[Ilugc] IBM and the indian debacle
- From: steve@xxxxxxxxxxxx (steve)
- Date: Tue Nov 24 16:30:36 2009
Hi Acedip,
On 11/22/2009 05:49 PM, anirudh singh shekhawat wrote:
There is a very popular competition which IBM runs in india called TGMC (The
great mind challenge) [1] for students. Well that is all good but the tricky
part comes here. IBM only accepts projects made using its technology i.e.
the tools which only IBM provides to the educational institute you are in
and yes, they dont give these tools to individuals, they can only be
acquired once your institute is in the program and it so happens that IBM
after sending its big boys to your institute and, your college will soon
will make it compulsory for everyone in the final year to make their major
projects for IBM, and my college is one of them and we are stuck with making
our major projects in TGMC if we want or not.
As others have noted that's the way that companies work and your college is
more
at fault than IBM.
If you are disgusted by your college's attitude imagine how you would feel once
you get a job in the 'real world' where your company might ask you to sign a
contract that declares that *any* code you write belongs to the company
(irrespective of whether you used company resources or wrote the code during
your free time at home !!) ! Yes, there are companies like that. In fact, if I
am not mistaken most Indian software firm's contracts have this in their boiler
plate employee agreements.
It is true that IBM is behaving unethically. So, what are your options ?
Well, you could complain and fight it out with your collage authorities, create
a ruckus and refuse to accept such a blatant attack on your rights and you just
/might/ get justice and your collage /might/ just pull out from the program but
be ready to sacrifice your education and possibly your career along with it.
OTOH, you might choose to just go with the flow and accept the crap that they
are shoving down your throat in the name of education and also forgo your
rights
to the code you churn in the process.
This might seem depressing and hopeless but it would be better for you in the
long run.
If however, you /do/ want to make a difference without sacrificing your career,
you can do something else:
a. Get on with the program. Write your project using the IBM tools in the
manner
that is expected with just enough dedication to ensure good marks but not
enough
to make it worth the while for IBM to use your project in any real world
scenario.
b. Encourage everybody in your collage to do (a) and educate as many students
as
you can about the issues that you brought up so that they understand the
'motives' of this so called 'contests'.
c. Horne your skills in the FOSS ecosystem on the side by contributing to 'real
world' FOSS projects.
This is just a smarter more passive way of civil disobedience. By doing this
you
would be rebelling against the 'purpose' rather than the 'process'. IBM as a
commercial entity and will keep up the charade of 'coding competitions' as long
as they see commercial benefit in it. If they realize their investment is not
generating the perceived results, they themselves will back out.
Unfortunately tho' all of that is easier said than done. So, coming back to
what
your choices are in such a case -- practically none
...but don't lose hope. Stick to your personal goals & seek out to use FOSS to
improve your knowledge as much as possible. It will eventually pay off in the
long run.
cheers,
- steve
--
random non tech spiel:
http://lonetwin.blogspot.com/
tech randomness:
http://lonehacks.blogspot.com/
what i'm stumbling into:
http://lonetwin.stumbleupon.com/
Other related posts:
