From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.0 required=5.0 tests=MAILING_LIST_MULTI, T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 6240 invoked from network); 7 Sep 2022 04:01:16 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (50.116.15.146) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 7 Sep 2022 04:01:16 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 9BB2740E89; Wed, 7 Sep 2022 14:00:38 +1000 (AEST) Received: from pasta.tip.net.au (pasta.tip.net.au [203.10.76.2]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 95BBA40E7C for ; Wed, 7 Sep 2022 14:00:34 +1000 (AEST) Received: from [192.168.1.2] (unknown [203.7.122.114]) (using TLSv1.2 with cipher ECDHE-RSA-AES256-GCM-SHA384 (256/256 bits)) (No client certificate requested) by mailhost.tip.net.au (Postfix) with ESMTPSA id 4MMpSc1CX3z8swQ; Wed, 7 Sep 2022 14:00:30 +1000 (AEST) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Mime-Version: 1.0 (Mac OS X Mail 12.4 \(3445.104.21\)) From: steve jenkin In-Reply-To: Date: Wed, 7 Sep 2022 14:00:22 +1000 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable Message-Id: References: <453CCF20-3A01-4655-A956-149EDC08FA36@canb.auug.org.au> To: TUHS X-Mailer: Apple Mail (2.3445.104.21) Message-ID-Hash: JRYJW5V7LDO4RMLPHLGJRCBXSY54YC7V X-Message-ID-Hash: JRYJW5V7LDO4RMLPHLGJRCBXSY54YC7V X-MailFrom: sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; header-match-tuhs.tuhs.org-0; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: Has this been discussed on-list? How Unix changed Software. List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Marc, the first I.T. Recession in Australia occurred in 1991. It was the first economic recession where corporates couldn=E2=80=99t = easily save money by =E2=80=9Cautomating=E2=80=9D - all the low-hanging = fruit - like Inventory, Payroll & Accounting - had been computerised, at = least by companies that=E2=80=99d survive. Thanks for mentioning the IBM OCO - I=E2=80=99d left mainframe by then. Your insight about the =E2=80=99social contract=E2=80=99 ring true - = never heard that before. Since that first recession, the regard managers have for I.T. / = Computing staff - embodied in wages & conditions - has declined markedly = outside business where software & systems are their business. The hype and over-expenditure on Y2K, then the Dot Crash, resulted in a = 5 year I.T. recession in Australia - and a very jaded attitude towards = I.T. and their budgets within the Corporates I know. The deskilling and mediocre work of programmers and support staff alike = doesn=E2=80=99t seem to improve whole-of-enterprise productivity. Your summation of the Professional response to the dissolution of the = =E2=80=99social contract=E2=80=99 is very insightful. Explains the rapid = rise and proliferation of OSS in the 1990=E2=80=99s. stevej > On 7 Sep 2022, at 02:09, Marc Donner wrote: >=20 > By the mid-1980s the Microsoft folks established the notion that = software was economically valuable. People stopped giving away source = code (IBM's change in strategy was called OCO - "Object Code Only") and = it totally shocked the software developer community by destroying the = jobs for programmers at user sites. Combine that with the mid-1980s = recession and the first layoffs that programmers had ever seen and we = saw the first horrified realization that the social contract between = programmers and employers did not actually exist. >=20 > We, the programmer community, woke up and committed ourselves as much = as ever we could to non-proprietary languages and tools, putting our = shoulders to the OSS movement and hence to UNIX and the layer of tools = built on top of it. >=20 -- Steve Jenkin, IT Systems and Design=20 0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915) PO Box 38, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA mailto:sjenkin@canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin