Selling Crack In El Barrio Sociology Essay

Selling Crack In El Barrio Sociology Essay Society sets standards for us to strive toward, and offers a limited set of accepted means through which we can reach these standards. Unfortunately, the means accepted by society are not available to everyone. The lack of equal opportunity in our society compels certain groups to resort to deviant behavior in order to achieve their goals, or even just to survive. Deviance or deviant behavior is behavior that goes against accepted formal and informal social norms. Crime falls into the category of deviance that goes against formal social norms, or written laws and regulations. Groups that engage in deviant behavior are generally stigmatized by society, and in turn, are subject to marginalization. One such group is the immense subculture of drug dealers. A subculture is a group that has cultural values and behavioral patterns distinctive of a particular group in a society. In his account titled In Search of Respect, ethnographic researcher Philippe Bourgois goes into the depths of this subculture and examines why drug dealers live the way they do and how their occupation is a not just a personal choice, but a product of society. In addition to illustrating the social production of blocked opportunities for residents in Bourgoiss ground breaking book, he also provides an interesting new insight into the street culture found in New York City by examining the effects of illegal drugs on a minority group. Specifically, the book focuses on the experiences and lives of Puerto Rican crack cocaine dealers and users as well as their friends, families and girlfriends, each of whom Bourgois depicts as victims of circumstance. In doing so, the author vividly details and analyzes the effects of structural inequality and social marginalization in the United States. Bourgois, with his wife and child, moved into a tenement apartment in a small neighborhood in New York City named East Harlem in 1985. To residents, this neighborhood was simply known as El Barrio. To conduct his study, Bourgois and his family spent the next five years living among the harsh realities of the ghetto streets. The purpose of this was to infiltrate, assimilate, and participate in the daily workings of the community as much as possible to gain a better understanding of the circumstances these poor and suffering Puerto Rican residents faced. As such, the ultimate goal was to gain entrance to a network of Puerto Rican crack dealers as well as their network of relatives and acquaintances. During his five year stint in El Barrio, Bourgois engaged in intensive participant observation among the informants who allowed him to penetrate the secretive culture of the underground economy. He provides the reader with verbatim narratives taken from his conversations with drug dealers, police officers (who occasionally mistook him for a drug addict), and drug users Bourgois uses the account of his subject and friend named Primo to illustrate the circumstances of drug dealers and the reasons they resort to illegal jobs. The norms of drug dealers include street sales, drug houses, violent crime, and respect associated with the status of a drug dealer. Having the identity of a drug dealer attributes a sense of power and pride to a man, even if it is just in his neighborhood. It prevents him from having to bear the humiliation of being degraded or belittled by a superior while working at a legal job. Bourgois book focuses on a relatively unexamined section of the drug industry, the local dealers, some of whom are, or have been drug users. He notes that most of them started out in legitimate work, often prematurely by truanting from school, not a difficult thing to do in the inner city. However their entrepreneurial skills have not enabled them to escape from the most vulnerable wage sector. The poorest jobs fail to satisfy them while their backgrounds make it impossible for them to sustain contact with more promising possibilities. Still they are unwilling to lie down to the system. They have made the most of their limited opportunities by finding a niche in the illegal drug market. Although nobody is more aware than they are of the ultimate hopelessness of this, nevertheless in the meantime it gives them the buzz, the status and the income their yuppie contemporaries find a few blocks away in Wall St. very well-written, as the author uses a plain, easy-to-read and understand style. He is arguing that answers to societys most pressing issues are a lot more than mere blame-the-system or blame-the-victim approaches. It is far too common for liberals and conservatives, respectively, to blame society or to blame pathological, flawed individuals for social problems. As Bourgois shows in this book, the truth is often a combination of the two. Even his informants admit that they blame no one else but themselves for the situations they are in. The book starts off with Bourgoiss own experience of how there is an apartheid present in New York working against his subjects The amount of poverty in this portion of our country is much higher than that in most other areas. Bourgois argues that this neighborhood, which is well known for high rates of violence, does not have widespread violence occurring amongst all of its members. The higher crime rate, argues Bourgois, occurs for the most part within the factions of the underground economy. Some insight into this economy would explain the reasons for higher rates of violence. This book is a summary of the events that occurred during Bourgois stay in El Barrio. The original purpose of the book was to write a first-hand account of poverty and ethnic segregation in the heart of one of the worlds largest cities. Bourgois was swept into the area drug economy because of the abundance of information from the dealers and their families who all lived within the immediate area. The problem was so prevalent that the focus of th The amount of drug dealers or crack houses is an indirect result of the lost jobs in Harlem. Bourgois states that many of the unemployed in the inner-city are not successful in finding work because they lack the skills of working efficiently with