People working for a company are immune in regards to their personal assets when it comes to pay back any debts.
In any other circumstances where a company asks you to do something illegal regulations are pretty clear: as soon as you know you are supposed to report it (either to somebody in your company designated for that purpose or to regulatory authorities, if your industry is not regulated to such extent you may still be liable and should consult a lawyer).
The "I was following orders" excuse is the lamest one you can chose to protect yourself against corporate wrongdoing.
"the employer is completely liable for the acts of the employee."
This is in general not true. Just imagine a world in which people acted with impunity and then they just blamed the company for any unethical, illegal or immoral actions the committed.
In most instances such excuse will not pass any legal mustard (and as a matter of fact, there are industries in which people become personally liable in similar cirmcunstances).
In serious companies, there will be a whistle blowing procedure, and frankly what one should do is to followi it with fastidiousness.
Such procedures will normally ensure that the whistle blower is protected.
If a company does not have such things in place then you are in very muddy waters. Depending on the industry (Finance and Banking being obvious ones) being in the knowledge that something fishy is going on puts you in hot water, and failing to report a problem may mean you become legally responsible for any wrongdoing as well. In such a company in such industries you should really talk to a lawyer (there must be very few companies like those left after ENRON, but who knows, life is full of surprises).
If the industry in question is not so unforgiving the best thing to do is to organize a tactical retreat, either to a different area in the same company or to another company altogether.
Doing something illegal or unethical is bound to end in tears and you don't want to be one of the parties doing the crying...
You guys come with some ideas that frankly are astounding.
In many industries and legal localities that will not get you out of hot water at all, and as a matter of fact doing work that you think or know is illegal could be enough to make you an accomplice.
This chap should check if there are any company procedures to deal with such a situation and follow them scrupulously. If there are none, he must seek legal advice because just by knowing about this he may be already in trouble.
That is not an excuse, and most importantly, it is not a legal defence,actually in many industries (Finance and Banking for example) that is an admission of guilt...
... ask themselves why their jobs get outsourced to India.
I assure you IT workers in cheaper localities don't get a console for a whole team, forget about one for each of them, most likely they put 16 hours/day of straight work for a fraction of their game playing counterparts in other places.
The job offers I am getting (yep, they are coming in spite of me not looking, maybe the inexperienced, exploited chaps in India, Hello chaps in Mumbai!, can't cope with the management of complex systems), anyway, I was saying, the job offers I am getting are increasingly related to Open Source software.
Companies are going to be using much more Open Source software.
Think: you need a new prototype, and need to set up a website. Will you go for your pilot for Oracle, MS's web server (what was its name?) and what, scripting in C#? Or will you chose a LAMP stack without support?
Think: you need 10 new desktops to do menial clerical work and you are hurting economically. Will you spend thousands of $LOCAL_CURRENCYin licensing or will you maybe give a go to this Lunix thingy your IT guy has been begging you to try because it is cheap (or even free).
Unemployed people had lots of time on their hands, it is not like all your waking hours are devoted to finding a job or working in a menial one. People will still have free time, and for those whose passion is Open Source a recession will just be a different period in their lives during which they had much more time to code.
Let introduce the dreaded world: depression, What percentage of unemployment do you fancy to talk about? 10%? 20%? 50%? In any case there will be a sizeable amount of the population working, and amongst those there will continue to be Open Source proponents, users and enhancers, and amongst of the many unemployed would be techies wondering how to go back to full employment for whom Open Source would be the only way to set up a viable low cost small business or a relatively cheap time diversion.
Honestly, people that keep harping against open source don't even understand the motivations of the people that actually work on it.
I lived in a Muslim country and have visited several others, I also have Muslim friends in non Muslim countries.
First of all in countries were Muslims are not forced to fast you will find many that do not fast. Once they have the same freedoms as everybody else this becomes a matter of personal choice.
In countries were fasting is mandatory well, what are you supposed to do? (they do have religious police in those places).
Not all Muslims memorize the Holly Quoran, it certainly is studied assiduously and it certainly is well received if you can memorize it, but by no means is common.
Not all Muslim men have beards. This happens only in some very backwards countries. In other countries this is a non issue.
Muslim women dress modestly certainly, but there is a spectrum of interpretation. IN Indonesia and Malaysia women wear trousers, the ones that don't wear colorful batik dresses with flowers, this would be unthinkable in Saudi Arabia or parts of Afghanistan. In Turkey you will see plenty of local women wearing modern western clothes and mini skirts.
The miserable conditions of labourers during the industrial revolution are legendary. Child labour was quite common adn women rights were non existent.
A woman without a man to support her was condemned to abject poverty.
.... the only thing that counts are the priorities of your own company. You decide how much work you put on those servers and how fast you need them back.
When an outsourced service fails, the outsourcing company queues your concerns in a macabre balancing game in which they are wearing 1000 hats to please 1000 different costumers.
