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Large corporation undermines a group of people to make a buck, news at 11... Businesses aren't your friends, repeat it with me, no matter how much propoganda t

Large corporation undermines a group of people to make a buck, news at 11... Businesses aren't your friends, repeat it with me, no matter how much propoganda they regularly spew out. Sometimes their goals may be temporarily aligned with yours in which case you can leverage their resources but never forget their goals can shift to be misaligned with yours at any point, making them a partial or direct enemy of your goals. A business exists to make money and wealth for someone or some people. If that's not you, then they're not there to help you. I should point out that there are classes of businesses that do exist somewhat as an exception, certain charities and non-profits, but those aren't representative of the vast majority. Even they often aren't necessarily there to help you per se.

adamcstephens 6y ago
Businesses aren’t your friends. Employers aren’t your family. Be wary of either group selling them as such.
- javajosh 6y ago
  Businesses aren’t your friends. Employers aren’t your family. No, but its a helpful fiction as far as it makes everyone more convivial and agreeable. It forms a kind of shared illusion, not unlike the kayfabe of professional wrestling.
  - rob74 6y ago
    Yeah, you should be wary of trusting your employer too much, but if you go through your (professional) life with an attitude of "don't turn your back on anyone, they're all out to get you" the quote above will turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy...
- IgorPartola 6y ago
  This isn’t untrue but it’s also an absolutist statement. There is a big difference between Canonical and Oracle, between Zappos (before Amazon bought them) and Walmart, between Starbucks and McDonalds. Your experience working for these will be vastly different. Your experience dealing with them will be also different. And some will behave closer to “good citizens” than others.
  - randmeerkat 6y ago
    A company isn’t a “citizen”, it isn’t even a “person”. Also why do we even give credence to ideas such as good corporate “citizenship”? Thank you for not destroying the economy or societal fabric..? Way to be a good for profit entity that probably still isn’t raising wages or helping with the homeless crisis..? There should be strong laws and regulations that bind companies and jail their execs if they step out of line. We shouldn’t depend so heavily on so called good corporate “citizenship”. I didn’t vote for these executives, their boards, or their investors. This isn’t what democracy looks like.
    - mrkstu 6y ago
      Corporate citizenship lasts as long as you have a CEO that values it and the CEO has a highly profitable company that they can afford to be generous w/o pissing off the board. Look at someplace like Costco- highly profitable, pays well above average for the sector, employee and community friendly policies... which would all go in the trash if Sams Club starting eating their lunch and their margins disappeared.
    - simonh 6y ago
      The people who own and run companies are citizens though, with all the rights and freedoms that come with that. The fact that they are exercising those as employers or employees should make no difference. In face we all take advantage of our rights as citizens while employed or employing people all the time. Fundamentally Capitalism is simply the exercise of basic property rights and individual freedoms. As fro democracy there's no reason you should have any say in how these people exercise their freedoms under the law, beyond your say in government and the law. If you have a problem with anything they do, then that's a matter for the law and regulation, applied equally to everyone. An idealistic view I accept, but it's what we should be aiming for.
    - IgorPartola 6y ago
      Relax. That’s why I put “good citizen” in quotes. They aren’t citizens but the term “good citizen” means acting in the best interest of society. I am not talking in any way about corporate personhood, just the idea that a company may do things that are a net positive or a net negative and some do more net positive things than net negative things.
- mrkstu 6y ago
  You may have friends at work but yes, don't confuse that with the employer organization itself being your friend. The business will 99.999% do what's better for itself (as defined by the executive team, which is incentivized by the policies of the board) rather that what is best for any employee and sometimes for all employees, though there has to be some agreement with what is best for 'all employees' in order to attract any decent ones.
- wtetzner 6y ago
  > Employers aren’t your family. Unless you work for the family business ;)
- mynameisash 6y ago
