating systems is the lure of the free applications like office that go along with them. People are going to get use to the idea of free software, and expect not only their music to be free, but now all software as well. Who would use quickbooks when the generic open source quickbooks is just as good?

I think it will happen, and am glad I'm not a computer programmer. What do youall think?




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[sleipnir214]

So, you're telling me that there are no good-paying jobs at RedHat?

I am reminded of an old, old joke.

Q. How many legs does a sheep have if you call its tail a leg?
A. 4. Calling its tail a leg doesn't make it one.

Open-source isn't hurting Mi¢ro$oft's business. It's hurting Mi¢ro$oft's bbusiness model. And Mi¢ro$oft likes the status quo because it is on top and because it can control it.

Eric S. Raymond has written three essays on this subject, "The Cathedral and the Bazaar", "Homesteading the Noosphere", and "The Magic Cauldron". They are available here:

http://catb.org/~esr/writings/

Read them.

Providers of open-source software make money, and there are good jobs to be had. In fact, some have argued that open-source software creates more jobs than closed-source. It's just that companies that base their business on open-source projects make their money by selling services. Software support. Customization. Branding.
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[Provogeek]

Open Source has it's place, but I don't think it will kill high paying programming jobs. It may slim down the programming market to the ones that really know what they are doing. Hobbie programmers like my self will not be able to get paid for programming, only the guys that know their stuff will survive. A great thing I like about open source is that common tools and utilties are free and there are usually 10 to 50 different options to choose from. So pick the one you like the best, tweak it around if you nkow how to.

I don't feel that just because the OS is open source that the apps that run on it will be open source also. There needs to be an incentive of some type to make the program. You may see common apps being given away, but specialized apps will stay in the market.

A home programmer may write that generic Quickbooks program because he has a need for it him self, or just likes to fiddle with programming. The incentive here is that there are many many people that need such a program, so writing one for others would not be a waist of time. But the advancment of the program would depend on user feedback, not market feed back. The community that develops these apps will depend on each other and people who send feedback on the program for bug fixes and feature advancments. This does provide you with great software, but they always forget ease of use. There are more computer novice users than there are geeks, and the novice users are the ones that actually make the market work.

How many people need a program that will extend the solar panels of a space telescope at a specified rpm? or place a spot weld at a specified location in the frame of a car? or mill a block of aluminum to a specified shape to be installed into fab machine? All of these can run on an Open Source OS, but the program it's self will not be open source. A company will develop it, test it and if it was not contracted to write it for a specific purpose, sell it to the market that would need such a program. This would work since it's not the general public that needs it, so a home programer more than likely would not write one just for fun.

Then there are games, the one reason I belive M$ keeps a hold of the home user market (a side from the ease of use). I have seen a few open source games, and each one I have seen are not very good. You can find some really good ones, I got a kick out of Quake on Linux, but I had to buy it. From what I have seen, the gameing selection is slim. Not many publishers have made a Linux version of their game, even though it many cases it would not be that hard. We may not see this because of the Open Souce model. Programmers have kids to feed, geeken habbits to support, cars to buy and homes to remodel. Need to make money, and I sure won't contribute 8 to 16 hours a day on a 3 to 11 month development project with out some souce of income.

If software got left to just open source, the world of computing would eventually come to a ginding halt. There is that human flaw everyone has, and that is eventualy someone will poke his head up from the computer and ask, "Whats in it for me?" We have not gotten past the material gain aspect of our lives and can't unless the world as a whole chooses so. You may see people handing out programs and souce code, but they don't hand out support. I can send an e-mail to the development community of a program, or post a question in the forum for free. Then I have to cross my fingers and hope I get an answer. Many open source programs I have played with are use at your own risk, don't bug the programmer with your petty end user problems, only send them e-mail if your a programmer your self and send him a block of code that fixes a bug. Other than that, your stuck with the readme file, most of wich are written in geek. So steps in the paid support, paid documentation, and paid training. Now the "Whats in it for me?" question gets answered. Help the masses and you get paid, help them better than anyone else and you get paid more, help them like no one else can help them and you can charge high prices for that help.

