The open source community is the new H1B and offshoring

[tailfins]

This commentary might be over your heads. If it is I will post it elsewhere. The H1B visa and offshoring are about to become irrelevant in Information Technology. Consider how Microsoft expanded dot net to be multi-platform. They made the source code public and requested that the open source community enhance it to be multi-platform. This was done without adding people to the payroll, even from India. It's has been a huge success. You can't under price free. The key to beating this is keeping your know-how bleeding edge and learning how to use what's being submitted to places like Github. Being able to leverage the open source community can give you the productivity of fifty people. Notice that it doesn't involve whining that the government needs to do this or do that. The solution is completely oriented towards individual initiative, a cornerstone of conservative principle.

One may ask, why do people submit work to Github. It builds one's reputation and impressive solutions lead to paid projects.

[Abbey Marie]

My husband works with plenty of H1B people. They are not programmers. They are IT, though. Network guys. Open Source will not affect them.

[Elessar]

I am glad you two know what that means!:laugh:

It really shot completely over this Boatswain' Mate's head!

(PS..at least I can admit when I am ignorant of something such as this!)

[tailfins]

I am glad you two know what that means!:laugh:

It really shot completely over this Boatswain' Mate's head!

(PS..at least I can admit when I am ignorant of something such as this!)

The political result is that companies offshoring and using immigration to lower wages will matter much less. If what you produce is ahead of the curve of the open source community, it will also be ahead of the curve compared to people offshore or brought here on an H1B visa. If you study diligently and stay cutting edge, you can protect your job and earning power. Your destiny is in your hands, not the government's. Immigration policy won't be a threat to your livelihood, irrespective of what that policy is.

The only threat is tolerance of slipshod results for companies that insist on digging their heels in on doing their projects with H1B and offshore labor, but the market will punish them soon enough.

[Elessar]

The political result is that companies offshoring and using immigration to lower wages will matter much less. If what you produce is ahead of the curve of the open source community, it will also be ahead of the curve compared to people offshore or brought here on an H1B visa. If you study diligently and stay cutting edge, you can protect your job and earning power. Your destiny is in your hands, not the government's. Immigration policy won't be a threat to your livelihood, irrespective of what that policy is.

The only threat is tolerance of slipshod results for companies that insist on digging their heels in on doing their projects with H1B and offshore labor, but the market will punish them soon enough.

Thanks TF...that explains it better.:beer:

[GravyBoat]

This is important information even if one doesn't understand it technically. Thanks for keeping us abreast of things.