people that they dont already have an every day relationship with, something that factory jobs provided. Factory jobs that moved out of the inner-cities left the large minority groups without a collective workplace where everybody knew their task and how to complete it. The current availability of jobs within the inner-city is mostly within the service sector. These jobs are individualized jobs where independence is required rather than a group effort. The jobs pay little and arent generally respected. This tends to lead many people within this community to become involved in the drug economy. Bourgois argues that, to reduce the violence within the drug community, we should consider the decriminalization of drugs. This would force small time dealers out of business, eliminating the need for them to commit violence amongst themselves, while making the s Bourgois states that there is a strong feeling of community among the people living in El Barrio. Those people not involved in the drug market rarely encounter violence themselves because the dealers have nothing to fear from them. Bourgois states that, during the day, children are safely left to play in the streets unattended by their parents. At night, when the legitimate working force of the community is eating dinner or asleep, is when the brunt of violence takes place Bourgois portrayal of the dealers and their families makes it difficult for the reader not to feel sympathy and compassion towards them. His argument is well defined and persuasive due to the fact that he moved his family to the area in which he was studying and had the courage to get in and really interact with the people of this community. The way in which he writes also compliments his argument by drawing the reader in and making him feel like he himself were there. Many may not agree with the solution that Bourgois suggests, but everyone who reads the book will re-think their own views before discussing t This is an incredibly well written ethnography, its very accessible and could be read by anyone. Really illustrates the problems of people in ghettoised areas, with restricted access to the job market and a stigma attached to them. Stigma is a mark of infamy or reproach. Drug dealing is stigmatized because norms of drug dealing completely clash with the norms of society, most obviously by going against written laws. Consuming or possessing illegal drugs is a crime, but the The only jobs that provided enough money for the Harlemites to survive on, with out having to engage in some other illegal activity, are high risk construction jobs, which were ran by racist mafia backed unions (ch. 4 pg. 162), or entry level jobs in the F.I.R.E. (finance, insurance, or real estate) sector (ch. 4 pg.142), where the impoverished Puerto Ricans did not have enough cultural capital or the proper ethnic background to survive in the positions being offered. Although the world of the underground economy is very chaotic, it all seems to revolve around one thing, crack. Everyones daily life, that is anyone who is not a member of the poor legal working class, is organized around crack, whether one is fighting rival crews for a spot to sell, or just hanging out at the local crackhouse waiting for a handout. It is prevalent on both the violent and non-violent spectrums of the culture. Obviously, the dealers had the most respect of everyone, and were looked up at by youngsters. To survive financially outside of mainstream society, one must manipulate all of ones available resources to make a livable income. So, in the underground economy this can mean any thing, from taking advantage of the welfare office, to selling drugs, or robbing people, all of which were employed by most of the subjects in this book. The only act that stood out to me, as being a ritual was the act of getting high. While getting high served two fold, it served as a method to deal with the reality of not being able to be in control of any part of ones life, and it severed as a way of opening up the lines for communication, as most of all the testimonials occurred over liquor and some sort of drug. What caught the eye of the youngsters were their nice shoes and the respect everyone had for the dealer. So at the earliest time possible, the young kids would try and emulate what they have seen as an acceptable, and viable way to get money and respect. Selling drugs, being violent, and robbing people, all were skills that they learned at school (ch.4pg.194). Bourgois eventually found his way to a storefront called the Game Room where video games provided a cover for the sale of crack cocaine. It was the manager of this establishment, Primo, who became Bourgoiss friend and primary informant about life in El Barrio. Through this intimacy, Bourgois seeks to tell us some things about the symbols and symptoms of urban ghetto life, the Achilles heel of the richest industrialized nation in the world by documenting how it imposes racial segregation and economic marginalization on so many of its Latino/a and African-American citizens. (Bourgois: 1995a; 14) Bourgois painstakingly records and analyzes the exploits of these elements of Puerto Rican diaspora. The culmination of such fieldwork is collected in ethnography about the urban underground economy and social marginalization Speaking fluently the minority language, he lived for five years in El Barrio and also travelled to Puerto Rico to trace the connections between there and Amerikay. His analysis starts in Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island at the end of the Cuban ±Dominican chain and therefore of strategic importance to the United States. Colonization by the US has The concentration of Puerto Rican immigrants in East Harlem has access mainly to the poorest service jobs in New York City. East Harlem is a classic ghetto which no self respecting New Yorker would think of even driving through. Yet, as Bourgois notes, the majority of East Harlem inhabitants have nothing to do with crime, far less drugs. It is the removal of all local industry, e.g. garment making, which has exposed a social infrastructure that is too weak to support the present massive levels of unemployment and casual labor.

