fak3r

This is a big deal for me, I played with Skype back in the day, but never really used it much since it required a second client, and I have always used Gaim (which is now Pidgin) to consolidate all of my accounts into one client and didn’t want to break out of that mold, but now I don’t have to.  Using the Skype API, Eion Robb has created a Pidgin plugin called Skype API plugin for Pidgin/libpurple/Adium.  Now I just add my user to the Pidgin accounts tab and I can now chat via Skype in Pidgin just like I chat with all my other contacts.  Note that you can’t do the video of Skype on Pidgin.  Mac users note that you can use this on Adium (my fav OS X chat client), which uses libpurple, which is the backend for Pidgin, on Mac.  So now I’m using Skype again, which is a propreitary app, thanks to them providing an API for the Open Source community to latch on to.  Ah, the circle of life…

A recent study by a tech group talks about not only there being a positive monetary benefit for IT workers to know Open Source, but a more fulfilling sense of purpose as well.  While this tells me nothing I don’t already know, it’s something that’s important as the next wave of IT geeks start knocking on the doors.  “Want to make more money as an enterprise application developer? You’re in luck–if you know open source. According to a recent report from Bluewolf Consulting, enterprises increasingly deploy open-source software, and look to specialized application development on top of it, to drive business value:

The rise of open-source software in application development puts developers with a specialization in those technologies in a position to ask for a 30 (percent) or 40 percent pay increase, Kirven says. “We’ve gotten more requests from our permanent-placement division for open-source developers in the last six months than in the last five or six years combined,” he says. “It’s not as easy as getting free software; someone has to get it up and running. LAMP is everywhere now–these types of technologies no one heard of 18 months ago are all the sudden becoming a hot commodity.”

Indeed. Not only does open source bring developers more money, but it also apparently brings them more satisfaction. Jon Williams, chief technology officer of test preparation company Kaplan, made it very clear in an

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a month ago that open source is one of his best retention tools. Let people do interesting work, and they stick around. Make them mindlessly monitor that Windows machine, and they’ll bolt.”  I can attest to this, as can my last few contracting positions.  I was brought on to do interesting, challenging, Open Source work, but when that dried up, so did my interest in staying.  Fortunately I’ve recently left the corporate world behind and have found an Open Source position that allows me to fully utilize my skills, while building something with a purpose that’s not based on a corporations’ bottom line (and I’m loving it).  As a followup, there’s also an article about how open source drives enterprise innovation, which after my previous statement reveals, I could cover both sides of.

Related articles

• Report: Open-source developers command up to 40 percent premium [via Zemanta]
• Benchmark entrepreneur talks making money from open source [via Zemanta]
• Roundtable: The state of open source [via Zemanta]

As a IT contractor I’m enjoying giving my opinion when asked, and sometimes even when I’m not asked; I have the confidence to be open and honest with everyone and want them to know that. Because of this I’ve been getting to do things I otherwise would not have since they would not have known I was interested or experienced in such things. One of the things I was hired for was to setup Apache on Linux to work with their web instances. It’s been fun, and while I’ve used Apache for over 10 years, there’s always new things to learn. Recently they asked for my opinion on ’support’ options for Apache. Keeping in mind, they already have support for the hardware and support for the Linux distribution, they still think they need another support channel for Apache. To me this a big waste of money and have somewhat made my case to them. While I understand their position that this support is a way to cover themselves if Apache ‘breaks’, the fact that this software is Open Source has to change the way they have traditionally considered support.

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