I am a software developer and make a little money on the side with some shareware. But it is getting a lot harder these days to make money developing and selling shareware with all the free software out there.
Wouldn't it be cool if not only open source programmers, but lawyers, carpenters and everyone else worked for free? Open source and free software is great for users and businesses, but is open source good for programmers? If programmer's don't get paid, then how will we be able to buy food and stuff?
Consider a fictional programmer, Freida. For months Freida spent much of her free time working on Plumware 5.0 – an open source, free program for plumbers. Late one Sunday night the pipe on Freida's kitchen sink broke, resulting in dish water all over the kitchen floor.
After consulting the online yellow pages Freida called up Jake the Plumber to fix her drain pipes. After the work was done Freida and Jake exchanged the expected small talk as Freida got out her check book. During the chitchat Freida mentioned she worked on Plumware 5.0 and asked Jake if he used it, and what a coincidence, it turns out he did use it. Jake was almost going to give Freida a discount, but he had just bought a boat. So Jake charged Freida the full amount for his services, $175.00, and left with check in hand.
Free Software For All
Just how much free software is out there? Check out SourceForge.Net, probably the biggest open source website out there. Their “Software Map” shows tens of thousands of projects. These projects are in various stages of development, but many have working versions of the software ready to download. Many are for Linux but many are also for Windows and for MAC. The vast majority are available under the “GNU General Public License” or “Open Source Initiative” licensing schemes, meaning free to use.
It is quite interesting that SourceForge.Net is "Powered by collaborative software development tools from VA Software". Why is this interesting? A look at VA Software's website provides the answer. VA Software specializes is enabling offshore software development. So the very company that is sponsoring so much open source and free software development is also helping companies move software development offshore. Neat trick!
The Microsoft Connection
There must be a Microsoft connection, after all we are talking about software here. Certainly Microsoft has been harmed by open source. Linux, MySQL, Open Office, every download potentially means a lost sale of Microsoft Windows, SQL Server and Microsoft Office. The same is true of all the other software that is now free that Microsoft was hoping to sell.
Take China. Not literally, think of all the lost Microsoft sales now that China has standardized on Linux. That is many, many millions of dollars in lost sales. Sales that would have gone to an American company, with America employees and investors. Sales that would have benefited programmers. It also means lost revenue for the tax man, so no new roads for those poor Seattlites stuck in traffic. A ton of money, that would have found its way to America, will now not be coming. The same trend is occurring around the world. Billions of dollars will now no longer be benefiting programmers as companies stop paying for software.
Motivation
Of course there is one area where I do understand a little of the open source programmers motivations:must... destroy... evil... Microsoft... empire...
While it is hard to agree with Microsoft's business tactics of the 80's and 90's, it might be better to work at Microsoft as a programmer than at The Home Depot as stock boy. Besides, the past is the past. Microsoft has settled, paid fines, changed its contracts and itself; Microsoft has paid its debt to society. If Sun Microsystems can forgive Microsoft (they settled the Java thing and agreed to have their software inter operate) then anybody can (the many millions in cash Microsoft gave Sun didn't exactly hurt). And compared to companies like Exxon and Monsanto, the Microsoft crew are a bunch of angels. There are much more harmful companies out there.
Are Open Source Programmers Stifling Competition?
Microsoft's past practices have stifled competition, but now there is a new kid on the block. The new kid is open source. Why would any company (or anyone) develop a program when there is a decent and free application that does the job already out there? It would not make economic or business sense. How can anyone compete against free?
Eventually companies are going to wake up to all this, not just free, but really good free software out there and buy less commercial software. It is happening already, companies are buying less software. If people and companies buy less software, how are programmers going to get paid?
Less cash for software means less cash for software developers.
There is no way around this fact, it is simply Economics 101.
If some lawyers started working for free, do you think the average lawyer would make more or less money?
Offshore Outsourcing
Before there was open source offshore outsourcing wasn't an issue. Offshore outsourcers are big users of open source software. Gee, anybody besides me see a problem here? The creation on of open source software has supported the whole offshore outsourcing industry. This has not exactly created more programming jobs in America.
In the End
We will always need more software, at least that is how it has been since the very first program was written. In the past software was, how shall I put this, not really of the highest quality, driving the need for more (hopefully better) software. But these days software is pretty decent. The truth is, if no new software were to become available the average PC user could make do with what they have. Maybe they'll still need new software, but perhaps less of it than in the past. Less software, less money for software developers.
No doubt the fact that companies are doing more with less has also had something to do with the stagnant wages for software programmers. But it seems logical to me that with all this free open source software and freeware floating around that the value of software, and by association, the value of programmers, is dropping and will continue to drop. Are open source programmers screwing themselves? It is a question, not an answer, but it is a question that should be asked by all programmers.
