I had a thought. I'm working for a small company that seems to always be 2-3 months from running out of money.

There's always a deadline, an ask to work a weekend, late night or something.

But, then they grumble when I need a vacation day, sick day, etc.

My thought was that if this company doesn't keep me, then I'm going to start going after EDI and enterprise vendors that are hiring all this foreign labor. The likes of EDS/Sterling/etc.

If I can't get hired by them, then I'll just prevent them from being able to make sales, by creating the same software they sell as open-source.

Open source ANSI X.12, EDI, HL/7, NCPDP parsers. Open source data mapping tools from parser tools to databases. Open source ERP, Supply Chain, etc. interfaces. The point is that if you're good, you just need to keep doing what you're doing.

Eventually, companies will start using your open-source, find your name in the comments, and need to hire you to make modifications.

The sweetest victory would be one where your open source became the standard and the big companies were all struggling to stay afloat while you end up with more contracts (and money) than you can do.

I can dream.

Glen Austin