Open Source=Unemployment and this Rocks! from SXSW Interactive 2014
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It's no secret the economy sucks, caused in large part by a rapidly shrinking middle class combined with job cuts across industries. Join Technology Veteran, Ed Schipul, and Technology Strategist, Sarah M. Worthy, as they show you how to turn that unemployed frown upside down. Learn about our predictions around the explosion of open source software and hardware driving a new job economy that will absolutely Rock! You'll hear how open source solutions are already dominating the playing field, and driving the strategic pivots that big technology companies, like Microsoft, Intel, and HP have been forced to make recently in order to remain relevant. We'll talk about the methodology for identifying these in your own industry and career so that you can empower yourself with open source tools that keep you viable and relevant in the marketplace. Discover how to create the jobs of the future workforce that are truly sustainable and have great benefits!
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Open Source=Unemployment and this Rocks! from SXSW Interactive 2014
- 1. Sarah M Worthy Genius, Entrepreneur, Technologist, Leader, Runner, Nerd, Mother, Architect and Designer of Awesome, Humble, Open open source will lead to our salvation as technology eats the job market.
- 2. Capitalism Doesn’t Scale, so We Need a New Economic System.2 1 Define Open Source 3 What You Can Do to Prepare for the Future!
- 3. Warning - Walls of Text Ahead!
- 4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_source … open source promotes: universal access via free license to a product's design or blueprint universal redistribution of that design or blueprint, including subsequent improvements to it by anyone What Do You Mean by Open Source?
- 5. Open Source is Open Collaboration: "any system of innovation or production that relies on goal-oriented yet loosely coordinated participants, who interact to create a product (or service) of economic value, which they make available to contributors and non-contributors alike”. “People Working Together to Create Economic Value” (like jobs? ;)
- 8. Capitalism isn’t scaling globally… We need a new, world-wide economic system.
- 9. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalism ** sometimes referred to as “free enterprise” or “private enterprise” for PR purposes. “Capitalism is an economic system in which trade, industry and the means of production are controlled by private owners with the goal of making profits in a market economy.” What is Capitalism**?
- 10. Competition Wage Labor 3 Capitalist Economic Elements Private Ownership/Wealth Accumulation
- 11. vs. U.S. Wages Are Flattening. statistics source: worldatwork.org
- 12. * not to scale :) The Wage Market Then…
- 13. {Wages are slowly equalizing around the globe.} Vs Now…
- 14. http://www.ted.com/talks/chrystia_freeland_the_rise_of_the_new_global_super_rich The Wage Gap is Increasing.
- 15. Henry Blodget “Hate To Say It, But If Companies Don’t Start Paying People Better, We May Need Unions.” http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/jobs-robots-capitalism-inequality-and-you/
- 16. Why Software’s Eating the World Cheap to Produce and Scale with fewer people. Users love the personalization/customization Handcrafted Printing Press/Cotton Gin Assembly Line/Canned Foods Digital Web/Software Humans Required few many some one Cost high low medium free Lead Time small large medium none Self-Service medium none some lots Customizatio n high none some lots
- 18. http://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2014/01/what-jobs-will-the-robots-take/283239/ Robots Are Taking Your Jobs
- 19. Competition Wage Labor Is This Still Capitalism? Private Ownership/Wealth Accumulation Digital Automatio n/Robot Labor
- 21. Job Security isn’t What it Used to Be
- 22. 3 Billion More People by 2050!
- 23. Scientists Believe the Earth can Support About 10 Billion People.
- 24. We Compete with Technology
- 25. Capitalism Socialismvs. Is This the Only Alternative…?
- 26. Community Determines Production and Market Needs Skills-Based Labor 3 Socialist Economic Elements Community Ownership/Wealth Accumulation
- 27. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sharing_economy An economic system built around the sharing of human and physical assets. It includes the shared creation, production, distribution, trade and consumption of goods and services by different people and organizations. These systems take a variety of forms but all leverage information technology to empower individuals, corporations, non-profits and government with information that enables distribution, sharing and reuse of excess capacity in goods and services. Ta-Da! The Sharing Economy
- 28. Elements of The Sharing Economy “Fluid” Collaboration Trust & Shared Values Distributed Ownership/Shared Wealth
- 34. gies of Today Using the Sharing Ec
- 35. Your Call to Action Seriously, Dude. Go Do This Stuff Now.