Each company should decide if this is acceptable, the mistake is to defend Google (or any other outsourced service) as the absolute best solution for everybody.
My business suffers, then I sit down and I let some unreachable, unaudited Engineers solve the problems for us.
I will tell you something. If my company did not have email due to an outsourced service not working, my most important job would be to get in the phone with somebody that would tell me what the heck is going on.
Next day I would be asking some very serious questions and awaiting the right answers.
If you download a Linux package (rpm, deb ) you can double click on it if so you wish, this will install it in pretty much the same fashion as in any other OSes full of eye candy.
Of course you can launch the respective *graphical* package manager and search amongst the myriad of applications available to you for one that suits your needs, selected and request installation, with your mouse, since obviously user's brains have shrinked since the times there was no graphical interface at all. If creationists ever need proof of negative evolution they should talk to the wackos claiming Linux is not getting better, they seem like a marriage made in heaven.
But of course it is much more fun to pretend Linux is static in the prehistory of Desktop development.
I will end here and ignore how you can't script installations in Windows or OSX, which is vital for corporate environments, and why Linux is growing relentlessly in this market.
Oh yeah, and now we have around 5 or 6 Linux laptops being sold on regular shops.
But Linux is not progressing, and in spite of shops actually vending Linux machines, it surely is not ready for the desktop....
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You would have them by their b@@@s begging for mercy in an employment tribunal....
If he likes his job or not is immaterial.
Depending on the industry and his legal locality he may actually be breaking the law, liking his job will not save him from legal trouble.
People working for a company are immune in regards to their personal assets when it comes to pay back any debts.
In any other circumstances where a company asks you to do something illegal regulations are pretty clear: as soon as you know you are supposed to report it (either to somebody in your company designated for that purpose or to regulatory authorities, if your industry is not regulated to such extent you may still be liable and should consult a lawyer).
The "I was following orders" excuse is the lamest one you can chose to protect yourself against corporate wrongdoing.
Not even an excuse, I am surprised how many folks around here don't even think that "doing their job" under such circumstances may be illegal.
So what do you do if they ask you to start a CD duplication business without paying the Copyright holders? You go ahead with it?
Honestly ....
Any company not hiring you because you are paying attention to their reputation is a company you don't want to work for anyway.
If your products or services end in properly regulated industries they may come after you.
This is frankly no laughing matter and the ramifications are ugly and unexpected, the easiest thing to do is not to do such stuff.
Pretty simple frankly.
Dire need does not give you moral or ethical grounding to commit unethical or illegal acts.
It is so simple but one needs to be a big man in order to live up to the most basic precepts of ethics and codes of conduct.
"the employer is completely liable for the acts of the employee."
This is in general not true. Just imagine a world in which people acted with impunity and then they just blamed the company for any unethical, illegal or immoral actions the committed.
In most instances such excuse will not pass any legal mustard (and as a matter of fact, there are industries in which people become personally liable in similar cirmcunstances).
In serious companies, there will be a whistle blowing procedure, and frankly what one should do is to followi it with fastidiousness.
Such procedures will normally ensure that the whistle blower is protected.
If a company does not have such things in place then you are in very muddy waters. Depending on the industry (Finance and Banking being obvious ones) being in the knowledge that something fishy is going on puts you in hot water, and failing to report a problem may mean you become legally responsible for any wrongdoing as well. In such a company in such industries you should really talk to a lawyer (there must be very few companies like those left after ENRON, but who knows, life is full of surprises).
If the industry in question is not so unforgiving the best thing to do is to organize a tactical retreat, either to a different area in the same company or to another company altogether.
Doing something illegal or unethical is bound to end in tears and you don't want to be one of the parties doing the crying ...
Unless you work for the Camorra, breaking the law or being unethical is not something that can be classed as proper employment.
You are paid to do a legal, I would say also ethical work.
Why anybody would consider legitimate to do something unethical just because one is receiving a salary is beyond me.
You guys come with some ideas that frankly are astounding.
In many industries and legal localities that will not get you out of hot water at all, and as a matter of fact doing work that you think or know is illegal could be enough to make you an accomplice.
This chap should check if there are any company procedures to deal with such a situation and follow them scrupulously. If there are none, he must seek legal advice because just by knowing about this he may be already in trouble.
That is not an excuse, and most importantly, it is not a legal defence,actually in many industries (Finance and Banking for example) that is an admission of guilt...
... ask themselves why their jobs get outsourced to India.
I assure you IT workers in cheaper localities don't get a console for a whole team, forget about one for each of them, most likely they put 16 hours/day of straight work for a fraction of their game playing counterparts in other places.
Honestly, did you notice a recession is going on?
I am currently unemployed.
The job offers I am getting (yep, they are coming in spite of me not looking, maybe the inexperienced, exploited chaps in India, Hello chaps in Mumbai!, can't cope with the management of complex systems), anyway, I was saying, the job offers I am getting are increasingly related to Open Source software.
