Marketing ideas -- foreign-born experts v. outsourced/H1B Visa "cheap guys"

[Bryan J. Smith]

On Sat, 2006-04-22 at 11:18 -0400, Bryan J. Smith wrote:
> Now we have the H1B Visa system, not an immigration system at all.
> Having qualified Americans replaced with crap, just because they are
> 1/3rd the price, is horrendous.  So we've gone from 90% quality of
> immigrants (displacing maybe 50-60% _unqualified_ Americans -- which is
> a _good_thing_ -- especially since most of these immigrants will become
> Americans!) to 10% quality immigrants (replacing _all_ Americans,
> including the 40-50% qualified -- just because they are 1/3rd the
> salary).
>  ...  
> Open Source?  This crap doesn't happen.  You get the _best_ the world
> has to offer, period.  People either know or they don't, or they learn
> trying, failing, picking themselves back up and succeeding.  That is
> what made American engineering strong in the past.  I'm very happy, both
> as an American and engineer, to see that this is a world-wide reality.

Just want to point out 1 more detail ...

Red Hat (among other, community-development-focused commercial entities)
hires some of the world's best Open Source developers.  They are people
who have _already_ established their talent publicly.  They are not
merely a "worker" who some head-hunter/foreign-agency oversells as
qualified.

So even though Red Hat likely has to hire foreign-born workers under H1B
Visas to come and work in the US, or outsource their work to them
remotely, that is _not_ the same as what I'm talking about.  If
anything, both Red Hat and these individuals are _victims_ of our
currently screwed up H1B Visa system and/or common outsourcing logic.

That's why the IEEE has been trying to get through the business and
immigration special interest groups -- to _ban_ the H1B Visa, _issue_
Green Cards to established, foreign engineers, developers and
technicians who want to come work in the US, and to point out the
follies of outsourcing by American corporations who nearsightedly can't
see past 2-3 years of planning.

-- Bryan

P.S.  I don't speak for the IEEE in any capacity.  But I agree with
almost all of their efforts 100% on this.  The entire
pro-protectionalist and pro-immmigration lobby on both sides has it
_all_wrong_.  Just give people Green Cards and let the market decide.



-- 
Bryan J. Smith             Professional, technical annoyance
mailto:b.j.smith at ieee.org       http://thebs413.blogspot.com
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