The Oppression of Women and The Yellow Wallpaper -- Yellow Wallpaper e

The Oppression of Women and The Yellow Wallpaper      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a fictionalized autobiographical account that illustrates the emotional and intellectual deterioration of the female narrator who is also a wife and mother. The woman, who seemingly is suffering from post-partum depression, searches for some sort of peace in her male dominated world. She is given a â€Å"rest cure† from her husband/neurologist doctor that requires strict bed rest and an imposed reprieve form any mental stimulation. As a result of her husband’s controlling edicts, the woman develops an obsessive attachment to the intricate details of the wallpaper on her bedroom wall. The woman’s increasingly intense obsession with the wallpaper ultimately leaves the reader with many questions about nineteenth-century male-female relationships, and perhaps even insanity. Several critics have identified many significant and contrasting themes in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper.† For example, the contrast of the male-female relationship in the late nineteenth-century, which is an apparent link between the sex roles and seemingly oppressive sexual structures. Another significant theme is the ominous question of what lies behind the meaning of the structure and color of the wallpaper. Does it represent a symbolic realm of imagery, or a linguistic realm focusing on the identity of the spoken and written word? More sympathetic critics like Gilbert and Gubar read â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† simply as a narrative of one woman’s efforts t free herself from the structured psychic, and social atmosphere—indeed, a rigidly constructed atmosphere that was very restrictive for a female of this day and time. They envisioned the wallpaper as being ... ...Conn: Yale University Press, 1979. 89-92. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper†. From the Heath Anthology of American Literature. ed. Paul Lauter, et al. D.C. Heath and Co. MA. 1994. 800-12. Herndl, Diane. â€Å"The Writing Cure: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Anna O. and Hysterical Writing’† NWSA Journal no. 1 1988.   52-74. Hedges, Elaine R. â€Å"Afterward† to â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† Old Westbury, NY. Feminist Press 1973. 12. Jacobus, Mary. â€Å"An Unnecessary Maze of Sign-Reading† Reading Women: Essays in Feminist Criticism. New York: Columbia University Press. 1986. 229-48. Kolodny, Annette. â€Å"A Map for Rereading: or, Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts† New Literary History 11,  no. 3 1980. 451-67 Treichler, Paula. â€Å"Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† Tulsa studies in Women’s  Literature. 1984. (75). The Oppression of Women and The Yellow Wallpaper -- Yellow Wallpaper e The Oppression of Women and The Yellow Wallpaper      Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚   The Yellow Wallpaper by Charlotte Perkins Gilman is a fictionalized autobiographical account that illustrates the emotional and intellectual deterioration of the female narrator who is also a wife and mother. The woman, who seemingly is suffering from post-partum depression, searches for some sort of peace in her male dominated world. She is given a â€Å"rest cure† from her husband/neurologist doctor that requires strict bed rest and an imposed reprieve form any mental stimulation. As a result of her husband’s controlling edicts, the woman develops an obsessive attachment to the intricate details of the wallpaper on her bedroom wall. The woman’s increasingly intense obsession with the wallpaper ultimately leaves the reader with many questions about nineteenth-century male-female relationships, and perhaps even insanity. Several critics have identified many significant and contrasting themes in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper.† For example, the contrast of the male-female relationship in the late nineteenth-century, which is an apparent link between the sex roles and seemingly oppressive sexual structures. Another significant theme is the ominous question of what lies behind the meaning of the structure and color of the wallpaper. Does it represent a symbolic realm of imagery, or a linguistic realm focusing on the identity of the spoken and written word? More sympathetic critics like Gilbert and Gubar read â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† simply as a narrative of one woman’s efforts t free herself from the structured psychic, and social atmosphere—indeed, a rigidly constructed atmosphere that was very restrictive for a female of this day and time. They envisioned the wallpaper as being ... ...Conn: Yale University Press, 1979. 89-92. Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper†. From the Heath Anthology of American Literature. ed. Paul Lauter, et al. D.C. Heath and Co. MA. 1994. 800-12. Herndl, Diane. â€Å"The Writing Cure: Charlotte Perkins Gilman, Anna O. and Hysterical Writing’† NWSA Journal no. 1 1988.   52-74. Hedges, Elaine R. â€Å"Afterward† to â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper† Old Westbury, NY. Feminist Press 1973. 12. Jacobus, Mary. â€Å"An Unnecessary Maze of Sign-Reading† Reading Women: Essays in Feminist Criticism. New York: Columbia University Press. 1986. 229-48. Kolodny, Annette. â€Å"A Map for Rereading: or, Gender and the Interpretation of Literary Texts† New Literary History 11,  no. 3 1980. 451-67 Treichler, Paula. â€Å"Escaping the Sentence: Diagnosis and Discourse in â€Å"The Yellow Wallpaper,† Tulsa studies in Women’s  Literature. 1984. (75).

