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IBM Gets 30 Days Community Service
CelestialWizard writes "Linuxworld have this story regarding the IBM employee that has been ordered to perform 30 days community service for spray painting "Peace, Love and Linux" ads on Chicago sidewalks. See the older story."
boo.com did a similar thing in London for its relaunch, they plastered pesky little stickers all over Camden Town.
Fly posting is illegal under the Town and Country Act and carries fines of up to £1,000 per offending poster - or in this case, sticker... ouch, now that could really add up.
Those figures are nothing though, the old Boo.com managed to eat through a whopping £178 million ($250m, yup a quater of a billion bucks) in funding in 3-4 months. Man... what were they spending it on?
The way I heard it was that IBM's *ADVERTISING* agency hired this guy to use some kind of chalk substance and he used paint instead... if thats true, I don't see how IBM can be held responsible...
The first ammendment gives you the right to publish, but not the right to publish using PROPERTY YOU DON'T OWN.
Yeah, but the article is about Chicago. Not San Francisco.
I work for a better known Linux related company, and was at a trade show earlier this week in London. I was approached by two IBM representatives who I chatted to for a while. They weren't stupid and knew what was happening on the Linux front. But I also didn't get the impression that Linux was their primary focus, it is just a part in an overall strategy to them to ensure they have all their bases covered.
I don't believe they truely want to push Linux on to consumers, instead they want to have a handhold on Linux incase it takes off and also make it appear to the Linux community that they are Linux friendly and not a threat, which is true for now.
I think we should try to ride on the publicity they give Linux as much as we can, for now.
Yes, IBM hired an advertising firm who seem to have screwed up, but before we make this out to be an 'accident' we should look at the facts. The newsrelease concerning the IBM POWER4 supercomputer was slated to come out this week, but who will pay attention now? Or to the sharp rise of IBM stock in light of the .com disaster? No, clearly this is going to hit IBM harder than a simple 18k in damages, or the lost 2.1 million paid to the advertising firm, or the 720 hours of lost time spent by IBM employees cleaning up the mess. No, this is big.
Who would mastermind such a clever plot? That's right. Bill Gates, noted mastermind behind the Microsoft phenomina. Publically available second quarter financials show that a sizable chunk of Microsoft PR money was spent last quarter, but has a new campaign come out? No! In addition, the general profit report of the firm IBM hired to do the advertising was up this quarter, but how? They were down for the last three consecutive quarters before this, and no new changes have occured in their general financial statement besides the profit boost. Suspicious? Yes! Microsoft may have been funneling money into this PR firm.
Now, why this type of attack? Well, that is clear. What is the greatest threat on the horizon for Microsoft? Not AOL, but Linux! And who is the largest corporate supporter of Linux? That's right, IBM! In addition, IBM is Microsoft's old rival from the days of OS/2 and Windows 3.1. What better way to attack Linux, but through IBM? They could portray Linux supporters as vandals, and at the same time do major damage to IBM, all while hiding behind the latest information on Windows XP. That's right, Windows XP. Microsoft needs Windows XP to go big, because Windows ME wasn't the powerball that they expected it to be, in the face of the Linux threat. Windows 2000 helped, but Microsoft desperately needs Windows XP to overcome Linux in the corporate and home user environment, even if it can't challenge it on the server just yet. We should have known all along that Microsoft was behind this!
"At the risk of feeding the trolls, using a plural verb for a corporate entity (e.g. "Linuxworld have") is perfectly normal British/Australian English.
I fully agree. While it does not follow the classical rules of grammar, it has fallen into such common usage that it should now be considered correct. Strict grammar dictates that you should say "R.E.M. is appearing on stage"; but everyone but the worst kind of pedant says "R.E.M. are appearing on stage".
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IBM would get even more cheap publicity if they started selling "Peace, Love, Linux" T-shirts. Anyone know where I might buy one?