- 38. Start a Community Event
- 39. Be a Friendly Competitor
- 40. I recommend beginning with Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series. Consume Sci-Fi.
- 41. Scott Winship, author “For the Last Time, Robots Do NOT Cause Unemployment.” “If technology reduces demand for labor by a quarter, that might translate into everyone working 25 percent less rather than unemployment rising by one- fourth...”
- 42. What Do You Think?
- 45. Thank you.
- 47. Resources aka “where does she get all these crazy ideas from”?
- 48. Algae Colonies ‣ Eukaryotic Cells (like ours) with mitochondria, nucleus with DNA, and cell walls ‣ As colonies grow, cells specialize and form unique functions inside smaller “organ-like” communities. ‣ Communication between cells is well documented showing cooperation and a level of intelligence
Editor's Notes
- Once upon a time, Capitalism was a great thing because anyone could take an idea and start a company. As a company grew, so too did the need to hire new employees in order to handle the increased volume followed and jobs were created in local and global economies. Sarah M Worthy Genius, Entrepreneur, Technologist, Leader, Runner, Nerd, Mother, Architect and Designer of Awesome, Humble
- What I’m going to talk about today is about scaling the world’s economies, and the convergence of open source technology with financial and labor markets to spur on and support the success of a new global economic model. I’m proposing we’re already seeing this new economic system evolving around us - you could even say “exploding” around us. And I’m going to show you how open source software is where you’ll find your future prosperity. (And the new sharing economy isn’t going to be a new idea, nor is open source’s awesomeness a new idea. )
- I’m a philosophy major and a nerd. Just think of the smile on that happy whale! ;)
- the concept here is that open source is more than software, or even technology. It’s about someone putting their ideas and products out there for anyone to use and modify to meet the individuals needs. recipes can be open source or proprietary… as a mundane/nontech example. Just think about Coca Cola
- open source also brings people together to create economic value. according to the wiki article.
- there’s no real way to know how many private/proprietary software projects there are. They don’t have the option for talent sharing.
- does this mean the revolution is coming? are global economies crashing, will the age of information lead to robot wars/armies? this is my proposed hypothesis, and I believe we’ve already found and begun implementation of the new WWE (totally should be the next thing)
- I’m not going to read all of this - but you all should. At the core of capitalism is the idea of private ownership and private accumulation of wealth. I’ve highlighted the core of The accumulation of capital is the gathering or amassing of objects of value as judged by one's perceived reproductive interest group; the increase in wealth through concentration; or the creation of wealth. Capital is money or a financial asset invested for the purpose of making more money (whether in the form of profit, rent, interest, royalties, capital gain or some other kind of return). This activity forms the basis of the economic system of capitalism, where economic activity is structured around the accumulation of capital (investment in order to realize a financial profit) Wage labour (also wage labor in American English) is the socioeconomic relationship between a worker and an employer, where the worker sells their labour under a formal or informal employment contract.[1] These transactions usually occur in a labour market where wages are market determined.[2] In exchange for the wages paid, the work product generally becomes the undifferentiated property of the employer, except for special cases such as the vesting of intellectual property patents in the United States where patent rights are usually vested in the original personal inventor. A wage labourer is a person whose primary means of income is from the selling of his or her labour in this way.
