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[ox-en] Re: Corperations in Free Software



Hi Timm and all!

Yesterday Timm Murray wrote:
IBM is a highly regarded company by many suits,
                                           ^^^^^

You're speaking of business people AFAIK.

May I ask the native English speakers here to use as little jargon as
possible? This is meant as an international list and too much jargon
makes it too difficult for non-native speakers. Oh well, the fact,
that English is *the* global language - at least in the Western
countries - has many aspects. Sometimes I'm glad, that I'm not a
native speaker ;-) .

I think the lesson from this is that you should not be afraid to think badly
of a corperation if you see it doing something you don't like.  To state the
bloddy obvious, corperations are going to follow the money. Right now, IBM
belives there is money to be made by being associated with Free Software.

Sure.

However, they may turn that around at any moment, and we shouldn't be afraid
to be critical if and when they do.  We do not owe IBM anything; they are "on
our side" because their is money to be made, not because of some idealogical
crusade (if they were on an idealogical crusade, they probably wouldn't turn
in the first place).

I agree fully.

However, I'd not underestimate the people making up IBM (and other
corporations). The people inside the corporations have their own
reasons to like Free Software, and these are in general not modified
by a headquarter decision. From my personal experience it's a fact,
that the constant call for using Free Software in the corporation /
software project / whatever from the working people often changed the
way things went. This holds for administration workers as well of
course.


						Mit Freien Grüßen

						Stefan

_______________________
http://www.oekonux.org/


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