Does Open Source Software Cost Jobs? 530
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."
The way I see it (Score:5, Interesting)
WTF (Score:4, Interesting)
Since when have jobs become the be-all and end-all of everything? Sometimes, technology means less human intervention is necessary. Deal with it.
Re:Translation: (Score:3, Interesting)
Agreed, if TCO is lower, then jobs are cost, end of story.
Maybe we can flip around the next MS based TCO study and be all, MS hates jobs.
Egg Analogy (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
Re:Quote Investigator to the rescue! (Score:5, Interesting)
Considering this ideological simplified nonsense is fashionable on /., it is worth pointing out that a socialistic-communistic-pinko-liberal jobs program, the WPA, is responsible for most of the standing infrastructure that the US, the world's biggest economy relies upon every day.
Re:Translation: (Score:5, Interesting)
Efficiency is evil.
It's more insidious than that. If you do a job that can be automated, you are already redundant. Automation will only increase. On the flip side we have ever cheaper labour due to globalisation. The idea of earning your living doing an honest day's work is coming under severe pressure. Artificially retricting the automation is a band aid at best. Imagine what would happen if we were to suddenly have robots with human like abilities but not wants and desires - if that sci fi dream is ever realised the idea of having a job is going to become rather antiquated.
So if we don't destroy ourselves we will eventually need a change to our economic systems and our ideas on earning - that will be a huge and devasting change to make - unlike any other in history. Earning a living is an idea deeply ingrained into most societies. Our entire economy will need to be reworked if the vast majority are not to starve. What's more it must be done sustainably with the finite resources we have. The change isn't going to be pretty..
Re:Quote Investigator to the rescue! (Score:2, Interesting)
And did Milton consider the total economic cost of that tradeoff?
Did he add the cost of supporting and/or fending off all of those out-of-work people that would be furloughed if the shovels were replaced with tractors?
Did he multiply the cost of completing the project if the shovels were replaced with spoons?
Did he determine whether the project would even be undertaken if not for the cheap availability of generic people and shovels instead of the expensive need for skilled people and tractors?
Or did he merely invoke the fallacy of the excluded middle and satisfy his own rush to cognitive closure and limited view of the consequences as a means of satisfying his own political preconceptions which inexorably had more to do with his personal gain than any overall benefit to the community?
P.S. Ayn Rand can go to hell, if she's not already building a railroad there.
Re:Quote Investigator to the rescue! (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Quote Investigator to the rescue! (Score:2, Interesting)
This is the fundamental inconsistency with capitalism. If there's not enough real work to go around, the solution isn't to invent more work. It's to more fairly allocate the work we need done.
Re:Quote Investigator to the rescue! (Score:5, Interesting)
There are two San Francisco bridges - among the most used and photographed in the world - built within 6 years, during the 1930's.
The Golden Gate was a WPA project - approved and built in 4 years. The Bay Bridge, not formally WPA, benefited immensely from the large-scale mobilization of labour and planning that WPA enabled.
Re:Um, wrong cause for the effect. (Score:5, Interesting)
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.
It could be said the Goal of Open Source... (Score:5, Interesting)
... is to cost IT jobs.
The whole point is so that you don't need to re-invent the wheel as much, because you can extend what you have been given instead. That any value any programmer gives to open source is available to all, not just the one company who paid the programmer. Less work to do is going to mean less jobs to do it.
Is this a bad thing? Hell No. Every time a job has been taken to benefit efficiency its gone hand in hand with higher quality of life across the board. Its bad for the individuals who don't or can't re-skill, but of benefit to society as a whole.
Quite frankly I feel that some of the software stack, from the core OS to the most common work programs, should be funded as open-source by governments. Its no different really than public roads. The government doesn't fund trucks, but it does fund the common infrastructure the trucks use. I don't think governments should fund games or media centers, but it would make sense to fund the OS and Office Suite.
That's the problem with TFA. (Score:5, Interesting)
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".
Re:Translation: (Score:5, Interesting)
It's only a good thing if the standard of living is improving. Back decades ago it was commonly believed that by the 21st century people would be working only a few hours a day to provide for themselves and having a large amount of time off.
That didn't happen primarily because they underestimated the willingness of a willfully ignorant subset of the population to vote for class warfare against the lower and middle classes and for the wealth to accumulate at the top even at those at the bottom suffer.
Re:Quote Investigator to the rescue! (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh shit. *BOTH* of their plans will eliminate capital gains taxes (i.e. taxes on money you earn in the stock market). Wait, don't the rich hold the vast majority of stocks? This means billionaires will see dramatically lower taxes. Warren Buffet, who was complaining that he was paying only 17% of his income in taxes (lower than everyone else he works with) will see his taxes drop to the low single-digits. GO REPUBLICANS!
Re:Quote Investigator to the rescue! (Score:4, Interesting)
You obviously don't understand how taxes work. If you have $100, when you spend it the government takes (e.g.) $25. They can (in theory; they never actually do) put that against the debt. Then the person you paid the $75 has $75 and the person the government paid $25 has $25, a total of $100. When they spend the $100, the government gets another $25. Repeat until debt is paid.
Of course, governments never really repay their debts. When a bond is due, they issue a new bond to pay for it. The interest on government debt is almost by definition below the rate of inflation, so when governments want to "reduce" their debt they just stop increasing it and wait until inflation has devalued it sufficiently.