For $18k, hundreds of thousands of people around the world heard about Linux and heard that the most recognised IT company in the world is backing it. So not only has the Linux 'brand' gained further publicity (and hence acceptance) around the world, but it's also gained legitimatecy (sp?) by having a blue chip IT company associated with it. That kind of publicity is worth millions and millions of dollars.
So stop thinking small, and think big picture and you will see that this $18k was a great investment in Linux.
Well, I guess that's why so much of the money you spend on things goes to marketing and advertising. People wouldn't be spending so much money to manipulate you if they weren't, on the average, getting more back from it.
I'd love to get a picture of these. Anyone in the area with a camera? Pictures still around?
This is a memorable laugh, a real mind-boggler.
I think, therefore thoughts exist. Ego is just an impression.
Well, isn't developing for Linux a community service? ;)
Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.
the spray painting _was_ the community service
--
Liberty uber alles.
Hmmm, thirty days of community service for painting something on the sidewalk.
And it wasn't even paint, it was water-soluble chalk.
by Mike Buddha -- Someday the mountain might get him, but the law never will.
Hmmm, thirty days of community service for painting something on the sidewalk. Meanwhile, the President's daughter got what, eight hours, of community service for underage drinking?
Weird.
--
CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
I don't think sidewalk-spraying is a terrible crime, and I would probably get over it if it were made legal (as long as individuals got the same freedom as corporations.) However, my point is that if society has decided that sidewalk-painting is illegal, then the given punishment is clearly far less of deterrent to a corporation than an individual and is therefore unjust as it makes it "easier" for corporations to break the law. It doesn't make sense to me that corporations (or rich people, for that matter) should have more rights than the rest of us simply because the punishment meted out upon them de facto has a lesser effect due to their great ability to pay.
I'm not going to get into a whole corporations-are-not-people rant here, but look up AdBusters or the Student Alliance to Reform Corporations or any one of a large number of other organizations if you'd like to see one.
// mlc, user 16290
--
Some sneaker company (I forget which one) did a similar thing a couple years ago where they spraypainted ~ 200 ads on the sidewalk. Of course this was found to be illegal and they were forced to pay to clean it up. However, the cost of cleanup was more than an order of magnitude less than it would have cost them to buy 200 payphone ads or whatever! They prefigured in legal penalties as simply a cost of doing the campaign, and still decided it would be cost-effective to violate the law!
Clearly, stiffer penalties are needed when corporations violate the law -- the fines that are sufficient when individuals do bad things are peanuts to large corporations such as IBM.
(And, you'll have a hard time getting me to believe that IBM is about peace or love. Please! The co-opting of '60s imagery is disgusting in and of itself.)
// mlc, user 16290
--
He's not an IBM employee, they hired a firm, like any other large company, to do a promotional campaign.
That company obviously screwed up, campaign materials called for non-permanent medium, though that would likely have been illegal as well.
IBM did the right thing by helping with the cleanup.
You left off a / on one of your anchors. I checked the source. Does that mean that this site is just 'dot' now? :-)
My journal has hot
Great post, neighbor.
This is good?! This is the start of something very scary. You can't cross a street in my neighborhood (Upper Haight/San Francisco) without seeing this bullshit painted in the crosswalks. It pisses me off and I'm a supporter of Linux. Yes, this gets IBM publicity but at the cost of the people who live in these neighborhoods and have to look at this crap every day, most of whom couldn't care less about Linux or any other operating system for that matter. I can almost stomach this because I'm a supporter of Linux but how cool is it going to be when we start seeing ads for Camel cigarettes or McDonald's painted in the street?!
Lame.
It doesn't seem right to me that the guy who did
the painting has to do the community service.
It's IBM's VP of marketing who should be out doing
the community service. The corporation has
committed this offence, not the poor slob with the
paint.
No, it's clear that you are the one who doesn't know English as it is spoken throughout the world well. To wit, in Australia, collective nouns take plural, not singular, verbs. In this case, since LinuxWorld is composed of numerous individuals, it takes a plural verb.