  I am hopeful that the idea of a B-Corporation[0] will catch on. While not perfect, my impression is that it would confer more benefit to their workforce and society as a whole than traditional S- and C-corps. For the uninitiated, B-Corps "must receive a minimum score from an assessment of 'social and environmental performance', [and] integrate B Corp commitments to stakeholders into company governing documents". Patagonia, for example[1][2], seems to be a trailblazer in being transparent about and actively improving their business in terms of logistics (monitoring "the cost of materials that have the potential to be Fair Trade Certified against the volume of materials that are purchased in a Fiscal Year"), corporate culture ("[encourage] work-life balance, as well as a focus on an individual’s physical and mental health"), end products (their "criteria for the best product rests on function, repairability, and, foremost, durability"), and so on. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Corporation_(certification) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Corporation_(certification) [1] https://bcorporation.net/directory/patagonia-inc https://bcorporation.net/directory/patagonia-inc [2] https://www.patagonia.com/stories/benefit-corporation-update-patagonia-passes-b-impact-assessment-improves-score-to-116/story-17871.html https://www.patagonia.com/stories/benefit-corporation-update...
  - adamcstephens 6y ago
    I like the B Corp model but would greatly prefer worker ownership.
    - pabs3 6y ago
      Igalia are a good example of a worker owned company in the open source space (and they are hiring): https://www.igalia.com/ https://www.igalia.com/ https://www.igalia.com/jobs/ https://www.igalia.com/jobs/
      - adamcstephens 6y ago
        Thanks :)
api 6y ago
Refusing to invest isn't undermining. It's just refusing to invest. Undermining would be if RedHat did things to actively sabotage CentOS, spread untrue FUD about it, file lawsuits, etc.
- turminal 6y ago
  They slowly got the majority in the CentOS steering committee thus gaining all the power they needed to kill it. And then they did. There was no "you can still be CentOS but without our funding".
  - dralley 6y ago
    It didn't happen slowly, it happened quickly. In 2014, when they effectively rescued the CentOS project by investing at a time when it had been slowly dying for a couple of years.
- Frost1x 6y ago
  Undermining is a proactive action to weaken something. Refusing to invest may or may not be undermining depending on prior state and intent (a lack of action with no history can still be proactive, it simply lacks prior state information to assess). Withdraw of investment with clear negative implications is undermining, which is what happened here. You can weaken through direct attack, withdraw of assistance, or you can even strategically offer assistance to weaken (identify largely unknown harmful processes and help them grow), amongst an array of other strategies, direct and indirect. The grey area is if you've been a bystander to action and refuse to act one way or another because intent is the only information you have and you can't (fairly) gauge on that alone. This isn't one of those cases, this is a clear case of withdraw of active assistence which undermined CentOS. Business processes often work in reverse of what is explained. It's not likely Red Hat made a decision and then informed CentOS there would be consequences. It's far far more likely Red Hat looked for decisions that had the consequence they desired, chose one, and then informed CentOS that wasn't their intent. These sorts of games of misdirection of intent and responsibility are played by businesses and sociopaths all the time. Decisions like this are highly strategic and implications are discussed throughly, meanwhile the narrative is crafted to then look benign and non-strategic.
eeZah7Ux 6y ago
Additional reminders: - corporate-driven open source was never about user/developer freedom - companies have marketing departments and know how to do astroturfing - any project that follows corporate decisions is not community-driven, even if the contributors are volunteers
neilwilson 6y ago
"I should point out that there are classes of businesses that do exist somewhat as an exception, certain charities and non-profits" Not even sure about those. Quite a lot of charities and non-profits set up to fix a problem end up perpetuating it because it is a nice comfortable job.
- Cthulhu_ 6y ago
  I'm pretty confident there's a lot of charities / nonprofits set up as a money laundering and tax dodging scheme. I mean one of the richest families in NL have their money in a bank that is part of a charity.
  - briffle 6y ago
    Ikea is officially a non-profit, and pays a tax rate of 3.5% because of it https://www.fastcompany.com/3035734/ikea-is-a-nonprofit-and-yes-thats-every-bit-as-fishy-as-it-sounds https://www.fastcompany.com/3035734/ikea-is-a-nonprofit-and-...
    - kyuudou 6y ago
      Technically, Ikea is a Swedish multinational conglomerate whose retail locations are partly associated with a Dutch non-profit "Stichting_INGKA_Foundation" founded by Ikea's founder. Essentially, Ikea is profitable because it utilizes a tax-avoidance strategy involving the use of a non-profit and so your comment is in my opinion basically true and they are "cheating" a bit. A pretty slick cheat, though. Also, thank you for shining a light on this as I was ignorant of the whole thing.
- Darmody 6y ago
  It goes beyond that. People create them as their own private tax heaven.

