Software developers - work at home

Development of software doesn't really require you to work at a same place .First I am going to list some of the things people say about working in an office . The advantage of an office is that it gives people less of an excuse to slack off .There are other people watching you and you become sort of more accountable.Face to face communication is surely more effective than say communicating through telephone or email.Also it involves a sort of social gathering where people can chit chat for a while.Working alone does become little lonely.But these advantages do lose their significance when you compare it to working alone.People can slack off at office also.The bad thing about working in an office is that sometimes you have to pretend that you are working simply because the cubicle of boss is just next to your cubicle .Some people do come early and work till evenings not because they are doing great work but simply because they have to impress other people . There can be new models of accountability besides man hours put into work i.e. one can gauge the amount and kind of work you do in fixed time at your own sweet convenience. Ok no substitute for face to face communication but video teleconferencing comes pretty close. About being socially comfortable I believe person should put their best effort during the 'office hours' and can socialize to his or her heart's content in his free time.Although I would say there is no substitute for office friends and all those office romances. When I say you don't need to be physically present with your colleagues I mean that you can collaborate quite closely with1.an instant messenger.2.telephone.3.Some video conferencing software.4.file sharing software.That means that would save millions of dollars of rental cost ,office equipment and hardware costs.Also it would lead to increase in productivity as people would work in quite and soothing environment of their home or in whatever place they want to live.But this concept involves a paradigm shift in thinking and people are generally so impervious to change .Or wouldn't working at home and collaborating on internet like open source guys do wouldn't have become more popular in software industry from the time internet did came into widespread use.