(Did you know that using US grammar rules, collective nouns can also take plural verbs? Yup! They can when there is some degree of disunity: "The group were unable to decide what to do.")
While it is true that many people who write on slashdot (either as editors or as posters) apparently can not or choose not to write worth a damn, it is also true that many people like to criticise it for the wrong reasons.
(Another aside: what would you say if I declared that slashdot bashing is old and has long since become tiresome? I used to do that in 1997! I even got a defensive email from Rob Malda. Bashing slashdot before bashing slashdot was cool! I like to think that I've since moved beyond that sort of thing, though. In other words, bashing slashdot, for all its faults, is no longer cool.)
My advice: go travel a bit; you might learn something. There's a big world outside of where you live, wherever that is.
--
You're a suburbanite.
If only every employee of every marketing and ad agency would be forced to do public service for every billboard, banner ad, tv commercial, etc. they churn out...
the world would be a better place.
Point and Grunt
Point and Grunt
For 18k, that'll get you about a nice one FULL page newspaper advertisement in the daily paper. I'm talking a full paper page, not just a half, but a full page for $18,000.
/. and other news sites people around the world can see it.
That's just for a daily newspaper.
The spray paint advertising from the IBM employee has allowed thousands and thousands of city people to see the ads. With
$18,000. Dirt cheap advertising for international attention...
...with the minor cost of it being done illegally.
----------
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Check out my blackbox styles
Everyone lies to themselves at least ten times a day. Most of course don't know the truth in the first place and maybe that does not make it a lie.
War is necrophilia.
Well, I was a hippy (and arguably still am). I'm not rich, and in those days I was a lot poorer. I rarely take drugs, even legal ones. I've never dodged any draft. I write quite a lot of open source software, and some of it quite a lot of people use.
Yes, hippies (like open source people) were about idealism. I don't see much hypocisy, and I don't see any disrespect (except, perhaps, from you). So what's your point? You don't want to be assoicated with idealism? That's fine, you don't have to be. The exit door is here. Close it behind you on your way out.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
In 1993, 800 people got arrested for blocking a logging road to protest the provinces logging decisions. Some of them were sentenced to community service -- and spent that time doing volunteer work for environmental organizations.
It's entirely possible that this guy could end up doing his 'community service' for an IBM-sponsored "community project".
--
Sometimes boldness is in fashion. Sometimes only the brave will be bold.
-- $SIGNATURE
Perhaps if you are a linguist, you can make a descriptive argument about what is "common place grammar" but a linguist is only concerned with deviations from the norm when it results in a failure to communicate (and leads to the creation of a new dialect, which is not necessarily a bad thing).
As for your comments on the story, I tend to think that perhaps you know as much about the situation IBM and its employees are in as you do about grammar.
How we know is more important than what we know.
err.. you mean other than the fact that they said they were?
How we know is more important than what we know.
dont feed the trolls.
How we know is more important than what we know.
don't feed the troll-feeder-feed-oh fuck it.
How we know is more important than what we know.
You certainly could do with some understanding of language. Why not read something about language that wasn't written for 8th grade students before you go shooting your mouth off?
How we know is more important than what we know.
I totally agree. The concept does not bug me, the fact that they would stoop to illegal tactics shows a disrespect to the linux community. Oh, the only way we can be down with these kids is to go spray paint stuff. Please. We dont need school yard tactics from IBM. If the linux community wanted to go spray paint linux logos everywhere we would have. No, IBM is supposed to lend some credibility to Linux, encourage people to trust it. Do you trust spray painters? (actually I do, but that's not the point!)
How we know is more important than what we know.
Hands up anyone working on open source who could of done with $18k. Thanks IBM. You're spendin' that billion well.
How we know is more important than what we know.
or everyone around the world heard Linux associated with vandalism.
How we know is more important than what we know.
"Peace, love and Cindy Crawford" ?
Will I be forced to make love with Cindy during 30 days ?
