[p2p-research] OSS did not create any substantial number of jobs in the IT-sector.

Tue Jan 12 14:23:56 CET 2010

I wonder, though, how many people F/LOSS enabled to become independently
employed? Wonder how many business were able to grow substantially because
of the common pool resources of F/LOSS?

Whenever I see an analysis (of any type) that is focusing on "job creation",
I *know* I am only looking at a small fraction of the real economic story.
You need to take into account independent/small business, which likely sees
millions, or even billions worldwide in direct revenue generation from
F/LOSS.

On Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 12:05 AM, Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>wrote:

> Dear Rishab,
>
> Gehrard Wagner here below makes the very strong claim that:
>
> OSS did not create any
> substantial number of jobs in the IT-sector.
>
> Do you have any  documentation on this topic that we could share, given
> your involvement in the FLOSS studies?
>
> Michel
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: <ciresearchers-request at vancouvercommunity.net>
> Date: Tue, Jan 12, 2010 at 11:56 AM
> Subject: Digest for list ciresearchers
> To: ciresearchers at vancouvercommunity.net
>
>
> Table of content :
>
>  1. OSS jobs report
>  2. Re: [ciresearchers] OA and OSS: universally applicable principles?
>  3. RE: [ciresearchers] FW: [governance] Open Patents? Hundreds of
>    thousands of innovations - most in the form of patents
>  4. Re: [ciresearchers] FW: [governance] Open Patents? Hundreds of
>    thousands of innovations - most in the form of patents
>  5. Govt of Oman has blocked Skype here due complaints by telecom
>    companies
>  6. Re: [ciresearchers] Govt of Oman has blocked Skype here due
>    complaints by telecom companies
>  7. RE: [ciresearchers] FW: [governance] Open Patents? Hundreds of
>    thousands of innovations - most in the form of patents
>  8. Re: $5,000 grant program, combining gifts in kind and cash, for
>    nonprofits that want to enhance communications
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Michel Bauwens <michelsub2004 at gmail.com>
> To: ciresearchers-request at vancouvercommunity.net, contentissimo at chello.at
> Date: Mon, 11 Jan 2010 12:18:44 +0700
> Subject: OSS jobs report
> Dear Gehrard,
>
> you write:
>
>
> A recent scientific report on OSS revealed that did not create any
> substantial number of jobs in the IT-sector.
> Only distributors as Redhad benefited. Thats it.
>
> Is is possible to have a reference,
>
> I find this quite counter-intuitive, since I've heard from both floss
> developers in kerala and ecuador that they have nearly 100% employment, and
> purely anecdotally of course, 99% of the programmers I meet have jobs ... of
> course, they could be displacing other jobs and not creating new ones,
>
> so in any case, your report would be most interesting,
>
> Michel
>
> see
> http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/estimating-the-value-of-the-free-economy-at-300-billion/2008/07/31
>
> Estimating the value of the free economy at 300 billion<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/estimating-the-value-of-the-free-economy-at-300-billion/2008/07/31>
> [image: photo of Michel Bauwens]
> Michel Bauwens
> 31st July 2008
>
>  Chris Anderson has done a useful exercise<http://www.longtail.com/the_long_tail/2008/07/how-big-is-the.html>to estimate the value of the ‘really free economy’ (which excludes free as a
> gimmick and advertising-supported media), which he considers to be in the
> ballpark of $300 billion.
>
> The article starts by explaining a typology of the free economy, which I
> think has been done better elsewhere.
>
> See here for an alternative typology of the free economy<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/steve-bosserman-on-economic-sustainability-in-a-world-of-open-design/2008/02/19>(graphic
> here<http://www.newmediaexplorer.org/steve_bosserman/2008/02/09/giving_it_away_making_money.htm>
> )
>
> See also my own “ladder of open business models<http://blog.p2pfoundation.net/what-kind-of-economy-are-we-moving-to-3-a-hierarchy-of-engagement-between-companies-and-communities/2007/10/05>
> “.
>
> *Here is Chris Anderson’s calculation:*
>
> “*Open source software (service and support around free software):*
>
> ** The “Linux ecosystem” (everything from RedHat to IBM’s open source
> consulting business) is around $30 billion today.*
>
> ** Other companies built around open source, such as MySQL ($50m annual
> revenues) and Sugar CRM ($15m), probably add up to less than $1 billion.*
>
> *Free-to-play videogames:*
>
> ** These are mostly online massively multiplayer games, which are free to
> play but make money by charging the most dedicated gamers for digital assets
> (upgrades, clothing, new levels, etc). They started in South Korea and China
> (where they’re now a $1 billion business) and have now come to the US, with
> games like Runescape and NeoPets.*
>
> ** The “casual games market” (think everything from online card games to
> flash games) is now at nearly $3 billion.*
>
> *Free music:*
>
> ** How much of Apple’s iPod $4 billion in annual sales should be credited
> to the libraries of “free” MP3 that created demand for gigabyte storage
> devices? How much of MySpace’s $65 billion estimated value is due to the
> free music bands put there? How much of the $2 billion concert business is
> driven by P2P file sharing?*
>
> *So what’s the bottom line? By a strict definition of free (just the third
> category), it’s pretty easy to get to $50 billion total revenues. Include
> the next most interesting free market, online ad-driven content and
> services, and you’re around $75 billion. Expand that to the traditional
> ad-supported media, and you can get to $150 billion. Go worldwide, and you
> can easily double all those figures.*
>
> *Whichever definition you like, there’s a lot of money to be made around
> free*.”
>
> Of course, money is not the only value evaluation system<http://p2pfoundation.net/Money_is_not_the_Only_Value_Measurement_System>,
> and there are sections of the free economy, where no cash changes hands at
> all <http://p2pfoundation.net/Adventure_Economy>, for which we need
> different wealth acknowledgment systems<http://p2pfoundation.net/Wealth_Acknowledgment_Systems>
> .
>
> To measure, this kind of ‘immaterial value’, we need a new type of ‘peer to
> peer metrics’, which we are monitoring via this special page<http://p2pfoundation.net/P2P_Metrics>
> .
>
> Chris calculation also do not take into account eventual destructive
> effects on monetary wealth, that for example open source software may have
> caused to proprietary software, estimated at a loss of at $60 billion
> annually <http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39397439,00.htm>.
>
>
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