Some Implications of Software Commodification
(c) 2004 David Stutz
I often used the phrase "the commodification of software" to represent
what I believe is the critical force behind the rise of open source
software. Broadly used software is now defined primarily by its capacity
for
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/31/03 12:19PM >>>
>>what is interesting (at least to me, because i am "in the space") is
>>that the high-paying privileged jobs in IT (the ones that ivy league
>>educated "liberal" white men filled) are being outsourced to india or
>>elsewhere, and some of the whining from
Not just to show them who's boss. You have to BELIEVE.
J.
- Original Message -
From: "andie nachgeborenen" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Thursday, July 31, 2003 6:28 PM
Subject: Re: [PEN-L] Support of open-source software by business
>
shing). So I wonder
> how big an electoral factor they'll be.
>
> Doug
__
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ravi wrote:
what is interesting (at least to me, because i am "in the space") is
that the high-paying privileged jobs in IT (the ones that ivy league
educated "liberal" white men filled) are being outsourced to india or
elsewhere, and some of the whining from these "liberals" sounds quite
inconsis
1990s. But job loss was presented
> as a fact of nature, about which we could do nothing - except go to
> college and learn computers. But now the people who did the "right"
> thing are taking hits too.
>
what are the numbers on people who actually "went back to college&qu
On Thu, Jul 31, 2003 at 07:35:47AM -0500, Bill Lear wrote:
>
> I initially made the connection between the two. Long-term investment
> by companies like IBM in supporting open-source allows them to more
> easily outsource down the road, when the knowledge has spread. There
> is no ques
>>> [EMAIL PROTECTED] 07/30/03 09:57PM >>>
>But job loss was presented
>as a fact of nature, about which we could do nothing - except go to
>college and learn computers. But now the people who did the "right"
>thing are taking hits too.
Has anyone heard what Robert Reich and other libs who pushed
I initially made the connection between the two. Long-term investment
by companies like IBM in supporting open-source allows them to more
easily outsource down the road, when the knowledge has spread. There
is no question that open-source software is a vehicle for spreading
knowledge rapidly at
ows them to more
easily outsource down the road, when the knowledge has spread. There
is no question that open-source software is a vehicle for spreading
knowledge rapidly at very low cost, and there is no reason for large
patrons like IBM not to see this and take advantage of it.
I agree that th
I think Doug hits the point of why this is a bigger news media story...
the inherent hypocrisy of it.
Get fired. Go to school... get your degree... be part of the American
Dream... and get fired again.
Ken.
--
You never know if you've got a happy ending [to your life] until you
finally die. I gu
Your reading is the same as mine. Nothing about their plight. Just that
their situation was a natural part of progress.
On Wed, Jul 30, 2003 at 09:57:28PM -0400, Doug Henwood wrote:
> Michael Perelman wrote:
>
> >I don't know how we switched from open source to outsourcing, but I find
> >the con
Michael Perelman wrote:
I don't know how we switched from open source to outsourcing, but I find
the concern about outsourcing quite interesting. For decades,
manufacturing workers suffered the brunt of outsourcing.I saw little
interest in the media regarding the plight of these workers. Now
regarding outsourcing, I might mention that all of the copy editing and
production of my new book, The Peverse Economy, is being done by a company
in India, something I should have anticipated, but never expected.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
I don't know how we switched from open source to outsourcing, but I find
the concern about outsourcing quite interesting. For decades,
manufacturing workers suffered the brunt of outsourcing.I saw little
interest in the media regarding the plight of these workers. Now that
better educated, mo
I see a lot more opposition to open-source software, and projects of
non-commercial programming projects like decentralized peer-to-peer
networks than I do support from big business.
In terms of support, the main means is by usage of open-source software.