{{.sig}}
If MS did this, I'd have a problem with this. There are some very good reasons why there are rules for commercial speech. Those rules have come into existence after much deliberation with advertising agencies, and they agreed to it. This time, it's linux ads in front of your house. Next time could be cigarettes at the entrance to kindergarten, or hustler at the YWCA. The fact that it's a nice picture in the commercial doesn't matter to me. I would be more of a hypocrite if I supported it. I wouldn't support it for MS, McDonald's or Disney. I don't support it for linux, even though I quite like the picture itself.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
If your company tells you to kill someone, you'll get arrested. The fact that your job is in danger is a VERY bad reason to break the law. You do the painting, you do the time. The guy should have known better and IBM got off too easy.
//rdj
No one can understand the truth until he drinks of coffee's frothy goodness.
--Sheikh Abd-Al-Kadir, 1587
I agree, but it's also very obvious that killing someone is illegal. I submit that it's much less obvious that drawing chalk designs on a sidewalk is illegal. The employee doing the actual grunt work might well have assumed (and reasonably so given that he works for a "responsible" company such as IBM) that his company had obtained any necessary permissions from the city. Heck, he probably never gave the matter a second thought. It's the people higher up who should suffer, not the guy with the chalk in his hand.
I don't think they even *wanted* permission to do this. The publicity generated by this thing being illegal has a much greater benefit than the campaign itself (these graffitis were seen only by a few people compared to how many read about them).
I guess they had planned this whole thing including fines or community service all along - because easily removable or not, this is against the law.
EagerEyes.org: Visualization and Visual Communication
Ok so don't blame Canada, but don't blame Big Blue either, it wasn't them who set out to have someone commit this crime, it was a publicist/marketers fault for this stupid action, and it was someone else's stupidity for not drawing the line regarding morals, and money.
If Sig Sauer had paid someone to promote their guns, and some idiot decided to do something like shoot up a crowd, it would be wrong to place blame on Sig Sauer for the actions of any other than themselves. (poor example I know but I was reading Guns and Ammo earlier so sue me)
Listen there is nothing wrong with advocacy, so don't think this is a bash Linux post, it's nothing more than a reality check. You don't commit a crime (vandalism) because someone pays you to do it, that'll make you as guilty as the one who conspired the crime. The guy should have known what he was doing was wrong and opted not to do it. As for the punishment, he should do the community service for it, and be given a swift kick in the ass for being dumb.
What is Deviation v.1?
Want Root?
i'd love to work for such a high-profile company that gives their employees a can of spray paint and tells them to go deface public facilities and infrastructure with advertisements and propaganda.
International Business Machines Performs Act of Civil Disobedience to Promote Open Source Operating System . . . George Bush honored at Mensa ceremony
Actually, in real life George W. is getting an honorary Ph.D. from Yale today. Next up:
Temperatures in Hell drop sharply
International Business Machines Performs Act of Civil Disobedience to Promote Open Source Operating System....
In other news:
Ariel Sharon plans pilgrimage to Mecca
George Bush honored at Mensa ceremony
Tempratures in Hell drop sharply
don't feed the troll-feeders.
Well, that's how I feel about this IBM campaign. Peace, Love and Linux
. I am not a hippy. The Hippies were a bunch of rich assholes who dodged the draft and took drugs. Those Hippies that survived are the gerks responsible for the power outages in California today. Not to mention that hippies have always been associated with of "naivette" and "counter-culture". I was offended (in a minor way... not like I lost sleep).Then it hit me, that there are many similarities to the younger compsci culture and the hippies: ludicrous idealism, hypocracy, and disrespect. Kernel hacking is the new LSD. When we're 50 will we have some kind of crazy inode_hashtable or jiffies flashback? Anyway, I now realize that my opinions of so many /. articles/posts can be summed up with the word "techippy" because that is exactly what most of these people are.
Someone you trust is one of us.
While the poor guys at IBM Chicago do their 30 days of community services have fun looking at the picture of the peace love & Linux magazine ads.
---
Served to you by Sandlab.org
Just to prove your point a little further, $18K will get a full page ad in ONE daily newspaper. Depending on the paper, that would mean ONE city or region.