- I’m not here to debate the merits of capitalism, I just want to give everyone a general idea of how it works… the key elements here are relevant as you’ll see… Central characteristics/economic elements of capitalism include private capital accumulation, competitive markets and wage labor. There are 3 key elements that most economists agree make up a capitalist economic system. * Capital Accumuluation: Companies, the private/free enterprises and the owners of them, earn profits from their investment Competition/Competitive Markets: the markets in capitalism are labor, goods&services, and financial. examples: labor: recruiters compete to attract the best talent to your company, goods&services: pepsi vs coke, your doctor vs mine, financial: gas across the street is 10 cents less than on this side, your bank offers a higher percentage interest rate than mine, Wage Labor: the private owners/enterprise pays individuals money in exchange for providing their time/services/expertise. This is unlike slave labor. Money, capital, and accumulation[edit] Money is primarily a standardized medium of exchange, and final means of payment, that serves to measure the value of all goods and commodities in a standard of value. It is an abstraction of economic value and medium of exchange that eliminates the cumbersome system of barter by separating the transactions involved in the exchange of products, thus greatly facilitating specialization and trade through encouraging the exchange of commodities. Capitalism involves the further abstraction of money into other exchangeable assets and the accumulation of money through ownership, exchange, interest and various other financial instruments. The accumulation of capital refers to the process of "making money", or growing an initial sum of money through investment in production. Capitalism is based around the accumulation of capital, whereby financial capital is invested in order to realize a profit and then reinvested into further production in a continuous process of accumulation. In Marxian economic theory, this dynamic is called the law of value. Capital and financial markets[edit] The defining feature of capitalist markets, in contrast to markets and exchange in pre-capitalist societies like feudalism, is the existence of a market for capital goods (the means of production), meaning exchange-relations (business relationships) exist within the production process. Additionally, capitalism features a market for labor. This distinguishes the capitalist market from pre-capitalist societies which generally only contained market exchange for final goods and secondary goods. The "market" in capitalism refers to capital markets and financial markets. Thus, there are three main markets in a typical capitalistic economy: labor, goods and services, and financial. Wage labor and class structure[edit] Wage labor refers to the class-structure of capitalism, whereby workers receive either a wage or a salary, and owners receive the profits generated by the factors of production employed in the production of economic value. Individuals who possess and supply financial capital to productive ventures become owners, either jointly (as shareholders) or individually. In Marxian economics these owners of the means of production and suppliers of capital are generally called capitalists. The description of the role of the capitalist has shifted, first referring to a useless intermediary between producers to an employer of producers, and eventually came to refer to owners of the means of production.[19] The term capitalist is not generally used by supporters of mainstream economics. "Workers" includes those who expend both manual and mental (or creative) labor in production, where production does not simply mean physical production but refers to the production of both tangible and intangible economic value. "Capitalists" are individuals who derive income from investments. Labor includes all physical and mental human resources, including entrepreneurial capacity and management skills, which are needed to produce products and services. Production is the act of making goods or services by applying labor power.[37][38]
- U.S. and Great Britain Salary Increases are consistently around 3-4% while Globally, salaries are dramatically rising, with India, Brazil and China seeing the highest salary increases. http://businessfinancemag.com/hr/us-pay-increases-flat-higher-elsewhere-globally http://www.theguardian.com/business/2013/nov/04/britain-economic-growth-wages-flat-poll
- idea is about how free international trade agreements combined with global business is able to redistribute the wealth via salaries.
- when we opened free trade, wages in US and Britain have flattened while salaries in other countries are rising (our middle class is declining) China, India and other poor countries are suddenly finding themselves with a “middle class” as the cost of living in those areas remains much lower.
- if you want to know a little more about the wage gap, the 1% and how they’re more like the .1% now then here’s a great TED talk I recommend. Given all the recent news about the 1%, I think we can just keep going. talk about the 1% BRIEFLY because everyone probably has heard. Maybe see if anyone hasn’t and then we can skip it beyond just the inference.
- I like this quote - and Unions aren’t necessarily the best solution. Typically though, this is one of the primary methods political and religious institutions use today to try and balance out the wage equity issue. the article goes on to say: “ But unions only matter if labor is valuable, and with every passing year, technology renders labor more irrelevant. When the 5.7 million licensed truck drivers in America are replaced by self-driving vehicles, they can go ahead and strike all they like. Nobody will care. Hardly anybody who matters — which is to say, the rich, the powerful, the technical — will even notice. …And it’s not just truck drivers and factory workers. Better software and better robots are already beginning to replace lawyers, bartenders, burger-flippers, even surgeons, and countless other workers, including those poor souls in technology who haven’t kept up. The new law of the economic jungle is this: either write the software that eats the world, or be eaten.”
- in addition to the global economic wage crisis, we also have technology disrupting EVERYTHING! now, it’s very cheap (if you’re business and tech-savvy) to build a product using software and make millions/billions.