I have worked from very small companies
Gartner: One in 20 end-user IT jobs to move offshore by late 2004
But pinning down definitive numbers is hard to do, the research firm said
By Thomas Hoffman
JULY 30, 2003
Between now and the end of 2004, one out of every 10 jobs at U.S. IT
vendors and services providers -- and one out of 20 IT j
s, particularly those that replaced U.S. workers,
have been stung by the backlash. Their experiences illustrate why some companies say
little, if anything, about their outsourcing plans. On April 17, Kevin Flanagan was
let go from his job at Bank of America's Concord, Calif., division. Late
In a message dated 7/29/03 12:26:28 AM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
For most of this year I have been working on extending the article into a full-length book. I would be very grateful to comments, criticism and suggestions (if anyone is really interested I can send the work-in
development projects have gotten very
>>good at having volunteers from around the globe working together. In other words,
>>they've figured out the processes and software infrastructure that make it much
>>easier to use Java programmers in India, who get paid a fifth of wh
into a full-length book. I would be very grateful to comments, criticism and suggestions (if anyone is really interested I can send the work-in-progress text)
sincerely
Johan
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In a message dated 7/28/03 3:24:35 PM Pacific Daylight Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes:
Communities can engage thousands of skilled labourers while even the biggest multinational company can hardly afford to pay more than a few hundred developers. However, this touches on something else that I beli
The primary aim for business is certainly to tap into cheap programming labour. This is sometimes even recognised by the chief priest of open-source, Eric Raymond, but in his words phrased as a positive feature. On why open source (and the more radically minded 'free software') will o
nd the globe working together. In other words, they've
>figured out the processes and software infrastructure that make it much easier to use
>Java programmers in India, who get paid a fifth of what they do in the U.S.
This is exactly what I had in mind. Thanks for the info.
Bill
If you look at the history of open source, I think that it would be hard to argue that
it took off because of an effort to lower costs of white-collar programmers. Most
open source software and software development made its way through the back door,
pushed by system administrators and
Some studies say that open source lowers software costs by letting
individual programmers display their skills and gain recognition by other
programmers. This information allows employers to be more efficient in
their hiring decisions. I have no idea how much credence to give to this
idea.
On
I've been wondering if business support for open-source software ---
from IBM, for example --- is really an effort to spread knowledge and
thus lower costs of white-collar programmers. Any studies of this?
Bill
I haven't heard this myself. When I was being trained in Java by a
con
I've been wondering if business support for open-source software ---
from IBM, for example --- is really an effort to spread knowledge and
thus lower costs of white-collar programmers. Any studies of this?
Bill
Don't get mad, get political
John Naughton
Sunday July 13, 2003
The Observer
Here's the unpalatable truth: software has become political. It's
unpalatable because most engineers detest politics as the epitome of the
hypocrisy and muddle they sought to escape by choosing a tr
Thanks Ravi, now I can finally read it.
Happy new year,
Joanna
without the wraparound:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6VC6-47DM6DN-6-3&_cdi=5946&_orig=browse&_coverDate=01%2F31%2F2003&_sk=999689998&wchp=dGLbVzz-lSztA&_acct=C29718&_version=1&_userid=582538&md5=203
Anthony D'Costa wrote:
> Those interested in a different interpretation of the Indian software
> industry can check out the following url (no spaces): Uneven and Combined
> Development: Understanding India's Software Industry
>
> http://www.sciencedirect.com/science
Those interested in a different interpretation of the Indian software
industry can check out the following url (no spaces): Uneven and Combined
Development: Understanding India's Software Industry
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=MImg&_imagekey=B6VC6-47DM6DN-6-3&_cdi=
5946
prices on ACADEMIC
EDITION SOFTWARE from MICROSOFT, ADOBE, MACROMEDIA, COREL, and others - AT UP TO 84%
OFF STANDARD COMMERCIAL RETAIL PRICES. If you are a Qualified Education Buyer
(defined below) you can purchase software products from CPE at HUGE DISCOUNTS during
our BACK-TO-SCHOOL SALE
Software for tough guys
John O'Farrell
Saturday July 20, 2002
The Guardian
The British army is going all hi-tech. Now when you phone them up you get a
disjointed digital recording saying: "Thank you for phoning the Ministry of
Defence. If you wish to declare war on the United Kingd
ONE-FOURTH MELLON FINANCIAL'S I.T. WORK MOVED TO INDIA
The latest financial giant to move much of its information
technology work
outside U.S. borders, Mellon Financial will soon be sending a
quarter of its
routine software maintenance chores to India. (A study by the
Meta Group
consulting
Business Standard
Tuesday, April 9, 2002
ECONOMY
Software, IT services exports up 40%
Our Corporate Bureau in New Delhi
India's exports of computer software and IT-enabled services grew close to
40 per cent in rupee terms in 2001-02 at Rs 38,500 crore as compared to Rs
27,500
remarks about software to which
various people responded. I like what Charles has to say quite a bit. I
went to Los Angeles to a conference on disability and technology held yearly
by the local state university. While Charles' remarks make some sense
concerning about how shoddy softwar
Well, this is the way software lisencing has worked for many years in the
mainframe/large computer industry. Often one has the option of purchasing
or "renting", but the practice has been around for many years.
