Open Source found to be source of all happiness

A REPORT by New York consulting company, Bluewolf, reckons that IT salaries are going to rise even higher in 2008, with open source application developers leading the pack with an average 7.6 percent salary growth. This corresponds to a salary increase from the previous average of $80,250 to about $112,500 a year for the lucky open saucers.

Co-founder and principal of Bluewolf, Michael Kirven, reckons that the meteoric rise of open-source software in application development is generating an increased need for specialised application developers, who he says are now in the position of being able to ask for a 30 or 40 per cent raise. A shortage in open source developers is driving up the business value of the profession, seeing as the software apparently isn’t best operated by people who don’t know what they’re doing. "It's not as easy as getting free software; someone has to get it up and running," notes Kirven.

But not only do the propitiously fortunate sourcers get paid inordinate amounts of money for what they do, they also apparently happen to love doing it (anyone feeling nauseous yet?).

According to Kirven, the fact that bosses are telling their open source developers that they are the 'go-to' people in the company, rubs their egos up the right way, making them feel all warm and fuzzy inside. "People care about where they go to 60 hours a week," adds Kirven.

60 hours a week, overpaid, and flattered to boot. No wonder open sourcers are a happy bunch. µ

L'Inq
CRN