adamcstephens 6y ago

Businesses aren’t your friends. Employers aren’t your family. Be wary of either group selling them as such.

javajosh 6y ago
Businesses aren’t your friends. Employers aren’t your family. No, but its a helpful fiction as far as it makes everyone more convivial and agreeable. It forms a kind of shared illusion, not unlike the kayfabe of professional wrestling.
- rob74 6y ago
  Yeah, you should be wary of trusting your employer too much, but if you go through your (professional) life with an attitude of "don't turn your back on anyone, they're all out to get you" the quote above will turn into a self-fulfilling prophecy...
IgorPartola 6y ago
This isn’t untrue but it’s also an absolutist statement. There is a big difference between Canonical and Oracle, between Zappos (before Amazon bought them) and Walmart, between Starbucks and McDonalds. Your experience working for these will be vastly different. Your experience dealing with them will be also different. And some will behave closer to “good citizens” than others.
- randmeerkat 6y ago
  A company isn’t a “citizen”, it isn’t even a “person”. Also why do we even give credence to ideas such as good corporate “citizenship”? Thank you for not destroying the economy or societal fabric..? Way to be a good for profit entity that probably still isn’t raising wages or helping with the homeless crisis..? There should be strong laws and regulations that bind companies and jail their execs if they step out of line. We shouldn’t depend so heavily on so called good corporate “citizenship”. I didn’t vote for these executives, their boards, or their investors. This isn’t what democracy looks like.
  - mrkstu 6y ago
    Corporate citizenship lasts as long as you have a CEO that values it and the CEO has a highly profitable company that they can afford to be generous w/o pissing off the board. Look at someplace like Costco- highly profitable, pays well above average for the sector, employee and community friendly policies... which would all go in the trash if Sams Club starting eating their lunch and their margins disappeared.
  - simonh 6y ago
    The people who own and run companies are citizens though, with all the rights and freedoms that come with that. The fact that they are exercising those as employers or employees should make no difference. In face we all take advantage of our rights as citizens while employed or employing people all the time. Fundamentally Capitalism is simply the exercise of basic property rights and individual freedoms. As fro democracy there's no reason you should have any say in how these people exercise their freedoms under the law, beyond your say in government and the law. If you have a problem with anything they do, then that's a matter for the law and regulation, applied equally to everyone. An idealistic view I accept, but it's what we should be aiming for.
  - IgorPartola 6y ago
    Relax. That’s why I put “good citizen” in quotes. They aren’t citizens but the term “good citizen” means acting in the best interest of society. I am not talking in any way about corporate personhood, just the idea that a company may do things that are a net positive or a net negative and some do more net positive things than net negative things.
mrkstu 6y ago
You may have friends at work but yes, don't confuse that with the employer organization itself being your friend. The business will 99.999% do what's better for itself (as defined by the executive team, which is incentivized by the policies of the board) rather that what is best for any employee and sometimes for all employees, though there has to be some agreement with what is best for 'all employees' in order to attract any decent ones.
wtetzner 6y ago
> Employers aren’t your family. Unless you work for the family business ;)
mynameisash 6y ago
I am hopeful that the idea of a B-Corporation[0] will catch on. While not perfect, my impression is that it would confer more benefit to their workforce and society as a whole than traditional S- and C-corps. For the uninitiated, B-Corps "must receive a minimum score from an assessment of 'social and environmental performance', [and] integrate B Corp commitments to stakeholders into company governing documents". Patagonia, for example[1][2], seems to be a trailblazer in being transparent about and actively improving their business in terms of logistics (monitoring "the cost of materials that have the potential to be Fair Trade Certified against the volume of materials that are purchased in a Fiscal Year"), corporate culture ("[encourage] work-life balance, as well as a focus on an individual’s physical and mental health"), end products (their "criteria for the best product rests on function, repairability, and, foremost, durability"), and so on. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Corporation_(certification) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B_Corporation_(certification) [1] https://bcorporation.net/directory/patagonia-inc https://bcorporation.net/directory/patagonia-inc [2] https://www.patagonia.com/stories/benefit-corporation-update-patagonia-passes-b-impact-assessment-improves-score-to-116/story-17871.html https://www.patagonia.com/stories/benefit-corporation-update...
- adamcstephens 6y ago
  I like the B Corp model but would greatly prefer worker ownership.
  - pabs3 6y ago
    Igalia are a good example of a worker owned company in the open source space (and they are hiring): https://www.igalia.com/ https://www.igalia.com/ https://www.igalia.com/jobs/ https://www.igalia.com/jobs/
    - adamcstephens 6y ago
      Thanks :)