Alan
At 3/26/2002, you wrote:
>I assume that everybody knows
I assume that everybody knows that software companies want to make their
product much less like an estimate, by making customers pay annual rental
fees for the use of software.
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL
r, my own observations lead me to conclude that the software and
> hardware are often out of sync.
Perhaps being out of synch is how they get us to buy more stuff?
Charles Jannuzi
You might think that the WINTEL duopoly and its minions try to coordinate
cycles of planned obsolescence.
However, my own observations lead me to conclude that the software and
hardware are often out of sync. Sometimes the software is not optimized to
make best use of the hardware; sometimes
> I wrote: >>>> Software depreciates very quickly, so that it's more like a
> raw material
> than like fixed capital.<<<<
>
> Ian:
> >>> Depreciates quickly in terms of exchange value, not use value. Logic,
> math and funky grammars
At 3/26/2002, you wrote:
>BTW, does anyone know of a good simple program from drawing abstract graphs
>(i.e., ones not based on numbers, such as simple supply & demand)? I've been
>using QuattroPro for DOS (speaking of depreciated software) for years and
>I've never
I wrote: >>>> Software depreciates very quickly, so that it's more like a
raw material
than like fixed capital.<<<<
Ian:
>>> Depreciates quickly in terms of exchange value, not use value. Logic,
math and funky grammars are the raw material.<<<
>
- Original Message -
From: "Devine, James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2002 2:11 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:24364] RE: Re: software
> I wrote: > Software depreciates very quickly, so that it's more like
a raw
>
I wrote: > Software depreciates very quickly, so that it's more like a raw
material
than like fixed capital.<
Ian:
> Depreciates quickly in terms of exchange value, not use value. Logic,
> math and funky grammars are the raw material.
it also depreciates as when a new version o
- Original Message -
From: "Devine, James" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: Tuesday, March 26, 2002 1:51 PM
Subject: [PEN-L:24361] software
> [was: RE: [PEN-L:24360] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Did the boom benefit
> workers??? ?]
>
>
[was: RE: [PEN-L:24360] Re: RE: Re: RE: Re: Re: Did the boom benefit
workers??? ?]
Doug writes:>I see no conceptual reason why software shouldn't be considered
an investment - without it, computers are useless, and it lasts a long
time.<
Software depreciates very quickly, so tha
The Times of India
THURSDAY, JANUARY 31, 2002
Nasscom sees $50 bn software exports from India
REUTERS WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 30, 2002
GENEVA: The head of India's top software industry body on Wednesday said
European growth would drive up the country's export revenues from software
and s
[NYT]
June 13, 2001
Software's Next Leap Is Out of the Box
By JOHN MARKOFF
SAN FRANCISCO -- JOHN SEELEY BROWN, a scientist at the Xerox Palo Alto
Research Center, turns to the German philosopher Martin Heidegger for
a description of the next frontier in software: a blind man is not
conscio
er and out until next year,
Nico
-Original Message-
From: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
[mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] On Behalf Of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Sent: Friday, July 10, 2893 6:44 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:[PEN-L:6499] Re: another software query
Did my mail ever do that to an
Did my mail ever do that to anybody else?