- here’s the jobs most likely to be replaced by robots first, (and least likely at the bottom - my sister is going to be in a good place career-wise it looks like :) Once upon a time, Capitalism was a great thing because anyone could take an idea and start a company. As a company grew, so too did the need to hire new employees in order to handle the increased volume followed and jobs were created in local and global economies. now, technology is enabling private owners to return to slave labor - this time with robots instead of people, and the effect is a decline in our economic growth. (kind of obvious I think)
- I hate to say it, but this is kind of like an “ethical” kind of slave labor… isn’t it? The business is no longer paying for human resources, instead it’s simply paying for the “care and maintenance” of the software, hardware, and communications systems. On a small scale, this is the difference between a small business owner paying for a part time marketer vs. a few hours of their own time and monthly website hosting. That could be the difference, economically, of one part-time job lost each year per small business website. Robots/Computers/Machines are now able to do the same tasks people once did, but for free and with no obligation on the part of the employer to pay benefits or worry about office space etc.
- as we move to a global economy where we share jobs, customers, and finances with other countries, economic growth is slowing down. The slow down is most noticeable in high income countries.
- It’s not just employees who have a higher turnover, companies are living shorter lifespans as well. One question these trends want me to ask is where are the executives of these companies going? Are they the leaders in the real global rise of entrepreneurship? Most middle management jobs are being axed first, and these folks have the most to lose - the 1% club isn’t made of folks who earn low 6-figures, and these people have mortgages, kids with college funds, car payments and other debt rising. The rising debt of the American people, of our government budget, and the need for bailouts all indicate that the middle class is falling, and the government is having to pick up the tab for all these lost jobs in healthcare, bank loans, car and airline bailouts. These are all middle class services that don’t exist in 3rd world countries. As the middle class fails, we see this in the industries that have long served the middle class and made profits from serving them
- think about this for a minute. it took humans until 1960 to reach 3 billion people then it took us 30 years to get the next 3 billion by ~2000 even if we’ve slowed down a little… we are losing this battle rapidly. we’re still going to have 3 billion MORE people to feed, shelter, and provide education and healthcare and JOBS to. how are we going to provide for 3 billion MORE people…? we keep cutting jobs, and money is being captured and stored inside PRIVATE institutions… the governments and the people are all in debt. Who are we in debt to? Who do we owe all this money to? Private institutions. And when we can’t pay our debts, these private institutions are going to the government asking for handouts… and just like the Internet provides people with a sense of anonymity, so too does the corporate structure allowed currently inside the US. Technology is making transparency crucial for Brands. Just because your Board hasn’t realized this yet and is still trying to stuff their faces with as much pork and cake as they can… doesn’t mean the revolution isn’t coming.
- that’s if we really crowd together. and for those not paying attention… the previous slides just reported we’d hit 10billion by 2050, or in about 36 years if I did my math right. Raise your hand if you hope and predict you’ll be alive in 36 years? 36 years ago, we’d already landed on the moon. I’m 36 years old. This is significant because just imagine what all we’ve accomplished in 36 years…????
- this is an interesting correlation… while we can’t specifically say that technology is the cause of our population explosion - tech seems to go hand in hand with our growth.
- we’re not utilizing technology as a tool so much as we’re competing with technology and each other to innovate think about this - we’re going to have more people on the planet than it can hold in about 35-40 years. the title still isn’t right, but the idea/concept in my head is: we’re competing with tech. so as we innovate and create better tech, we’re helping our own species succeed in even more diverse/niche/specializations. We just need tolerance of new ways of doing things, and then we’ll be leveling up. The Internet’s been here for a little more than 10 years… personal computing is on its way out after less than 40 years… predicting the next 5-10 years is going to be really fun! this is an interesting correlation… while we can’t specifically say that technology is the cause of our population explosion - tech seems to go hand in hand with our growth. 36 years is nothing now. It took Apple computers about 36 years to reach where it is today. Do you think it’s going to take the next big tech innovator nearly that long? I don’t.
- Capitalism is also generally considered the Opposite of Socialism Capitalism and capitalist economics is generally considered to be the opposite of socialism, which contrasts with all forms of capitalism in the following ways: social ownership of the means of production, where returns on the means of production accrue to society at large, and goods and services are produced directly for their utility (as opposed to being produced by profit-seeking businesses).
