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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."
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.
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
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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.
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CUR ALLOC 20195.....5804M
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
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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.
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.
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.
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.
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
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?
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
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.
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.
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....
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.
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.
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"?
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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"
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TO BUY A NEW CAR WOULD MAKE YOU SEXUALLY ATTRACTIVE.
...vandalizing sidewalks. I guess they don't have anything to prove!
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
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!
Comment, Version 2:
If I knew I could get free advertising by defacing public property, I'd be a billonaire right now.
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--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
If I knew I could get gree advertising by defacing public property, I'd be a billonaire right now.
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--Got Lists? | Top 95 Star Wars Line
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.
... 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!
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.
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.