>
> almost every day, I get an e-mail (usually from some reputable company --
> but once from Michael Perelman) which automatically launches my dial-up
> networking applet when I open the message. (I guess they want to help me
> download the info they
almost every day, I get an e-mail (usually from some reputable company --
but once from Michael Perelman) which automatically launches my dial-up
networking applet when I open the message. (I guess they want to help me
download the info they're selling.) I then can't get rid of it, without
shu
Does anyone has software titled Z-EM@IL (I or II) by Rupp Technologies?
This is an email package for Zaurus.
Please respond off-list to [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Thanks
Wojtek
l the graphs are missing (not transferable).
Technology Leapfrogging: The Software Challenge in India
Anthony P. D=Costa
Associate Professor
University of Washington, Tacoma
1900 Commerce Street, Tacoma WA 98402, USA
1. INTRODUCTION
During the last d
not that weak (here I use capital as a
social relation with its attendant foundational strength). The Indian
software industry is doing extremely well (50% growth per annum for the
last 5 years or so) and is expected to continue for at least the next five
to ten years. However, since accumulat
At 19:25 30/06/98 +0001, you wrote:
>Did anyone else read this paper? It was a very interesting exercize on
>the difficulty of moving up the value chain. Shouldn't we take up this
>issue?
> --
>Michael Perelman
__
So Anthony, are you saying that capital still has a home? Cheers, ajit s
I would like to have read it but couldn't import it into Lotus Wordpro 96
or into MS Word 2.0, dunno why. If Anthony reposts it a s a straight text
file that could be good.
Mark
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
> Did anyone else read this paper? It was a very interesting exercize on
> the difficulty o
Did anyone else read this paper? It was a very interesting exercize on
the difficulty of moving up the value chain. Shouldn't we take up this
issue?
--
Michael Perelman
Economics Department
California State University
Chico, CA 95929
Tel. 530-898-5321
E-Mail [EMAIL PROTECTED]
This is a multi-part message in MIME format.
--=_NextPart_000_01BDA15A.C4B70820
I am attaching a file on the subject of Indian software industry. Feel
free to read, delete, post comments.
cheers,
Anthony D'Costa
PS: I just got a letter from my fellowship office saying they have
By the way, Bill Lear's company is quoted in another part of this
article.
Sandberg, Jared. 1998. "Apache's Free Software Gives Microsoft, Netscape
Fits." Wall Street Journal (19 March): p. B1.
Apache, it turns out, doesn't come from a company at all. It'
In this lovely ode to criminal tax evasion, FORBES outlines both the
software issues and ideology of how networked technology and crytography
are threatening the financial underpinnings of the welfare state as the
rich are able to "secede" from the above-ground economy. --Nathan New
quality products?
> >
>
> Louis: One of the things that is so interesting about the software
> industry is that it has resisted the deskilling process that Stanley
> Aronowitz and William DeFazio wrote about in "The Jobless Future". I have
> seen efforts to mechanize and T
2 USASingapore 119260
On Thu, 8 May 1997, Louis Proyect wrote:
> Sid Schniad:
>
snip
> >It's not just low end jobs that we're talking about, either. The Indian
> >software industry is state-of-the-art in sophistication, but it pays wages
> t
I have almost ten years of experience developing computer programs for
large national and foreign companies here in Mexico; we use computers,
database development systems, and languages that are the same those
used by any programmer and system analyst in any country, so I think
that part of the re
>I suggest those interested in this should take a look at what the Free
>Software Foundation has done. Coincidentally, our shop (Dejanews) is
>almost 100% run on "free" software (Linux operating system, FSF/GNU
>tools, etc.). The amount of sharing of ideas across firms
Bill Lear:
>
>I suggest those interested in this should take a look at what the Free
>Software Foundation has done. Coincidentally, our shop (Dejanews) is
>almost 100% run on "free" software (Linux operating system, FSF/GNU
>tools, etc.). The amount of sharing of ideas
On Thu, May 8, 1997 at 11:46:34 (-0700) Doug Henwood writes:
>William S. Lear wrote:
>
>>He's overthinking. I've worked as a professional "software engineer"
>>for over a dozen years, and am currently working on "cutting edge"
>>stuff (OO a
On Thu, May 8, 1997 at 11:02:36 (-0700) Louis Proyect writes:
>This is the sort of systems development projects that I have been working
>on for 28 years and they present a completely different set of problems
>than creating shrink-wrapped software like a word-processor. The
>difficu
William S. Lear wrote:
>He's overthinking. I've worked as a professional "software engineer"
>for over a dozen years, and am currently working on "cutting edge"
>stuff (OO and Internet).