Human Arrangements Essay

The increase of poverty in the recent years is one of the major problems which the United States has to face. As the survey shows, the highest poverty rates in the United States were witnessed during the years of recession, for example 1960, 1975, 1983 and others. However, the poverty rates increased dramatically through 2001-2003. In 2002, the number of people in poverty reached 34. 4 million, which is 12. 1% of the population. The poverty rate was at its lowest level between 1970-1980 years, but since that time it never decreased until that level. In the last years, it was the lowest in 2000 (at the level of 11%) but since that time it kept increasing annually. In 2003, poverty rate reached 12. 5% which is 0. 4% higher than in 2002. The dynamics of poverty in the United States also shows that the most vulnerable members of the society are people under the age of 18 (17% of them are in poverty). Citizens aged 18-64 have had the lowest poverty rates up to 2002, when the level of poverty rates of seniors (aged 65 and older) reached their level. According to the regional characteristic, states in which poverty rates increased the most included Florida, Illinois, Utah, South Carolina and others. It is also necessary to analyze the dynamics of poverty rates among different races. According to the survey, poverty rates increased greatly among all of the races present in the United States. At the same time, the income level of White, Asian and Black households remained unchanged while the income of Hispanic households experienced some decrease. Among these groups, Black households have the lowest level of income and thus have the highest poverty rates among the groups in the society. In 2003, the median income of Black families reached only $30,000 which was only 62% of the $48,000 income of White households (non-Hispanic origin). The group with the highest income level, and thus the smallest number of people below the poverty line was Asians. Their average income reached $55,000 in 2003. It is possible to conclude that among all of the groups, Blacks are experiencing the most problems with obtaining income. Asian households receive almost the double income of what Black households receive. Due to the fact that poverty rates are increasing with years, it means that Black citizens are going to become more and more vulnerable in the society. In 2003, 24. 4% of Black people were below the poverty line, and the percentage has increasing by 2005. For comparison, only 11% of Asian people were below the poverty line in 2003. There are many reasons why the poverty rate among Blacks has changed the most during the recent years. First, due to discrimination, many Black people are still unable to get high-paying jobs which people of other origins get easily. The experience of New Orleans shows that despite the hopes of African Americans hat discrimination would be reduces with time, this process is very slow. Most of the people affected by hurricane in New Orleans lost their houses and jobs, and it will be very difficult for them to achieve their previous level of income in the following years. Unfortunately, the government did not take any measures to assist the people whose houses were devastated by the hurricane. Situation with New Orleans is only one of the examples of how discrimination occurs in the United States and Black population is unable to reach the same income level as other races. Another reason of high poverty rate among Blacks is their inability to enter prestigious establishments of higher learning. Due to the low income level of their families in comparison with other races, they are often unable to obtain good education which would lead them to high-paying jobs. At the same time, it is necessary to mark that due to the introduction of Civil Rights legislation, the poverty level of Blacks in the recent years is much lower than it was before the adoption of legislation. Even though the poverty rate has been increasing during the last years, the average rate is much lower than it was in the 50s. Despite the fact that Blacks are still experiencing some sort of discrimination, it is much less noticeable as it was before the adoption of Civil Rights legislation. Owing to the legislation, they finally got an opportunity to have the same rights as white people and thus the overall poverty level among Blacks declined dramatically in comparison with previous decades. Bibliography. 1. Poverty in the United States- 2002. Issued September 2003. Available at URL: http://www.census.gov/prod/www/abs/popula.html 2. Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States 2003. Issued August 2004. Available at URL: http://www. census. gov/prod/www/abs/income. html.