Hello little man. I will destroy you!
often wondered that myself. if your coding goes back to the community should that not count as community service? Ask Slashdot anyone?
And what will IBM get for bribing people in Argentina's goverment to get the contract to computerize the national bank? Nothing, the US goverment covered up the IBM execs.
At the risk of feeding the trolls, using a plural verb for a corporate entity (e.g. "Linuxworld have") is perfectly normal British/Australian English. The reasoning is that it's not a Linuxworld which has an article, it's all those happy folks at Linuxworld who have an article.
Cheers,
-j.
Most of the best walls are owned by government agencies. They are part of freeway overpasses, the LA river, and similar structures. It's true that in LA the government only allows lame childish official murals on these huge tempting expanses of concrete. And then it's a crime to deface the crappy murals!
Effectively, it is a government-controlled medium of expression, with predictably bad results. Good art rarely begins with submitting a proposal to a government agency.
maybe 30 days of hard programming for the open-source community ;-?
UNOX - The worst operating system
It's a small point, but how long is 30 days of community service?
Whenever I've heard about people being ordered to perform community service it has always been a number of hours -- 50 hours, 100 hours, 250 hours, whatever. That way it is easy for people to keep track of how much service the person has done.
Does 30 days mean 30 x [mean number of hours worked per day] hours of community service? Does it mean that whenever he would be at work for the next 30 days he has to be doing community service instead? Or does it literally mean 30 *days*, ie 720 hours?
Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid
I can read the headline now: Microsoft Ordered to Perform 482 Years of Community Service At least the parks will be clean....
Community service as punishment for doing community service? Cute :)
How could luring people away from Windows be considered as anything other than community service :)
/* Wayne Pascoe
Because IBM is helping the world, getting linux knowledge out, do they consider that public service?
Norris/Palin 2012
Fact: We deserve leaders who can kick your ass and field dress your carcass.
IBM needs to do more than pay a measly fine. IBM needs to serve "jail time" in the form of forfietting 30 days of corporate profits to CleanSF and similar organizations in cities they crapped on... groups that spend their time and energy trying to keep the streets of our towns clean. IBM needs to publically apologize with large, full page ads in local newspapers.
But most importantly, IBM needs to apologize to the Linux community, for making us look bad in the eyes of our neighbors and friends.
$18,000? Pshaw. That's the price for ONE of the billboards they placed along the 101 Freeway. IBM needs to truly pay for this crime, otherwise they're just another corporate criminal, who's gonna rape Linux for all it's worth and leave us out in the cold.
You don't see FreeBSD fold vandalizing sidewalks. I guess they don't have anything to prove!
How can I put this so it isn't modded as a troll?
When I first read this, I interpreted it to have just the opposite meaning as you meant it. I then realized how you meant it. There must be a better way to phrase this.
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
Had that happened, then 5 years from now, we might be seeing ads on EVERY sidewalk. It's even scarier to think that this is probably going to happen anyway.
get 0wned. irc.w30wnzj00.com
I don't know where you got that story from, but according to this guy the art director for The Doors painted petroglyphs in oil-based paint on a blank cave wall...
& If I caught those pricks spray painting the sidwalk in front of my house, I'd take a baseball bat to his head.
This might be a stupid question, but does any know if the guy that has to do community service will have this on his criminal record?
To quote Winston, "This is the kind of arrant pedantry up with which I will not put!"
:-)
In other words, if we don't talk the way the rules say, then the rules just aren't keeping up.
Grab.
Er, you go and ask the person who owns the wall, then you paint. End of problem. If it's any good businesses will jump at it (there's nothing a business wants more than to attract attention).
If you think this stuff is so great and needs to be seen, let them paint on your wall. Or your car or whatever.
_O_
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
I'm simply saying that every organization lies, which makes everyone I know a liar.
I have a hard time believing you.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
---
There is much cruelty in the universe, John.
Yeah, we seem to have the tour map.
