I’ve talked before about open source and it’s effect on our U.S Economy (pay attention canada). I wanted to touch on that subject again and point out a few things. Open Source has it’s resistance, mainly software companies who want to see the entire world use up all of their $ buying software. But a closer and more in depth look at Open Source, not just software code but also information in general, helps give us a deeper understanding of the positive effect it has.

As Innovation Increases, Opportunity Increases!

This statement is true in all industries. In the Internet and Software industries, the more “open” code and collaboration is the more innovation takes place. And of course as a result more opportunities present themselves in the work place. Date back 3 or 4 years ago for example. The average person had no idea what a “Web Based CRM” was. Now thanks to SugarCRM small businesses, freelancers, and home based businesses are able to take advantage of this CRM technology for free. IT professionals have been hired by these people to install SugarCRM, configure it, and customize it. There are now SugarCRM consultants who train these people on how to use SugarCRM. Other open source CRM projects have sprung up such as vTiger CRM to provide a competition for this application. All this movement in the “internet economy” all because of what simple little innovation, a Web Based CRM. And that’s just one example.

Small Businesses Benefit Greatly

Small businesses are at the heart of our U.S economy. They are examples of courage, risk, growth, and sheer determiniation. Without any of those qualities any small business ceases to exist. Small businesses now because of Open Source, can utilize high level software that their big business competitors are using, only they get it at a fraction of the cost. And sometimes free if they have the technical expertise themselves. It used to cost a grip of $ to run a webserver. Now a couple thousands dollars (if that) can get you a nice server, with all free software (linux, apache etc.) to make it work! Or, you have the Shared Hosting Model which hosting companies are able to offer at competitive prices and value because of the low cost to maintain the servers software. There are so many ways to look at this. The point is, that small businesses can now compete without paying tons of money for software.

Open Source “Spreads The Wealth”

It’s election time, and you can bet that you are going to start hearing more and more about jobs and opportunites in the workplace. The economy is an even more serious issue in this years election. I don’t have exact numbers, but I can image they are very high. But so many jobs and opportunites are created each day in the United States because of open source code and software. We have so many freelance web designers, web developers, and software engineers. These people can work from home, save gas $, and accomplish just as much if not more than a full time employee. As people become more and more aware of open source applications and software, they will turn to more and more freelancers and small business IT groups to help them with these applications. Whether it be just installing them, customizing them, or learning how to use them.

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Seriously think about this topic for a minute? Can Open Source boost our economy? Really? When I talk about open source, I mean not just about the development of free software but of social production as a whole. Think about it, the more our economy focuses on Open Source or Social Production, the more advancements you have in any given area of expertise. More inventions are found. More solutions are found. Many people understand the positive effect that ‘Open Source’ is having, but are not easily relating it to our economy.

In the computer and Internet worlds, ‘Open Source’ is assisting people in two ways. First, it’s helping build fantastic pieces of software that are helping run the everyday world. Second, it’s a higher, faster, more effective means of learning and education for developers and programmers of all types. Other industries however, are not taking advantage of ‘Open Source’ in their respective areas. And a direct correlation can be made. In almost every single struggling Industry in our economy, you can find a lack of Social Production! Stock Market, Real Estate, Restaurants etc. All currently struggle in the United States and all suffer from a lack of Social Production of some kind. Find a way to boost the social production, and you will find an increase in that particular industries economy.

A better question is will this happen? Will different market segments such as Real Estate make strong efforts towards Social Production and Open Source within their industry. It’s hard to say. I don’t know myself. In these other industries you will find greedy people. People who don’t like to share information to others. They horde! This “hording” mentality keeps their Industry from advancements into the future. And thus, threatens their industries existence. Software can only grow for so long until we will need other industries to start catching up. If they don’t, a hard falling economy will effect us all.

The Programmer’s Opportunity
On the flip side of this, a huge opportunity awaits programmers of all types. If or when people begin to look at social production as a means for success, they will start inquiring for help from programmers to build tools and applications that they need. This is when the responsibility now lies in the hands of the programmer. Instead of building a proprietary piece of software for a client, using an already existing open source project or starting one of your own will ultimately benefit that industry in the long term.

Only time will tell this story. But if professionals of all types can learn to leverage open source technologies, and also help contribute to them, as well as share and build hubs of information online you better believe increases in our Economy will follow. Social Production and Open Source is the critical factor in our economy, and the one thing that can save it!!!!

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Here’s a great lecture to watch about open source and social production by Yochai Benkler. Call me ignorant but I really don’t know who this guy is. But I do know that he knows what he’s talking about and has some great things to say.

Here are some of my notes from watching the video. He covers such topics as Wikipedia, the Apache Webserver, the Open Directory Project, P2P file sharing among others. He helps give a clearer understanding of a Collaborative Informational Environment. He describes social sharing and exchange as a modality of economic production.

Yochai Benkler also showed an interesting diagram where he talks about specific social production environments and how they are a threat to specific commercial environments. For example, P2P file sharing is a threat to the Recording Industry. Free and Open Source software is a threat to Microsoft. Wikipedia is a threat to Encarta!

These are just some of my notes. I hope you find this video as helpful and informational as I have. I hope it will motivate you to be more active in the open source community!

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