- I don’t want to spend too much time on Socialism, just to show that it’s considered the alternative option to capitalism by most economists… and most Americans don’t really want a socialist economy. So is there an alternative? I think there is, and we’re already experiencing this new economy full blast right now…
- key factors driving sharing economy (ie if these pressures continue, this economic system will have the elements it needs to grow more popular) increasing population size increase in the wealth gap (more poor people than wealthy people) social media mobile technology
- Cons: robots rule Pros: we’re the bosses of robots, and UX people, and folks like Ed and I, are passionate about playing the role of Robinhood - bringing the riches of technology to the “poor” / those who don’t have access to the training otherwise.
- I’m going to take a really short tangent for the next two slides because I see this as a potential future technology trend problem that we need to be trying to solve today… *imho* trust is going to be the new global currency… how can we harness technology to create trust and social value exchanges? I predict bitcoin or another digital currency has a strong opportunity to succeed if they harness the social aspects of financial markets. Crowdfunding platforms and social donation platforms are also examples of exchanging money for your trust the person getting your money will do what they say/build what they plan. i think something about trust is the new dollar/currency hackers can get at our data and financial records, so can the governments, (all of them). milennials aren’t trying to keep things secret or private, their just being more careful about how they decide to evaluate and trust information and people.
- trust and loyalty will be hard for employers and key community projects to obtain. people will be hired on their reputations for being able to cooperate, be trustworthy, and capable. in the sharing economy, you may be working with competitive businesses to provide your services or expertise. Exclusive contracts, NDAs will be less frequent, and your boss today may end up being your employee tomorrow as the rate of technology innovation continues to accelerate and individuals begin to make up the corporate work force
- virtual environment software, cPanel (Houston tech once a startup!) enabled people to share hosting resources. co-working spaces share physical spaces. Technology communities are used to sharing because tech has been very expensive, particularly hardware and bandwidth. Something about technology makes us more willing to share, to give, and to be transparent (as well as troll-ish for some reason) The computer, web browser, game avatar, and other “middle-ware” between our thoughts and the person on the other end of the “line”’s ears can create miscommunication or strengthen our communication experience… it all depends.
- This isn’t a new idea… he argues the case that open source creates a major economic impact he talks about open source and how it enables everyone to come together and share B2B file sharing, open wireless networks, Apache and other open source that built the Internet (HTML) how the market becomes decentralized/distributed sharing resources with your community: when you’re not using the resource, a neighbor can use it and vice versa. SETI@Home is a massive collection of people sharing their computer processing power… this was back around 2004-2005. ownership of the capital is far more rapidly distributed first time ever, virtually all of the people have access to computing power and information. We also have 4 generations alive and “well” for the first time ever to give us a hundred year plus perspective in social settings (versus old history books) seeing and feeling and interacting is believing
- he argues the case that open source creates a major economic impact he talks about open source and how it enables everyone to come together and share B2B file sharing, open wireless networks, Apache and other open source that built the Internet (HTML) how the market becomes decentralized/distributed sharing resources with your community: when you’re not using the resource, a neighbor can use it and vice versa. SETI@Home is a massive collection of people sharing their computer processing power… this was back around 2004-2005. ownership of the capital is far more rapidly distributed first time ever, virtually all of the people have access to computing power and information. We also have 4 generations alive and “well” for the first time ever to give us a hundred year plus perspective in social settings (versus old history books) seeing and feeling and interacting is believing
- 1995 - 2005!!! Apache open source was the #1 web server. This is just one way open source built the framework and tools for the Internet of today, keeping it free, open and globally available.
- enterprises are a market player in the sharing economy, also. Not just consumers…. this is the equalizer that socialism and capitalism lack, too. An enterprise can be as many or as few people and the costs for the resources (like software, hardware, and financial fees to produce and sell your products) is very similar. It’s no longer necessary to have several million dollars in investments to become a multi-million dollar company. the key has been shared resources and the Internet and open source software are the key forces driving the costs down.
- in addition to the global economic wage crisis, we also have technology disrupting EVERYTHING! now, it’s very cheap (if you’re business and tech-savvy) to build a product using software and make millions/billions.
