Re: [school-discuss] Re: [IIEP] Retraining initiative

[Sydney Weidman <weidmans@xxxxxxx>]

On Thu, 2005-05-12 at 16:40, jwaddell@xxxxxxxxxx wrote:
> See inline comments.

> OK.  Where have these people gone then?  Have they A) Left the country  B)
> Living off their wealth gained pre-bust C) Living on skid row  D) Moved
> back in with their parents E) Taken to traveling the country searching for
> a better way F) Died  G) Left to find meaningful employment in other
> sectors, H) Taken any and all temporary positions that keep them and their
> family alive or  I) ALL OF THE ABOVE.

Reports of my having used method F are greatly exaggerated :-)

But seriously. Medicine and law are fields in which individual
practitioners thrive without relying on monopoly rents. What structures
or factors enable them to do so? Could some of those conditions be
recreated in the IT field?

One economic factor which differs significantly between software and
other professions is that software is dominated by a single company.
That means that all the money that would have gone into developing
smaller, more agile companies has been absorbed (along with many of
those companies) by Microsoft. A market served by a large, diverse group
of producers would probably have more "gaps" that would allow the growth
of a healthy professional class during the transition from proprietary
to Open Source Software. This is just speculation on my part, of course.

Regards,
Syd Weidman