Sucks to be that guy. I'm wondering what kind of compensation this guy is getting from Big Blue. Or if that non-compete clause is gonna keep him from picking up garbage for 6 months after he leaves the company.
"Ask me about Loom"
--
TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
So, when is someone (ThinkGeek, are you reading?) going to start printing this on t-shirts? That's some graffiti I wouldn't mind wearing. :)
Chalk up another embarrasing moment in this ad campaign...
Help save the critically endangered Blue Iguana
...vandalizing sidewalks. I guess they don't have anything to prove!
until (succeed) try { again(); }
until (succeed) try { again(); }
Does coding for an open-source project, say Linux, count as Community Service? They don't really gain any benefit from it now do they...
If IBM didn't gain any benifit, I'm sure they wouldn't need to advertise. After all, IBM isn't in business just to try and be nice.
Stupid like a fox!
Does this set a precedent that you are responsible for what you do as in individual while employed by a company, doing you job?
I believe that precendent was already set, in the Nuremburg trials.
Stupid like a fox!
Is it just me or does the punishment seem overly severe? Assuming that the thirty days of work are the standard eight hours, it would seem to me that this is a lot to impose for some removable graffiti. I would think that the court would be more punitive with the IBM and the advertising agency as opposed to going after some guy who I assume was just following orders. 30 days labor and a 18k fine seems very harsh for a minor nuisance IMO.
Actually, I remember seeing those same ads in Houston a year ago. Who's the one being ripped off?
funny munging
This guy didn't do it on his own. IBM is using this as a publicity stunt to push their Linux campaign. They want to be viewed as a company whose employees are passionate about Linux
Cedric Balthazar Rotherwood
Sun Certified Programmer for the Java Platform +
System Admin. for Solaris
Does coding for an open-source project, say Linux, count as Community Service? They don't really gain any benefit from it now do they...
Arthropoid, the Right Clam for the Job
Along I-40 (Westbound, approx. exit 14) there's a billboard that completely rips off IBM's campaign. It's for a wireless company - Cingular I think - and it says, "Peace. Love. Wireless." It has three icons, the first two being a peace symbol and a heart. The last, if I remember right, is the Cingular logo.
Not only is IBM getting a lot of publicity off this, so are the copycats. If you ask me, anyone who's copied their campaign (whether on sidewalks or on billboards) ought to be just as liable as IBM. I hate people who can't come up with their own ideas.
Shaun
Thanks to the War on Drugs, it's easier to buy meth than it is to buy cold medicine!
Startlearning about attention spans.
Give it a few weeks and everyone will have forgotten about the whole thing. That's why, when they advertise, companies run more than just a one-off ad, for example.
People should not be afraid of their governments - Governments should be afraid of their people.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
first I agree with you - that "If your company tells you to kill someone, you'll get arrested"
.... and the *whole* bush died. I was so pissed off.
:P
but drop the droid act.
I would LOVE to see this painted on my sidewalk.
I cant beleive that anyone would condemn this. WHO CARES. its not like im gunna be walking down the street and see this and think "GOSH DARNIT!!!! THOSE BASTARDS PAINTED MY SIDEWALK AGAIN!!! GET THEM! VANDALS BE DARNED!!"
who thinks like this - only people who want to impose their rules on others in a manner and through a medium that is not appropriate.
For example - I own a townhome in silicon valley - and the president of the homeowners assoc. has a rather large garden on her back deck - with rose bushes that grow overthe fence into the common area (yes this relates).
I had a bush (bugenvalia - but dont know how to spell it) that also grew a little over the fence. I loved this bush it looked great - then Iget a letter from the president that stated that my bush grew over the fence and that if I didnt cut it - i would be subject to a fine. (WTF - I thought) so I cut it
anyway - the point is that this lame president had nothing better to do in her free time (being retired) than to criticize and make rules. and I suffered for her unwillingness to go with the flow and let things be.
