At what point does extracting money from Microsoft become state sponsored extortion? Is MS really that evil that they are breaking laws all over the world illegally using their defacto monopoly?
A man more insightful than I am once wrote: That one should avoid being despised and hated. Microsoft has done very little to avoid public hatred and, as such, public opinion greets measures such as these with an overwhelming response of "meh. They had it coming." So when countries take unusually hard steps like these, there is very little public outcry against it.
The point is, people don't care if "Bad Things" happen to "Bad People". This is why we see the public rush to defend Firefox, Apple and Google, but call for beheadings when Microsoft is mentioned. If Microsoft doesn't like these things happening to them, it needs to get back in the good graces of the people.
(Now if only I could convince the current administration that it is not good to be the most hated nation in the world.)
I don't have a problem with issuing more H-1B visas to attract more qualified individuals. What I do have a problem with is that it seems to be a flat out excuse to bring people from India and China over to the U.S. for peanuts. I haven't heard a single peep about importing IT talent from Europe or other areas of the globe.
If that is in fact the goal, we should at least be adding incentives to keep these people here. If the long term aim is to recruit talent, where are the "Turn in your H-1B for U.S. citizenship" programs? Where are the incentives to make them stay in the U.S.?
But all the evidence points to a convoluted method of paying IT workers low wages. The huge downside to this is that if we keep "training" foreign workers like this, pretty soon places like India and China will have IT businesses of their own that don't suffer the exhorbant management costs that American companies do. What American managers don't seem to realize is that outsourcing the IT grunt work is only the first step. In five years their job could be overseas as well.
After all, how wasteful is it to have the manager and the workers in separate parts of the world? Onsite managers are more cost effective and better for overall communication.
Just who defines "violent" or "pornographic" material? What is "violent" or "pornographic" material?
If it is up to the ISP to decide and implement the blocker, it should still be an "opt-in" program. I can sympathize with non-Slashdotters who can't figure out how to install a blocker. It's a much better option for a customer to be able to call up and say, "Oy! Switch off the porn." But it should not be mandatory.
However, if the government provides the logic to say what is and isn't "violent" and "pornographic", and the ISP must enforce it, it's a terrible idea. If the government is in charge of what is and isn't "appropriate", who's to say it won't get abused? (But I doubt the program's aim is this dastardly.)
Freedom comes from choices, not end-all solutions.
Slashdot Mirror
The point is, people don't care if "Bad Things" happen to "Bad People". This is why we see the public rush to defend Firefox, Apple and Google, but call for beheadings when Microsoft is mentioned. If Microsoft doesn't like these things happening to them, it needs to get back in the good graces of the people.
(Now if only I could convince the current administration that it is not good to be the most hated nation in the world.)
I don't have a problem with issuing more H-1B visas to attract more qualified individuals. What I do have a problem with is that it seems to be a flat out excuse to bring people from India and China over to the U.S. for peanuts. I haven't heard a single peep about importing IT talent from Europe or other areas of the globe.
If that is in fact the goal, we should at least be adding incentives to keep these people here. If the long term aim is to recruit talent, where are the "Turn in your H-1B for U.S. citizenship" programs? Where are the incentives to make them stay in the U.S.?
But all the evidence points to a convoluted method of paying IT workers low wages. The huge downside to this is that if we keep "training" foreign workers like this, pretty soon places like India and China will have IT businesses of their own that don't suffer the exhorbant management costs that American companies do. What American managers don't seem to realize is that outsourcing the IT grunt work is only the first step. In five years their job could be overseas as well.
After all, how wasteful is it to have the manager and the workers in separate parts of the world? Onsite managers are more cost effective and better for overall communication.
If it is up to the ISP to decide and implement the blocker, it should still be an "opt-in" program. I can sympathize with non-Slashdotters who can't figure out how to install a blocker. It's a much better option for a customer to be able to call up and say, "Oy! Switch off the porn." But it should not be mandatory.
However, if the government provides the logic to say what is and isn't "violent" and "pornographic", and the ISP must enforce it, it's a terrible idea. If the government is in charge of what is and isn't "appropriate", who's to say it won't get abused? (But I doubt the program's aim is this dastardly.)
Freedom comes from choices, not end-all solutions.