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_consumption Collaborative consumption is a class of economic arrangements in which participants share access to products or services, rather than having individual ownership.[1][2] Often this model is enabled by technology and peer communities.[3] The collaborative consumption model is used in marketplaces such as eBay, Craigslist and Krrb, emerging sectors such as social lending (Zopa), peer-to-peer accommodation (Airbnb), peer-to-peer travel experiences (LocalGuiding), peer-to-peer task assignments (TaskRabbit) or travel advising (Locish), car sharing (Zipcar) or commute-bus sharing (RidePal), Australia's GoGet CarShare, parking (ParkatmyHouse) and peer-to-peer RelayRides.[4]
- what people can do: teach others lead the way (build specialized guilds, be an artist at what you do) localize/find your niche and embrace your community! like attracts like: stay connected to your peers for inspiration and growth (you can’t be challenged by your clients the way you are by your competition) friendly competition
- as our population increases to over 10 billion people - you shouldn’t be concerned about
- remember that as a technology professional, you’re the minority. your community of clients, students, business-colleagues are not tech-savvy, and most don’t understand what you’re talking about. they’re not there yet - but they’re being forced out of jobs because they don’t understand. Bring others up with you. It’s about all of us, together. You have to trust those around you, and you have to be trustworthy to those around you in the new economy. Education builds trust. be a leader and own your expertise and skills. if you’ve invested time and money into yourself professionally, then you owe it to yourself and your profession to value your time and charge what you’re worth.
- be a leader and own your expertise and skills. if you’ve invested time and money into yourself professionally, then you owe it to yourself and your profession to value your time and charge what you’re worth.
- in the sharing economy, your competitors today may be your partners, clients, and employees/boss tomorrow. People will move fluidly between projects based on skills, passions, and the community cultures/goals. interaction with your competitors allows you to test your skills and challenge yourself to do more, push yourself. teaching those who are less skilled helps reinforce what you know and learning from those better than you is the only way to really become a master.
- Thanks to John for helping me with my vocabulary this morning
- use tools and build relationships with people we should start creating technology solutions that help us be more awesome, not more cost efficient or more productive
- What about redistribution of wealth? How will we accomplish that? find a global economic currency and end currency manipulation (one theory/suggestion) bitcoin wasn’t universal/global… we need something like the Star Trek version of whatever those bars were.
- The revolution can go like this… or it can be something different. Technology gives us new ways to win against our opponents. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Ex%C3%A9cution_de_Marie_Antoinette_le_16_octobre_1793.jpg
- http://www.sitepoint.com/best-programming-language-of-2013/
- * probably a gratuitous tech-nerd flashback slide
- why should a CEO in one tech company earn more than another as a base rate? Aren’t their jobs the same? If one is underperforming, reduce their bonuses (performance-based pay is typically the best *imho*) Niche your skills, find the algae colony story..
- http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK28332/ Survival in a jungle calls for different talents than survival in the open sea. Innovations in movement, sensory detection, communication, social organization - all enabled eucaryotic organisms to compete, propagate, and survive in ever more complex ways.
- http://tamar.tau.ac.il/~eshel/realizing_bacteria.html http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Microbial_intelligence open source and the individuals who are accessing the web and using it for social interactions, work and play, and e-commerce are helping build the “capillaries” that deliver resources, and now hard goods and consumables, to each individual on demand. just like our body shares resources with billions of cells and manages communications, sensory input/outputs, and energy… so too are we learning to use technology to accomplish this with our own global system. communication via the Internet has brought a wave of globalization that we’ve never had before. technology in health care, industry, and finance has given us global mobility along with higher standards of living and brought everyone up higher than before. it’s going to take time. Where we’re really at is needing many more capillary builders, and we need more artery and vein channel builders, navigators, and visionaries to get the large/batch distribution of resources, people, and messages/information managed automatically through the full system (large organizations = large organs, small organizations = smaller organs, people = cells, blood= physical resource distribution, nervous system = communications (internal/external/mixed) remember, an organization has employees internally, and a variety of external influences like customers, partners, and environmental landscape. same with an organism, like you and me. we have our internal system and our interactions with other people, animals, and the environment. none of us are closed systems.