api 6y ago

Refusing to invest isn't undermining. It's just refusing to invest. Undermining would be if RedHat did things to actively sabotage CentOS, spread untrue FUD about it, file lawsuits, etc.

turminal 6y ago
They slowly got the majority in the CentOS steering committee thus gaining all the power they needed to kill it. And then they did. There was no "you can still be CentOS but without our funding".
- dralley 6y ago
  It didn't happen slowly, it happened quickly. In 2014, when they effectively rescued the CentOS project by investing at a time when it had been slowly dying for a couple of years.
Frost1x 6y ago
Undermining is a proactive action to weaken something. Refusing to invest may or may not be undermining depending on prior state and intent (a lack of action with no history can still be proactive, it simply lacks prior state information to assess). Withdraw of investment with clear negative implications is undermining, which is what happened here. You can weaken through direct attack, withdraw of assistance, or you can even strategically offer assistance to weaken (identify largely unknown harmful processes and help them grow), amongst an array of other strategies, direct and indirect. The grey area is if you've been a bystander to action and refuse to act one way or another because intent is the only information you have and you can't (fairly) gauge on that alone. This isn't one of those cases, this is a clear case of withdraw of active assistence which undermined CentOS. Business processes often work in reverse of what is explained. It's not likely Red Hat made a decision and then informed CentOS there would be consequences. It's far far more likely Red Hat looked for decisions that had the consequence they desired, chose one, and then informed CentOS that wasn't their intent. These sorts of games of misdirection of intent and responsibility are played by businesses and sociopaths all the time. Decisions like this are highly strategic and implications are discussed throughly, meanwhile the narrative is crafted to then look benign and non-strategic.

eeZah7Ux 6y ago

Additional reminders: - corporate-driven open source was never about user/developer freedom - companies have marketing departments and know how to do astroturfing - any project that follows corporate decisions is not community-driven, even if the contributors are volunteers

neilwilson 6y ago

"I should point out that there are classes of businesses that do exist somewhat as an exception, certain charities and non-profits" Not even sure about those. Quite a lot of charities and non-profits set up to fix a problem end up perpetuating it because it is a nice comfortable job.

Cthulhu_ 6y ago
I'm pretty confident there's a lot of charities / nonprofits set up as a money laundering and tax dodging scheme. I mean one of the richest families in NL have their money in a bank that is part of a charity.
- briffle 6y ago
  Ikea is officially a non-profit, and pays a tax rate of 3.5% because of it https://www.fastcompany.com/3035734/ikea-is-a-nonprofit-and-yes-thats-every-bit-as-fishy-as-it-sounds https://www.fastcompany.com/3035734/ikea-is-a-nonprofit-and-...
  - kyuudou 6y ago
    Technically, Ikea is a Swedish multinational conglomerate whose retail locations are partly associated with a Dutch non-profit "Stichting_INGKA_Foundation" founded by Ikea's founder. Essentially, Ikea is profitable because it utilizes a tax-avoidance strategy involving the use of a non-profit and so your comment is in my opinion basically true and they are "cheating" a bit. A pretty slick cheat, though. Also, thank you for shining a light on this as I was ignorant of the whole thing.
Darmody 6y ago
It goes beyond that. People create them as their own private tax heaven.