Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Re: monocultures (Anti-Microsoft sentiment)

Author:Joshua Allen
Posted:9/17/2000; 12:12:16 PM
Topic:Debunking the OSS Bazaar?
Msg #:21444 (In response to 21440)
Prev/Next:21443 / 21445

When a rabbit eats a carrot, the carrot becomes a rabbit and not the other way around. This is what I tell young folks who tell me they are considering a job at Microsoft. The US Army doesn't change when you sign up, no matter how bright you are.

Have to totally disagree on this one. Any successful company attracts people who are consistent with its vision. People are not food, and that's not what I was trying to imply. If a person isn't a match for the company they join, they do not change, as you seem to be asserting, they usually get slid out or decide to leave.

Really this is the thing I find most objectionable about your whole approach to the matter. You act as if companies are coercive entities, and you act as if people do not exercise free will. A company is simply a voluntary association of individuals pursuing a collective goal. In a capitalistic system, your job is to find something people perceive valuable, give it to them, and take a share of the value that's created. There are many types of value that cannot be created by an individual working alone, so people often decide to band together, create value, then distribute that value among themselves. (This is not a sophism; I think that the more people can avoid the blue-collar "I am a pawn of the man" mentality, the better society will operate. Just because your goal is to make money does not mean that you are automatically being deprived of free will by "the boss". You are the boss and always have been, regardless of what POV you choose.)

With such a tight job market for developers, any person with mediocre skills can claim to be a developer, get a job just about anywhere they choose, and snow their boss for six months until they move to the next higher paying job. The idea that developers are getting "programmed" by their companies is truly ludicrous. People who spend their lives trying to coax petulant computers into submission are also very good at convincing bosses that one technology or another is the "right" technology. Please don't interpret this as a value judgement; I think it is healthy that developers have the power -- I just think you are being dishonest to claim that they don't.

And I just can't connect emotionally with your plea that a company should have a "right to survive". The analogy of biodiversity is quite a stretch. Suppose someone is born with three arms. Suppose that people "starve" her out of her right to survive by refusing to mate with her. Is it unethical that three-armed people die off and deprive the world of it's biodiversity? Death itself is not an enemy of biodiversity. Developers choose where they work, consumers choose what they buy, and companies spring up and die every day.

P.S. when someone tells you they are thinking about Micrsoft, you could admit you don't know and refer them to someone at Microsoft? Just an idea...

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