HONESTLY - who was hurt by those statements on the sidewalk - or my bush! - I cant beleive that you would even consider your statement and supposrt the notion that "IBM SHOULD PAY - dammit!"
in fact you should support this!
also - i have seen a lot of fantastic tagging art in and around SF - most of it more interesting than i see in the galleries of los gatos and saratoga.
that is a semi good point.
I would like it if someone sprayed M$ marketing material on my sidewalk - then I could personally spay over it and deface it. in fact I will go out and spray the following on my sidewalk tonight (provided I have spray paint in the garage)
"linux == good, M$ ==bad"
I dont care that you are saying that you wouldnt support linux, disney, M$ or whatever - what I was pointing out was that I thought that it was lame for you to equate a company telling you to kill someone - with a company hiring someone to spray paint a sidewalk.
you do the painting you do the time (or something) nazi... does that really impede your life so much.
and I know you will try to take it to the Nth degree and say - what if *every* company were spraying stuff all over the sidewalk.
well - they are not - and if they did - it would be like every other add to me - invisible.
as long as they all must use water soluable paint - then I am fine with it.
In the grand scheme of it all....that was some cheap advertising.
The article isn't too detailed. If the employee decided to do this on his own, I don't think IBM should be responsible for damages. Then again, how would you feel if someone had painted a IBM-blue Nike Swoosh? Do Community Service!
M period. Fresh, comma
"We're incorporated, don't you know what that
means"
----
Apparently he didn't. Incorporation does not
protect employees from the consequences of
illegal behavior. It protects INVESTORS, and
only then when they don't participate in the
illegal behavior.
C//
I'm not so sure it always works out. (IIRC) Fox news got confused about the story (or didn't care) and claimed that IBM was promoting it's Linux OS.
This sig intentionally left blank.
30 days community service, eh? I hope he will spend his time installing Linux for public schools & libraries. That is what I'd call doing something good for the "community", ours and theris. ;-)
Peace, Love, Linux.
====
Codeala - Just another mindless drone
Doesn't promoting Linux qualify as community service?
this is getting old and so are you
blog
I fail to understand the goal which Chicgo is trying to acheive by giving an IBM employee 30 days community service. Giving the corporation as a whole a fine is logical, and worth while, but a singular employee makes no sense. Even if this employee spray painted all of the ads, which I doubt, he would only be following orders, especially if he thought his job would be in danger.(How ever, that would make one hell of a lawsuit) If anyone should be getting community service, it should be the marketing team or perhaps the people who authorized the ads or maybe, just maybe, the lawyers who said it would be legal (If they were consulted in the first place).
By the looks of it, this poor person has been suckered into doing something which he does not deserve.
irc addict.
I remember reading this in the Sun-Times, which referref to the graffiti as "hearts, peace signs, and fat birds."
========================== pipe(13) -- can you figure it out?
You are right but so what? When basketball teams or football teams battle it out on the field, do the fans of either team seem objective? Let us geeks have our fun in the sun. Most of us are slaving over some Windows box that we would rather just throw out the window.
I miss the Karma Whores.
It is spelled "grievous", not "grevious."
Just another example of how Slashdot's average user IQ is inversely proportional to amount of folks in the user base.
Proper grammar would dictate that one refer to the "the number of folks" rather than "amount of folks".
What kind of person would think it legal to do such a thing? And if IBM did tell him that it was legal, it seems a little unfair to subject him to community service, because he was doing so under false pretenses.
Ignorance of the law, like ignorance of grammar, is no excuse.
... then the Linux zealots at /. would cry
"Put this stupid Bill-Gates-slave on a jail
for ten years!".
Come one, guys. This was just yet another "we are the good boys because we promote Linux so anything we do will be considered right even if it is against the law".
All in all, it's just business...
--- Signature? You must be kidding!
I am a Linux enthusiast. When I learned that IBM was investing such a substantial sum of capitol in Linux, I was pleased.
