...at least, according to this article it seems to...
http://www.worldtechtribune.com/worldtechtribune/asparticles/buzz/bz05222002
.asp
A May 2002 news story from News Corporations Australian IT website
illustrates how the open source method of software development for Linux is
vastly overrated for business customers. According to a story on May 21,
2002 titled "IT Workers poorly skilled: report" by Karen Deane Internet
Business Systems chief executive David Brykman said he was shocked to find
many candidates with university degrees and years of experience couldn't
pass a simple skills test. The Melbourne-based company has been seeking
Visual Basic and SQL programmers over the past six months to handle its
business in industrial strength applications that run through a browser or
over the web. In the past two months we've reviewed about 500 resumes, and
out of those were lucky if we can distil one or two people who are what we
would call qualified, he said.
It is a grim statement on the state of software programming, but you might
ask: What does this have to do with Linux and open source? Okay, think of
it this way: What makes open source the secure, stable and elegant software
panacea open source cultists claim it is? The Linux crowd point to the
thousand eyes in the vast and benevolent Linux community that view the
code and the ability to reuse this secure, stable and elegant code in
numerous projects. These thousands of eyes are supposed to be able to spot
weaknesses in the code and fix them immediately without bureaucratic hassles
found in corporate software development.
Because of the General Public License that virtually all Linux/open source
apps are subject to, Linux/open source programmers are within legal rights
to cut-and-paste pieces of code from any other open source app into their
project. For example, say you are the IT director at a bank and you buy
into the Linux is stable, secure and bulletproof hype. The banks CEO
mandates that all loan officers to have a custom software package to track
customer credit ratings. Your main applications programmer tells you that
he knows a perfect piece of code he can use on SourceForge (an open source
code clearinghouse website) that will drastically cut development time and
costs. You can legally cut-and-paste this code into your credit software
and supposedly make your system stable and secure.
What do business people involved in software development think of this
approach? David Brykman lamented that most software programmers have become
lazy due to the prevalence of open source development methods.
Unfortunately we find people try to look up existing code and then want to
copy and paste it, rather than being able to do the task themselves.
Brykman said. [P]eople still need those skills.
The attack on Brykmans views from the Linux crowd will be: Hes working
with Microsoft tools like Visual Basic that are inherently too closed
because of Micro$ofts monopolistic bullying. If Brykman worked with open
source tools, he wouldnt have this problem.
Such an attack is pointless because it doesnt address the business aspects
software development. If Brykman could use a
free-as-in-beer/free-as-in-liberty piece of code to accomplish his
business goals for almost no cost, he would. Brykman's business is creating
browser-based Intranet software - Usually that business segment prides
itself on being platform independent. Wouldn't Brykman prefer open source
development methodologies due cross-platform nature and its ability to
use/reuse code for free-as-in-beer/free-as-in-liberty? Linux cultists are
so fond of saying theres nothing in the GPL keeping businesses from
charging for code (a semantic gymnastic feat to prove to anyone with half a
brain), so why wouldnt Brykman welcome programmers whose method is to
cut-and-paste snippets of open source code?
No, the problem is that even these supposedly skilled programmers who hack
couldnt get a functioning application out of the millions of lines of code
floating out on the Internet. If they could, Brykman wouldnt be
complaining about the lack of programming skills found amongst most job
applicants.
Businesses in the post dot-com-bomb era will need real programmers, not
spoiled lazy kids stealing from true geniuses. The Microsoft .Net framework
is poised to be the formidable computing platform in the next few years;
mainly due to the innovation required in the C# programming community and
their commitment to intellectual property rights. The Java cross-platform
programming language has been around for almost a decade and Sun has never
been able to work it into their the computer is the network and the network
is the computer strategy. Maybe its because so much Java code is used and
reused? JBoss anyone? Does IBMs Jikes ring any bells? Notice all the
Java code on SourceForge? See the press releases from Sun trumpeting their
alliance with Apache to make the Java platform even more open?
Welcome to the lazy, cut-and-paste world of open source innovation where
people who should be smart enough to know better still think you can get
something for nothing. It would be humorous if it wasn't so pathetic...
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