Brent Schmidt CNE,Network +
Senior Network Engineer
Keep IT Simple

http://www.kiscc.com

 

[ITR]

So, you're telling me that there are no good-paying jobs at RedHat?

Compaired to Microsoft or any other major software maker, no. The reason is redhat doesn't make software. They modify someone else source code. I don't see it taking more than 5-10 people to do that. The rest of their staff is probably beta testers, support staff, and marketing.

It's just that companies that base their business on open-source projects make their money by selling services.

Exactally. Customization isn't going to that big of an item when you have hundreds of out of work programmers looking for side work. Branding could be automated for the most part, and its rare that tech support would need a programmer.

It may slim down the programming market to the ones that really know what they are doing.

And with sliming it down comes a massive drop in salaries. Why pay a programmer $60,000/year when you can get 2 out of work programmer for the same price.

I don't feel that just because the OS is open source that the apps that run on it will be open source also.

How about MS Office? I think any expensive, widely used app will have an open source equivilant made.

I think you're right about specialty things like software interfaces to new hardware, and videogames will stay. But the real money is where a software package costs a lot, and everyone needs it. Those days are soon to be gone.

You may see people handing out programs and souce code, but they don't hand out support.

Yeah, but how many programmers with $60K jobs want to move to a $25k/year help desk job?

eventualy someone will poke his head up from the computer and ask, "Whats in it for me?"

I think those people exist today. The problem is it only takes one bored kid to write the beginings of a app that will put a $5000 app and the company that makes it out of business.

 

[ITR]

Right now, companies aren't use to asking the question 'is there a free version of this'. I think 5 years from now, that question will be asked daily. Thats the difference.

Once they start asking that question, people are not going to be willing to pay for pre-made software.




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[strongm]

Is anyone here making the mistake of assuming that "Open Source" is directly equivalent to "free", and then basing their arguments on that?

 

[sleipnir214]

strongm:
I am not.

ITR:
RedHat may not produce Linux. But they do employ Alan Cox, who is one of the principle Linux kernel maintainer.s Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[ITR]

Is anyone here making the mistake of assuming that "Open Source" is directly equivalent to "free", and then basing their arguments on that?

I dont think it really matters since we're talking about software in the future that doesn't exist yet. Whether the source is open or not, its that fact that its free that is the problem.

 

[sleipnir214]

ITR:
There is a major difference between free software and open-source software, and that difference boils down to licensing.

I can post the source-code for my application under the GPL and still retain rights to the code. Case in point: MySQL. MySQL is an open-source product distributed both under the GPL and as a commercially licensed product.
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[ITR]

MySQL is an open-source product distributed both under the GPL and as a commercially licensed product.

Right. But its not free right? Its the free versions of software that we're talking about.



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[sleipnir214]

A few points.

As stronm has pointed out, "free software" and "open-source software" are not the same thing.

Additionally, the term "free software" has nothing whatsoever to do with the price of the software. (

http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html)

The question on specifically MySQL can be best answered by their own website:

http://www.mysql.com/products/licensing.html

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[sleipnir214]

Correction.

The phrase "stronm" should be replaced by the phrase "strongm".

Sorry, strongm Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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TANSTAAFL!

 

[mbalent]

<snip from post by Provogeek>
How many people need a program that will extend the solar panels of a space telescope at a specified rpm? or place a spot weld at a specified location in the frame of a car? or mill a block of aluminum to a specified shape to be installed into fab machine? All of these can run on an Open Source OS, but the program it's self will not be open source. A company will develop it, test it and if it was not contracted to write it for a specific purpose, sell it to the market that would need such a program. This would work since it's not the general public that needs it, so a home programer more than likely would not write one just for fun.
<end snip>

Additionally, if a company has developed software in-house, and their business is NOT the software business, why on earth would they 'open source' it? So they can give away their competitive advantage or some of their industry secrets/know how?