Though running Linux for the lesser duration of its existence (1997), in that time I have seen it grow. Where once ignored and labeled as a hobby, now the largest software company is calling it their number 1 threat and petitioning United States lawmakers to take measures against its development model. This is a large difference from the times when we would petition hardware and software manufacturers for just documentation, let alone drivers and ports.
Another poster mentioned this but it is worth repeating: $18,000 is well worth the advertising this incident has caused. Many news sites have covered it and IBM is well known for having done it. lwn.net previously reported that Sun Microsystems had offered to 'help IBM remove' the paint. Granted, the publicity for such a reason is somewhat embarrasing but more people now know of this wonderful operating system, and the more than significant investment one company has made.
-catpyss, yes an unusual name but you will remeber it.
Now, onto the article. I'm glad that the spirit of 'just following orders' carries on into the present. What kind of person would think it legal to do such a thing? And if IBM did tell him that it was legal, it seems a little unfair to subject him to community service, because he was doing so under false pretenses.
FYI,I read this in the LA Times, which posted a lengthy story with detailed information on the hefty fines paid by the studios for vandalism and destruction of federally protected cultural properties.
This reminds me of what happened on a film set a few years back. The filmmakers of "The Doors" wanted an authentic indian cave where they could film on location with indian petroglyphs in the background. They received permission on the explicit understanding that no indian petroglyphs were to be touched. Except an art director didn't get it, he thought the petroglyphs didn't come up clearly enough on camera so he painted over them with a water based paint. He completely covered every written character with dark paint. The petroglyphs were originally done in water based pigments, he thought he could wash off his overpainting but that would have washed off all the original petroglyph too. Now there is nothing left but the dumb art director's painting. Another wonderful cultural relic raped, pillaged, and destroyed by Hollywood greed-heads.
Anyway, the laws used to prosecute IBM are a two-edged sword. Street artists go up against fines like this all the time. I recall artists like Robbie Conal in Los Angeles plastering posters of political satire all over the city. An artist I knew did an amazing mural under a bridge in downtown LA. He painted it in reflective paint, you couldn't see it in the day, only at night by your car's headlights. And the city decided to paint over it. Another artist I knew did a series of oddly beautiful mini-murals, with the message "Justice Just Is." The city went out of its way to paint them over immediately. LA has laws to protect stupid murals from the days of the Olympics, but doesn't hesitate to paint over the street artists. And I'm not talking graffiti taggers, these were serious artists with no other way to reach the public except directly. I'm not sure I endorse the concept of the city government having total control of the public space and who can say what in public. I know advertising doesn't really enjoy the same first amendment protections, but when the same laws are used to suppress advertisers as well as artists, I sense a slippery slope ahead.
IBM isn't the first to pretend they're about peace and love, not money and control. Fraud is the name of the game, and if you can do it legally, who cares if it's ethical right? This time they crossed the line and got a slap on the wrist. The damage they do with legal (false) advertizing is far more damaging to individuals and communities.
I don't advocate censorship, I'm simply saying that every organization lies, which makes everyone I know a liar.
$121.43 to wash some paint off of a sidewalk?
I bet you could do at least 3 an hour, so that's $364.29 an hour, or more than most lawyers make!
I am not a spork.
Does this set a precedent that you are responsible for what you do as in individual while employed by a company, doing you job? My Ex Manager is going to hate to here about that. I can just remember him saying "what are you afraid if you rip this customer off like I told you that you'll be held responsible? We're incorporated, don't you know what that means" and "we've talked and come to the decision, we decided this customer is marginal, leave the machine broken and we can ride it out" I hated that job and that manager.
If not and this was a corporate crime why not have every employee of IBM do 10minutes of community service? You'd get a lot more service all around the world.
I'm not the big fan of large corporations, but IBM seems to have some responsibility and a certain flair. Perhaps their past of doing lots of business with the nazi's taught them that big companies HAVE a responsibility to society and they shouldn't think too lightly of that. Give those guys a nerd award or something ;-)
This used to be the most uptight company in the world. Now they get in trouble for grafiti.
That's nothing. MS has been spraypainting the Windows logo on my monitor for years.