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- Newsgroups: comp.os.os2.programmer
- Path: sparky!uunet!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!wupost!csus.edu!netcom.com!stewarta
- From: stewarta@netcom.com (Alex Stewart)
- Subject: Re: Why you should get everything in writing (long)
- Message-ID: <1993Jan10.065318.8344@netcom.com>
- Organization: Netcom - Online Communication Services (408 241-9760 guest)
- X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
- References: <4870@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us>
- Date: Sun, 10 Jan 1993 06:53:18 GMT
- Lines: 40
-
- Sorry, I guess I missed that bit of your followup posting. And "contract" is,
- admittedly, not the right word.
-
- There are, however, still some people that don't get my point:
-
- aki@cruzio.santa-cruz.ca.us wrote:
- : go that far. Don't the guys at IBM KNOW how IMPORTANT invidual
- : software developers are?? Out of Windows software over HALF was
- : made by startups of less than 5 persons. If OS/2 is ever to become
- : anything more than a shadow of Windows, it better stack every card
- : it can find in its favor. Right now IBM just sent a clear message
- : to every code cruncher on this planet: "Don't trust us."
- :
- : It can be argued that this whole affair is the result of an individual
- : at IBM. However, I would like to point out that no matter what the
- : company, the employer is, if not legally, then morally responsible
- : for promises made by employees. Besides, none of the bad-IBM-PR
- : hunting journalists I talked to gave the notion of "just an
- : employees fault" more than a split-second of their time. When will
- : IBM learn: if you are big, everyone will be looking for reasons to
- : pick on you. Of course this does give IBM an excellent opportunity
- : to fix the damage, if it can do so quickly enough. (any VP's reading
- : this looking for brownie points??).
-
- Exactly what do you expect IBM to do? As I see it, there are two ways that
- IBM could have handled this differently:
-
- 1) They could have been prescient and known that this guy was going to give
- out wrong information before he did.
- 2) They could have broken copyright law and given out the source code and been
- sued by Microsoft.
-
- If you can manage to make either of these options reasonable alternatives, then
- I'll start listening.
- --
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
- Alex Stewart: Sysop of YBBS (510) 689-8952 | This space for rent.
- stewarta@netcom.com .----------------------------'-------------------------
- stewarta@carleton.edu | Somebody, somewhere, is offended by what I am saying.
- -----------------------------------------------------------------------------
-