The presence, impact of and goals of business in general have to be considered in parallel
with this discussion. Unions served multiple purposes at many times in the past the most
significant being a counterweight against business. The tendency of business has been to
create environments where the goals of monopolies can be realized.
Governments can act as a moderating component thereby creating a business environment
with three main members: business, government and the work force. Things get out-of-balance
when there is inequality.
Many IT personnel in the US are seeing this inequality for the first time, e.g., loyality was a
matter of self-indulgence. However, these same people have the ability to create projects
and develop them into sets of products and services. The enabling presence in the past has
been the the approval and support of business management.
Open-source has already proved that it can deliver in the absence of the prior approval of
an established business management entity. In fact, it has been a major force for change in the
business community, e.g., How many times has certain Computer Manufacturers waffled on
Linux? Linux today stands as a major competitor in the IT industry and will soon (personal
prediction here) be used to advance the business interests of low-cost hardware
manufacturers (e.g., look to China for new products and services).
The design/development capability that remains in countries like the US after the restructuring
of global IT business is the core that was used previously by resident IT business. The
'professionals' that remain after out-sourcing have choices that include joining an open-source
development effort. What effort? Why not low-cost Healthcare since it might possibly benefit
local Healthcare?
Can one survive economically contributing to such an effort? Why not since the IT industry
grew from efforts started in garages and spare rooms? Linux today supports ancillary products
and services that did not exist prior to its development.
What products and services would be ancillary to a low-cost, open-source, global EHR system?
Lots, right on down to the data clerk interfacing with the database.
What does this represent to the technical professional born, bred and spoon-fed a healthy dose
of business logic and PR? Some percentage will see this as a technical, social and business
challenge of merit. The technical challenge is easy to understand. The social challenge is simply
put: Make things better! The business challenge is also simply put: The cost-benefit analysis
indicates that by making basic open-source products and services succeed one can develop a
market for more advanced products and services, i.e., one has an opportunity to develop a
rather large market for subsequent products and services.
Why not? A single job site for IT professionals recently listed almost 2.4 million resumes and
slightly over 100 jobs posted across the US (don't remember the site but it is fairly common).
The posted opening were not development quality so most can be eliminated.
The statistics alone would indicate that waiting for things to improve is not a good idea. One
cannot expect to financially survive in this climate for long. Switch to open-source and develop!
Support a global cooperative for low-cost, open-source Healthcare Informatics.
IT today is in a situation similar to the 1930s Depression with one major exception. IT personnel
retain the capability (a shovel) to extract themselves from the current situation. One only has to
use the shovel.
Moving over to the Healthcare professionals. In many areas it appears that the situation is similar
and the suggestion the same. Organize and develop!
Regards!
-Thomas Clark
Wayne Wilson wrote:
[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:
With a very large number of IT personnel in the US wearing-out shoe leather looking
for employment, my guess is that some number of volunteers could be assembled.
Do the professionally training unemployed think that open source would create future employment for them?
One of the great transformations in the United States over the last half of the 20th Century has been the decline of organized employment unions, often called labor unions, because it was laborers who first mobilized themselves against perceived injustices in the economic system.
In my experience, technical professionals, who have been the elite of the 'white collar' employment, have disdained not only the labor unions but the entire concept that benefit is to be gained from a shared vision of economic justice. No, the meritocracy is their vision of economic justice.
To be sure, there have been and continue to be exceptions. I believe
that nearly every technical and professional person on this list is an
exception. In the computer industry there is the Computer
Professionals for Social Responsibility, an organization with a gross
income of less than $200,000, which has addressed open source. There is also the Electronic Freedom Foundation.
Neither of these organizations identify open source as a top level project of theirs, although open source is central in many of their issues.
