Tim wrote:
On Thu, 2006-01-19 at 03:08 -0600, Mike McCarty wrote:
One issue with this is in deployment in concert with development.
Let's say that a company is going to build a new device, and wants
to put an OS on an embedded computer, and develop some applications
to run on it. This company does not want to divulge its trade
secrets to the whole world for copying. Special techniques which
may, for example, allow a cell phone to use lower power and still
achieve good range, hence not cooking your brain.
Do you really think that competitors can't do that without access to the
source code? Taking that example as a case in point, spectrum analysers
Are you arguing with me, or with the large corporate lawyers? What
*I* believe is irrelevant on this point, and I'm not going to
try to defend or argue about this position. My point is that
this *is* the position taken by corporations. End of point.
If you want to argue whether large corporations take this position,
then I'm willing to discuss that. But if you accept that they
do, then the rest of your argument is irrelevant, because their
behavior is dependent on their position, not on whether it makes
sense.
And if deployment is a concern for you, then this matters.
[snip]
This reaction reminds me of a conversation I had with a german
guy one time. The company I worked for had been bought by an
"international corporation", and they started trying to manage
american "software engineers" by using european (specifically
german) techniques. Memos with the tone of edicts began appearing.
Wording like:
All Engineers are ordered to use CHILL programming
Languages for all Projects! No Exceptions!
(grammatical errors intentional, to show the nature of the edicts,
exclamation points also intentional and present in the type of
memos we received, capitals also conform to german orthography)
Now, apart from the fact that there was programming being done
which COULD NOT be done in CHILL, a large number of engineers
were averse to using CHILL, and didn't want it on their resume.
So many of them simply sat back, folded their arms, and said
"I won't". These engineers were simply sent memos even more
strongly worded, and a bunch of them resigned.
The German I mentioned asked me why. I told him that Americans
are free, and are used to freedom, and value their freedom,
and resist tyranny in any form. He said "But they shouldn't take
it personally." I told him that they don't take it personally,
but they don't like it, and they exercise freedom. His response
was "Well, they shouldn't *be* like that."
When I told him that they just *are* like that, and that
dictatorial european methods like that won't work here,
he simply repeated "They shouldn't *be* like that."
This is like deja vu all over again (apologies to Yogi Bera).
Whether corporations should *be* like that is irrelevant.
Mike
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