Ernest Hemingway and Mary Welsh

Ernest Hemingway and Mary Welsh life the writer, whose novels were read all around the whole world and who women were crazy about, seemed not to have known the happiness of this great feeling. So what was the story of Ernest Hemingway and Mary Welsh? Ernest belonged to that rare type of men who believed that any serious passion for women should end with a marriage. Being married for the third time, in 1944 in a London pub Ernest saw a pretty blonde and fell in love. Mary Welsh was a charming blonde, an American, a daughter of a woodcutter, who studied to become a journalist (Meyers). By the time of meeting with Hemingway she was thirty-six years, and she was married. On the eighth day of dating the writer came up to her and in the presence of all said: I want you to marry me. I want to be your husband (Reynolds). Mary asked Hemingway to stop talking nonsense, as both of them were married. However, the follow-up meeting in a Paris hotel put everything in the right place, and they fell into the arms of each other. For a few days they maintained their strength with champagne and joyful amazement of being together. Two years later, in March 1946, Hemingway and Mary Welsh got married.. After the wedding dinner the couple quarreled. The next morning, as Mary recalled, sober Hemingway happily announced, Let us never get married again! She replied, Definitely not with each other. He added, Not with anyone else. I still love you (Meyers). In such a way they made it up. Undoubtedly, to be a wife of a genius is interesting, but it is also incredibly difficult Mary forgave Hemingway his rudeness, heavy drinking and even adultery only because he was incredibly talented. Hemingways children criticized their mother for lack of will. You do not understand, she said, I am a wife, not a cop (Reynolds). They lived together for fifteen years. In fact, it was a long and happy marriage. Nevertheless, their children accused Mary Welsh of the fact that she helped Hemingway to die. In the last years of life the writer repeatedly tried to kill himself One day Mary found her husband charging a gun. She tried to distract him, joking that it would be nice to start writing a suicide note. Still, Hemingway was persuaded to go to a clinic. Mary rented a room in a nearby hotel and spent all the days with her husband. She was the only person with whom Ernest could speak without any fear of being suspected of madness. In his last year, he repeatedly tried to kill himself. After trying to shoot himself, he wanted to jump out of a plane by which he was being taken to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, but it did not work as the door would not open. At the hospital Hemingway was treated with electroshock (Reynolds). This caused a partial loss of memory, vision, and even more severe depression. When asked to write a few simple suggestions for a book about Kennedy, after a few hours of fruitless efforts Hemingway started crying in the presence of his doctor. It was too humiliating for him to realize that, being a great writer, he could not make up e ven the most primitive phrase. He once said that if he felt his hopelessness, then he would not hesitate to leave this life. Early in the morning of July 2, 1961, Ernest Hemingway fulfilled his promise Mary knew it was meant for him. Mary Welsh outlived him by a quarter of a century and prepared Hemingways Parisian memories as a book A Moveable Feast to print. This novel is considered the best work of Ernest Hemingway.