There is no way some 'bored kid' or a 'home programmer' would be able to produce even a fraction of the many, many specialized applications in use by industry today.

 

[Tarwn]

I still think there is an error in the premise that &quot;Open Source&quot; could &quot;win&quot;.
Define winning?

In my mind I could see them taking over a large chunk of the market share currently given to MS, but I could not see them turning MS into a minor company, or pushing themout of the market all together. MS has their fingers in to many pies. I work in industrial software, I don't see Open Source software replacing the current, expensive, MS compliant, software we are currently using for a very long time.

And on ITR's arguments,
If only the great programmers who know whet they are doing get jobs (ie, specialists) than their pay will most likely go up(yes you could replace one programmer with two lesser programmers, but...). If it doesn't go up and instead goes down as he has predicted, then there will be a lot of out of work programmers being asked to work support, not a lot of half-specialists(ie, one of two replacements for a specialist) being paid 60k being asked to step down.


-Tarwn ________________________________________________
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[Provogeek]

Slimming down the market to those that know what they are doing will not hurt a programmers salary. If you pay a senior level programmer 80k a year, and get a product to market in 6 months development time and 3 months QA, you get good turn around on your investment. 9 months to market is an aggressive plan, but many companies do it, and need to do it to stay competitive. If you pay 2 junior programmer 40k a year and it takes them 8 months of development time and then 4 months QA, the pay off is three month behind the competition.

Programming is an art, and art that only a few do well. I'm not a skilled programmer my self, but found an appreciation for the skilled programmer when I did work in the field writing test code. Spitting out code to accomplish a task is not that hard, some languages are similar to basic scripting. Spitting out code that will defeat a complete fool is hard to do.

A favorite quote from Dugles Adams &quot;Mostly Harmless&quot;
&quot;One thing that developers seem to forget when designing something foolproof is that they underestimate the ingenuity of a complete fool.&quot;

I used this idea when I would write my test code, be the fool, break it, screw it up, make it do things it's not supposed to do. BE AN END USER. Programmers that can write their code well enough to defeat the fool prosper, and will continue to prosper in the programming field.

The ones that know their stuff well and can boost profits for a company because of the level of skill he/she holds will get the high paying jobs. People who skate on by or program at home for a hobbies will stay in the low end of the market. Kind of like the lawyer that graduates at the top of his class gets a job at the best firms in town, the ones that did not do so well go into the public defenders office.
Brent Schmidt CNE,Network +
Senior Network Engineer
Keep IT Simple

http://www.kiscc.com

 

[ITR]

You guys might be right.

But I'm thinking how many programmers will be put out of work when linux starts taking over the desktop.

How many people will be put out of work when open office takes hold.

What software will be made free next? How many people will it put out of work?

 

[MasterRacker]

There will always be work for good programmers. Where that work will be is hard to predict. This is neither good nor bad but simply technology and the economy evolving. Everyone needs to be ready to evolve as well. That's not a bad thing. There are a lot fewer blacksmith's today than before the automobile. I certainly would not want to go back to horses.


Jeff
If your mind is too open your brains will fall out...

 

[sleipnir214]

ITR:
Why would the success Open Office put a huge number of programmers out of work? How many programmers make their money directly programming Microsoft Office? I'd wager most of them are writing plug-ins, which Open Office supports, too. They can have lots of work porting their plug-ins to Open Office.

And the Open Office plugins don't have to be open source, either, so long as they only use the API and aren't based on any open-source code. Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

http://www.catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html

TANSTAAFL!

 

[strongm]

>how many programmers will be put out of work when linux starts taking over the desktop

Why should this happen? Unless, of course, you still think that Open Source means everything will be free...

 

[sleipnir214]

strongm:
Do you get the impression we're debating apples to oranges with ITR? Want the best answers? Ask the best questions:

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TANSTAAFL!