Posted in blog city on March 12th 2004  

Even if you are remotely connected to IT industry, you would have come across and most likely be affected (either +ve of -ve way) by one of these “source”s — open source or outsource.

In my view, the reason for any one to adopt either open source or outsource is essentially same — cost! Save some bucks by using open source, save even more by outsourcing!

However, can all people advocating use of open source openly support outsourcing as well?
Majority of them will not — outsourcing now became an emotional issue connected with layoffs, unemployment etc and even became a political issue! I fail to understand why there has to be such backlash over outsourcing. Let us say, if in near future Linux becomes extremely popular and Microsoft has to lay off some of it’s work force, will there be a similar backlash on Linux?

Now, the same is happening at outsourcing as well. If we view in this perspective, the bashing on outsourcing seems ridiculous  (this is not to say that I cannot understand the pain of being unemployed). One must understand that both open source and outsoucing are just business models and there is nothing good or bad about them as long as they provide what they promise!

Peace,

Comments

#1

‘‘ posted this on Fri 12 Mar 2004, 6:09 pm raj, just consider this. lets say our jobs are taken away by workers from some other poorer country -like Bangladesh/Congo etc. How do feel? For that matter didn’t we feel insecure when Infy/Wipro had plans of opening ODCs in China for cheap labor?We may arguethat the US is different. Its economically well developed etc. But the basic human needs/thoughts are the same everywhere. For a moment, forget about things like quality etca and just imagine our jobs being taken away and given to someone else say in Africa. -Just because labor is cheap there. How would we feel? The reaction is natural and is very valid. I feel that until the US economy improves, there is nothing much we can do to prevent/contain this backlash murali

#2

‘Rajs‘ posted this on Mon 15 Mar 2004, 11:40 am Well, I am not talking about basic human nature here. I am just talking about double standards few communities of people have. All I am questioning is if people advocating open source can advocate outsource as well. I have seen quite a number of blogs by people who have this dual mind set.Also, if we want to take an example on natural reactions from the Indian side, one can find plenty of them. Take cases of “privitisation” attempt of any govt. organization here in India. Employees go on strike!! Say, for example, the “computerisation” of banks few years back! Majority of bank employees were opposing saying that it will increase unemployment etc. It is true that there are many VRS schemes offered by almost all banks to decrease thier head count. But, ultimately see what happened now! Banks are more customer friendly, focussed and efficient. A marked difference in attitude of the staff can be seen when you visit any bank. Thus, as I said earlier, “if it achieves what is promises”, it tends to do more good for the society in general. Backlash is common when one tends to lose his/her source of income, but it should not be irrational to the extent that we are seeing today.

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