- The only limit to the Internet of Things isn't imagination or technology. It's the vendors. Will your Whirlpool, Maytag or GE washer be able to communicate with your Samsung TV or Apple iPhone, Sears' oven or any other device? Without interoperability, consumer devices, electronic appliances and sensor-equipped wearables won't recognize each other and communicate. It will make scenarios, such as this one, difficult: You walk in the door of your house from a five-mile run and biometric sensors in your clothing automatically connect to the home network. Your workout data and health information is uploaded and analyzed by a cloud-based app that may also add this data to your electronic medical records. Meanwhile, this information is also used to automatically adjust room temperature to a more comfortable-post workout setting. A stereo system suggests music to match your relaxed mood. You settle in. Dinner goes into the oven, and the workout clothes are tossed in a washer. A TV is turned on and the room lights automatically adjust. A message appears on the TV screen alerting you that dinner is ready, and another informs you that the wash is complete. A cellphone text message from a friend inviting you to see a movie appears on any number of multiple home screens. There is no consumer electronics vendor large enough to force the interoperability that can do all the things in that scenario. But there are vendors large enough to frustrate the path to it by building an Internet of Things mostly around their products. Into this electronics disconnect steps the open source industry, which believes it has the method, the process and the clout to drive the electronics industry toward a true interoperability. But does it? We may know in less than 12 months -- at the 2015 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) next January -- whether an effort by the Linux Foundation to bring interoperability to the Internet of Things is going anywhere. In December, the Linux Foundation, a non-profit consortium that promotes Linux adoption, created the AllSeen Alliance. It took a code stack developed by Qualcomm called the AllJoyn Framework and put it under its open-source umbrella. This C++ code supports the major operating systems, chipsets and embedded variants. Any electronics or appliance maker, or even an LED light bulb maker that uses the AllJoyn code will have a basis for connectivity with another product that also uses the code. At the 2015 CES you may see, if all goes well, marks on various electronics indicating their use of AllSeen. There may even be Intel Inside-like stickers on products. Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation, believes that AllSeen will be adopted by vendors. For vendors that want connectivity, the question is simple: Do device and appliance makers want to write software for every single product or smartphone "or do they just want to go download this code and put it into their product and know that it's taken care of?" Having such code available will deliver the network effect and propel device interoperability, said Zemlin. "You are going to see a lot of products this year with this code in it," he said. The AllSeen Alliance launched with major vendor support, including LG Electronics, Panasonic, Sharp, Qualcomm, AT&T Digital Life, and others. But Rob Enderle, an analyst at Enderle Group, says what's missing in Linux Foundation's effort is the support of the mega-vendors like Samsung and Apple. "The guys who are dominating the market are unfortunately not the guys who are jumping on this particular bandwagon," said Enderle. Samsung likes products to work with its products, said Enderle. "When you are dominant, you don't like this stuff (open standards) because it lets other people into your market," he said. Enderle says the major electronics firms won't use AllSeen unless one of three things happens: They are forced to interoperability by some government action; they stop being dominant; or consumers insist on it. "One of those elements has to be in place before some of these big guys will move," he said. There is nothing like a Microsoft in the electronics world, no company that could through sheer market power, manage to set a global document standard. But open source is another matter. Linux dominates high performance computing, and Linux OS-based servers, thanks to cloud providers, are rapidly gaining in market share. Open source systems, such as Hadoop, are critical in Big Data, an essential part of the Internet of Things. "Open source has an important role to play, and the earlier that's acknowledged and facilitated, I think that's better for everyone," said Andrew Aitken, managing director of Black Duck Consulting, which is part of Black Duck Software. Aitken said the industry is past the point where a single firm can gain control. "When you have a Cisco and Qualcomm on one end and Nike, GE and similar (firms) at the other end of the stack, there are too many significant players for one to dominate," said Aitken. But that might not necessarily be true for vertical industry. Aiken believes much of the the success of the AllSeen Alliance will depend on its governance, and an ability to be inclusive. But on the importance of open source, Aitken says its stakeholders "span industries and cross international borders" and it represents the best approach for creating an Internet of Things. In a paper he wrote on the role of open source in the Internet of Things, Aitken said that without open source, the result may be "a market that caters only to hobbyists and select wealthy homeowners, and a fragmented lackluster landscape." Patrick Thibodeau covers cloud computing and enterprise applications, outsourcing, government IT policies, data centers and IT workforce issues for Computerworld. Follow Patrick on Twitter at Twitter @DCgov or subscribe to Patrick's RSS feed Thibodeau RSS. His e-mail address is pthibodeau@computerworld.com.