Posted on 12/10/2001 8:16:38 PM PST by The Duke
Lately I've been visiting some of the online programming-work-for-hire websites in an effort to market my own company, and I've noticed something *very* interesting. I've noticed offshore software development firms located in semi-developed countries such as India and Russia bidding extremely low prices for very complex and sophisticated projects. I'm talking prices so low that they are ridiculous even when considering the cost-of-living differential between them and the US. For example, were I to submit a project for a clone of eBay I may very well get back numerous bids ranging from $1200 - $3000 (US dollars)!
No one can make these types of bids without having large bodies of already-written software from which to draw - bodies of software which any major company would consider to be proprietary and valuable. However, as this software development is taking place in countries in which corruption is, if you can believe it, even more rampant than here in the US (and where our legal system has no jurisdiction), the software finds itself being resold repeatedly. I find it pretty apparent that the same body of software for which a major corporation paid perhaps millions of dollars to develop is readily made available to lowly little me for a mere handful of dollars.
So I suppose if I were to put out for bid a dummy project that was specified to contain numerous valuable features I might very well find myself in possession of software that has basically been laundered through and offshore development office - and I might then, never knowing anything about the tainted origins of said software - incorporate it into my own product which may very well be in direct competition with the company that actually paid for its development.
For me all this begs one question which is "does one need be a lawyer to own a law firm?". Because it's pretty obvious that if I'm to stay honest I'm going to have to get into a new line of work.
That all sounds great on paper, but it doesn't explain the behavior we see in lawyers. For example the case of class-action lawsuits in which lawyers take 98% of the award and split the remaining 2% amongst the suffering victims.
Hmmmm...I wonder what would explain that? Maybe self-interest???
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