I think he was talking about the uses of computers in the workplace, not
the creation of software.
Doug
new welfare
legislation because the systems requirements to do cross-state policing of
eligibility are too daunting for the forseeable future.
This is the sort of systems development projects that I have been working
on for 28 years and they present a completely different set of problems
than creating
Harold Salzman in Software by Design talks about the constraints on efficiency
imposed by things like personal style, institutional culture in software
design. Paul Osterman, looking at the uses of automation, found that work
reorganization (in the direction of participation, teamwork, etc.) was
Techie types are very well organized, just not in unions. They are all over
the net with vehicles for skills transfer and job hunting. WE need to find
ways to tap into what is out there instead of trying to force everyone into
some mythic model of the CIO working in the Fordist factory under a m
cial organization of U.S. workplaces is still very
>competitive-individualist, while taking maximum advantage of computers
>would require much more cooperative structures.
>
>How does this strike PEN-Lers?
He's overthinking. I've worked as a professional "software engine
At 08:43 AM 5/8/97 -0700, you wrote:
>Louis: One of the things that is so interesting about the software
>industry is that it has resisted the deskilling process that Stanley
>Aronowitz and William DeFazio wrote about in "The Jobless Future". I have
>seen efforts to mecha
Speaking of computers, Jim O'Connor suggested to me recently, citing the
work of the late Rick Gordon of UC-Santa Cruz, that the reason that
computers have not had the much hyped productivity payoff is that the
social organization of U.S. workplaces is still very
competitive-individualist, while t
At 07:56 AM 5/8/97 -0700, you wrote:
>My understanding of the Indian software industry is different from that
>which Louis expressed. I was under the impression for large projects with
>a modular structure, that the Indians were actually superior -- so long as
>the jobs were well
I was not arguing that efforts to export projects to India have been
unsuccessful. I was instead stating that there is a lot of hype about
disappearing American jobs in the field.
Louis
On Thu, 8 May 1997, Michael Perelman wrote:
> My understanding of the Indian software industry is differ
as
> well, go down now (for that matter, Windows 95 is a piece of shit comparing
> to Windows 3.1) -- but since when capitalists started to care about making
> quality products?
>
Louis: One of the things that is so interesting about the software
industry is that it has resisted t
At 07:32 AM 5/8/97 -0700, Louis Proyect wrote:
>
>The notion that programming jobs are being exported to India is something
>that people in my field discuss often. Not only is this a constant worry,
>there is also the worry that computer programmers from India will be
>imported into the United Sta
My understanding of the Indian software industry is different from that
which Louis expressed. I was under the impression for large projects with
a modular structure, that the Indians were actually superior -- so long as
the jobs were well defined. I have also been reading about the lack of a
By the same token, remote trouble analysis of the
>phone system can be done in the same locale as where the trouble is or
>across the world.
>
>It's not just low end jobs that we're talking about, either. The Indian
>software industry is state-of-the-art in sophisticati
This is a quick one: does anyone on the list use
Micro TSP on a MacIntosh? If so, I have a question
or two.
Please respond to me so as not to clutter the list.
Thanks in advance.
Mark Weisbrot
2501 Q Street NW, #111
Washington DC 20007
(202) 333-6141
e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Just for the record. While we desktop endusers are watching the "big bird"
Microsoft, just who is the second largest software company in the world?
ANSWER: Computer Associates International Inc., which just paid .3BillionUS
for the ASK Group Inc.. Not exactly a desktop name? That is be
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