Companies are going to be using much more Open Source software.
Think: you need a new prototype, and need to set up a website. Will you go for your pilot for Oracle, MS's web server (what was its name?) and what, scripting in C#? Or will you chose a LAMP stack without support?
Think: you need 10 new desktops to do menial clerical work and you are hurting economically. Will you spend thousands of $LOCAL_CURRENCYin licensing or will you maybe give a go to this Lunix thingy your IT guy has been begging you to try because it is cheap (or even free).
Unemployed people had lots of time on their hands, it is not like all your waking hours are devoted to finding a job or working in a menial one. People will still have free time, and for those whose passion is Open Source a recession will just be a different period in their lives during which they had much more time to code.
Let introduce the dreaded world: depression, What percentage of unemployment do you fancy to talk about? 10%? 20%? 50%? In any case there will be a sizeable amount of the population working, and amongst those there will continue to be Open Source proponents, users and enhancers, and amongst of the many unemployed would be techies wondering how to go back to full employment for whom Open Source would be the only way to set up a viable low cost small business or a relatively cheap time diversion.
Honestly, people that keep harping against open source don't even understand the motivations of the people that actually work on it.
Hint: it is not the f*****g money .
For many people open source may be the only way to make a living.
Full swaths of businesses, specially small ones, will have a hard look at those licenses for closed source software.
People savvy in open source offerings, how they work and how they are supported will be ideally positioned to make money.
... I saved the money that is allowing me to be unemployed for the next couple of years if I wish so.
The way to despair is paved with bad anecdotes buddy.
It was pointed out to Sony the happening of these verses (which Muslim faith considers improper to reproduce with music).
Then Sony took the decision as we know it.
I lived in a Muslim country and have visited several others, I also have Muslim friends in non Muslim countries.
First of all in countries were Muslims are not forced to fast you will find many that do not fast. Once they have the same freedoms as everybody else this becomes a matter of personal choice.
In countries were fasting is mandatory well, what are you supposed to do? (they do have religious police in those places).
Not all Muslims memorize the Holly Quoran, it certainly is studied assiduously and it certainly is well received if you can memorize it, but by no means is common.
Not all Muslim men have beards. This happens only in some very backwards countries. In other countries this is a non issue.
Muslim women dress modestly certainly, but there is a spectrum of interpretation. IN Indonesia and Malaysia women wear trousers, the ones that don't wear colorful batik dresses with flowers, this would be unthinkable in Saudi Arabia or parts of Afghanistan. In Turkey you will see plenty of local women wearing modern western clothes and mini skirts.
The miserable conditions of labourers during the industrial revolution are legendary. Child labour was quite common adn women rights were non existent.
A woman without a man to support her was condemned to abject poverty.
Honestly, were do you guys learn history?
Most likely they are regulated and an outsourced service would be almost surely out of the question.
The Engineers at Google are not re-enacting the 2nd coming of Jesus the Christ.
There are plenty of people out there that understand email systems as well or even better than Google's Engineers.
It is not like Google invented the smtp protocol yesterday ...
When a serious company has problems, blame is the last thing everybody is thinking about.
The task would be to be back on business, with Google you have a third party with its own interests at stake.
I that is acceptable to your organization or not only you know, but if your main concern is blame you are truly starting in the wrong place.
.... the only thing that counts are the priorities of your own company. You decide how much work you put on those servers and how fast you need them back.
When an outsourced service fails, the outsourcing company queues your concerns in a macabre balancing game in which they are wearing 1000 hats to please 1000 different costumers.
Each company should decide if this is acceptable, the mistake is to defend Google (or any other outsourced service) as the absolute best solution for everybody.
My business suffers, then I sit down and I let some unreachable, unaudited Engineers solve the problems for us.
I will tell you something. If my company did not have email due to an outsourced service not working, my most important job would be to get in the phone with somebody that would tell me what the heck is going on.
Next day I would be asking some very serious questions and awaiting the right answers.
If you download a Linux package (rpm, deb ) you can double click on it if so you wish, this will install it in pretty much the same fashion as in any other OSes full of eye candy.
Of course you can launch the respective *graphical* package manager and search amongst the myriad of applications available to you for one that suits your needs, selected and request installation, with your mouse, since obviously user's brains have shrinked since the times there was no graphical interface at all. If creationists ever need proof of negative evolution they should talk to the wackos claiming Linux is not getting better, they seem like a marriage made in heaven.
But of course it is much more fun to pretend Linux is static in the prehistory of Desktop development.
I will end here and ignore how you can't script installations in Windows or OSX, which is vital for corporate environments, and why Linux is growing relentlessly in this market.
Oh yeah, and now we have around 5 or 6 Linux laptops being sold on regular shops.
But Linux is not progressing, and in spite of shops actually vending Linux machines, it surely is not ready for the desktop....