Projected Memory essays

Projected Memory essays The essay Projected Memory: Holocaust Photographs, by Marianne Hirsch, is about postmemory. Postmemory is a term that Hirsch has coined. It is memory that is not the product of direct or lived experience but that is produced by the stories and images that circulate from one generation to the next, evidenced in the ways children remember the memories of their parents (Bartholomae 399). It focuses on how children of Holocaust survivors remember the Holocaust through there parents ordeals and stories. The essay by Hirsch is constructed in a way so that different peoples stories and experiences are told so that they represented in postmemories. It is constructed this way to give support to what Hirsch is writing about, postmemories. Every passage deals with the postmemories about the Holocaust. If it was written any other way it would have been extremely difficult to paint such a clear picture of postmemories. The style of the essay was necessary for the argument represented by the essay to work. With out it, it would have been nearly impossible for it to show you the difference seen in a picture if you look at it as a past memory, even if its not a memory of your own, and not as history. The passages of the essay takes you through the pictures as if it was you in the picture. You learn how adult viewers see the child victim through the eyes of his or her own child self (Hirsch 413). Pictures of different children victims of the Holocaust are shown and described in great detail. The first picture is of a little boy in the middle of the destruction of the Warsaw ghetto. It is described by Jaroslaw Rymkiewicz so that it makes you feel that you are the little boy or at least standing next to him. Another photograph work is Past Lives, by Lorie Novak, in which it is made up of three different pictures. The foreground picture is made of a picture of little Jewish children hidden in a Fre...

As a Mercerian, what do you consider the most importasnt leadership Essay

As a Mercerian, what do you consider the most importasnt leadership quality and why - Essay Example Intelligence appeals to me as the core leadership quality because it arouses and supports all the other requisite qualities for successful leadership. It is out of intelligence that a leader would be able to communicate sense to the audience, understand the desires of the followers and appeal to their support for the intended course. It is intelligence that would give a leader the confidence to communicate to with followers and earn confidence in whatever decisions made. Indeed, intelligence could be attributed to the success of many leaders be it in political, social, professional or religious circles. For example, Steve Jobs, the co-founder of Apple Inc., a leading international technological company, was endowed with intelligence that not only enabled him innovate the most marketable technological gadgets but also appeal to employees of Apple Inc. to live to the vision of the organization. It is the intelligence of Nelson Mandela, the first president of independent South Africa, which saw the country attain independence from colonialists and in addition unite the people of South Africa after apartheid regardless of their background. Therefore, I am certain that intelligence is the most important leadership

Open Source Software Research Paper Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1000 words

Open Source Software - Research Paper Example Moreover, one more example includes Amazon .com minimizing information technology expenditures from $71 million to $54 million by replacing their business automation software with open source applications (NAGY, YASSIN and BHATTACHERJEE 148-151). Similarly, sabre holdings were able to save more than $10 billion dollars by deploying MySQL that is an open source database (NAGY, YASSIN and BHATTACHERJEE 148-151). As these open source software are free of cost, organizations started replacing legacy systems with open source products. This trend has forced hardware and software vendors along with proprietary technology vendors to offer value added services associated with open source products. After discussing all these advantages associated with open source software, one question comes in mind i.e. what is the purpose of spending money on proprietary software, and why do some companies do this? The answer is probably because they do not know that an open source meeting all their needs ex ists. For example, an open source enterprise resource planning application for Small medium business can be a cost saving alternative for expensive ERP systems such as SAP and Oracle. Moreover, open source business intelligence and analysis software such as Jasper reports and Pehanto are available today (NAGY, YASSIN and BHATTACHERJEE 148-151). However, the existence of these open source applications does not ensure proficient after sales or maintenance support and their functionality that can be catered by a consultant or advisory service. Likewise, these open source software are volunteered without proper marketing strategies possibly because of their low budget. A comparison between an open source application and MS office is demonstrated in Table 1.1 below: Table 1.1 Source: ("Jet-Computing.com  » Linux Mint "), (Crammond) After discussing benefits for open source software, we will now discuss the barriers for organizations adopting open source software. The first factor is th e knowledge barrier, as discussed before, lack of available support, consultants, customization and lack of business knowledge for aligning the application with business objectives. The second barrier is a lack of integration with the legacy software and hardware. Likewise, Forking is another barrier because open source software is coded by different groups of people and may not integrate with other open source software. Moreover, the technology associated with open source software is immature i.e. not tested nor does it have a successful history. However, in order to overcome these challenges, organizations must train their staff and hire third party support and maintenance services. Moreover, for eliminating integration issues with legacy systems, middleware can be used for supporting integration functions. Furthermore, for addressing forking, self-resolving capabilities with the aid of self-managed standards is required. In addition, to address software immaturity, organizations must follow open source software maturity models and white papers for proper evaluation. Works Cited Crammond, Tony. "Head to Head: Office 2010 vs. Open Office 3.1 | IT PRO Reviews " 13/3/2010 2010. Web. 3/12/2012 . "Jet-Computing.com  » Linux Mint "Web. 3/12/2012