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Story: It's not the Gates, it's the bars

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Show me the money!

I think you slightly exaggerate when you say that open source provides millions of jobs.

I do not know many Open Source companies that actually make a profit so how can they provide millions of jobs!

If you mean there are plenty of developers writing open source code then that I can believe, but are they working for free.

Computing did not grow out of cooperation etc. as you put it. It grew because companies realized that they could become more competitive. Intel was one of the biggest reasons that computers became a commodity and the likes of Apple made it interesting.

I dont know where you get your stats from but from official figures in the UK and the USA the number IT/Computing graduates are dropping.

No wonder India and China are jumping on open source it allows them to get access to software for free and help them become more competitive against western companies. I wonder if China will put anything back into open source, doubt it.

Industry does change and always will change but it normally does not shoot itself in the foot. I have been the IT industry a while and seen it all and many times I have predicated which technology would succeed (you might say I have been lucky).

I do not see the money being made from open source that will encourage the next generation of IT stars unless big business and governments fund it and that is highly unlikely.

IT is an industry I enjoy making a living out of. I hope I am wrong about open source it remains to be seen.

On another note, its a hot day so I am off for some R&R and a beer!

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