Anyone interested in how outsourcing, the internet and open source software have change the world should read the first few chapters of Thomas Friedman's  The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-first Century. He gives a really good anecdotal history of how the internet and open source have changed how we work.  I highly recommend it and I plan to give it to a few people that keep asking me "what's this open source thing really about?"

If you are up for it (the book is looonnngg), he goes on to explain all sorts of interesting things. For example, by the end of it, I understood in several different ways how outsourcing is changing the business – I especially like how he says India is trying to beat us to the top, not to the bottom. They want to be better than us, not cheaper.  I could have skipped the few chapters at the end where he tries to explain that we need to keep up the good work even if it means terrorists also have access to it.  He was definitely on a rant there.