IBM Gets 30 Days Community Service

CelestialWizard writes "Linuxworld have this story regarding the IBM employee that has been ordered to perform 30 days community service for spray painting "Peace, Love and Linux" ads on Chicago sidewalks. See the older story."

you've read the news now wear the shirt

IBM would get even more cheap publicity if they started selling "Peace, Love, Linux" T-shirts. Anyone know where I might buy one?

What? You think $18k for global publicity is waste

You know, even here in Australia we heard about the IBM Linux advertising campaign and I'm sure it was reported in many many other countries. And it was reported not just in the IT section, but in the main news section.

For $18k, hundreds of thousands of people around the world heard about Linux and heard that the most recognised IT company in the world is backing it. So not only has the Linux 'brand' gained further publicity (and hence acceptance) around the world, but it's also gained legitimatecy (sp?) by having a blue chip IT company associated with it. That kind of publicity is worth millions and millions of dollars.

So stop thinking small, and think big picture and you will see that this $18k was a great investment in Linux.

Let him keep developing Linux!

Well, isn't developing for Linux a community service? ;)

Facts different

Of course, the facts in this case are a bit different than the story and the submitter make them out to be.

He's not an IBM employee, they hired a firm, like any other large company, to do a promotional campaign.

That company obviously screwed up, campaign materials called for non-permanent medium, though that would likely have been illegal as well.

IBM did the right thing by helping with the cleanup.

Re:Believe it or not, this is good.

This is good?! This is the start of something very scary. You can't cross a street in my neighborhood (Upper Haight/San Francisco) without seeing this bullshit painted in the crosswalks. It pisses me off and I'm a supporter of Linux. Yes, this gets IBM publicity but at the cost of the people who live in these neighborhoods and have to look at this crap every day, most of whom couldn't care less about Linux or any other operating system for that matter. I can almost stomach this because I'm a supporter of Linux but how cool is it going to be when we start seeing ads for Camel cigarettes or McDonald's painted in the street?!

Lame.

Re:Why IBM offended me

I am not a hippy. The Hippies were a bunch of rich assholes who dodged the draft and took drugs. Those Hippies that survived are the gerks responsible for the power outages in California today.

Well, I was a hippy (and arguably still am). I'm not rich, and in those days I was a lot poorer. I rarely take drugs, even legal ones. I've never dodged any draft. I write quite a lot of open source software, and some of it quite a lot of people use.

Yes, hippies (like open source people) were about idealism. I don't see much hypocisy, and I don't see any disrespect (except, perhaps, from you). So what's your point? You don't want to be assoicated with idealism? That's fine, you don't have to be. The exit door is here [microsoft.com]. Close it behind you on your way out.

Re:What I fail to understand is

If your company tells you to kill someone, you'll get arrested. The fact that your job is in danger is a VERY bad reason to break the law. You do the painting, you do the time. The guy should have known better and IBM got off too easy.

//rdj

Boggle...

International Business Machines Performs Act of Civil Disobedience to Promote Open Source Operating System....

In other news:
Ariel Sharon plans pilgrimage to Mecca
George Bush honored at Mensa ceremony
Tempratures in Hell drop sharply

How long is 30 days?

It's a small point, but how long is 30 days of community service?

Whenever I've heard about people being ordered to perform community service it has always been a number of hours -- 50 hours, 100 hours, 250 hours, whatever. That way it is easy for people to keep track of how much service the person has done.

Does 30 days mean 30 x [mean number of hours worked per day] hours of community service? Does it mean that whenever he would be at work for the next 30 days he has to be doing community service instead? Or does it literally mean 30 *days*, ie 720 hours?

We have been forever harmed...

Does nobody around here see how IBM has permanently harmed Linux enthusiasts with this? I live in the Haight-Ashbury district of San Francisco, and I've had to defend Linux to more than one of my neighbors because of this whole thing. And I tragically must admit that their anger is justified: IBM smearing their logo feces on our neighborhood is an abomination. What's worse is that in some areas (like in the brick-paved sidewalks of Market Street), the spraypaint proved to be difficult to remove. It makes me cry, literally, that my beautiful city has become permanently stained by this. In the eyes of many in the general public, IBM has made Linux enthusiasts a street gang, full of "taggers" who (like dogs) mark their territory by urinating on everybody else's property.

IBM needs to do more than pay a measly fine. IBM needs to serve "jail time" in the form of forfietting 30 days of corporate profits to CleanSF and similar organizations in cities they crapped on... groups that spend their time and energy trying to keep the streets of our towns clean. IBM needs to publically apologize with large, full page ads in local newspapers.

But most importantly, IBM needs to apologize to the Linux community, for making us look bad in the eyes of our neighbors and friends.

$18,000? Pshaw. That's the price for ONE of the billboards they placed along the 101 Freeway. IBM needs to truly pay for this crime, otherwise they're just another corporate criminal, who's gonna rape Linux for all it's worth and leave us out in the cold.

You don't see the FreeBSD folk....

...vandalizing sidewalks. I guess they don't have anything to prove!

Re:This is Retarded

If I knew I could get gree advertising by defacing public property, I'd be a billonaire right now.

--

Street control

This reminds me of what happened on a film set a few years back. The filmmakers of "The Doors" wanted an authentic indian cave where they could film on location with indian petroglyphs in the background. They received permission on the explicit understanding that no indian petroglyphs were to be touched. Except an art director didn't get it, he thought the petroglyphs didn't come up clearly enough on camera so he painted over them with a water based paint. He completely covered every written character with dark paint. The petroglyphs were originally done in water based pigments, he thought he could wash off his overpainting but that would have washed off all the original petroglyph too. Now there is nothing left but the dumb art director's painting. Another wonderful cultural relic raped, pillaged, and destroyed by Hollywood greed-heads.
Anyway, the laws used to prosecute IBM are a two-edged sword. Street artists go up against fines like this all the time. I recall artists like Robbie Conal in Los Angeles plastering posters of political satire all over the city. An artist I knew did an amazing mural under a bridge in downtown LA. He painted it in reflective paint, you couldn't see it in the day, only at night by your car's headlights. And the city decided to paint over it. Another artist I knew did a series of oddly beautiful mini-murals, with the message "Justice Just Is." The city went out of its way to paint them over immediately. LA has laws to protect stupid murals from the days of the Olympics, but doesn't hesitate to paint over the street artists. And I'm not talking graffiti taggers, these were serious artists with no other way to reach the public except directly. I'm not sure I endorse the concept of the city government having total control of the public space and who can say what in public. I know advertising doesn't really enjoy the same first amendment protections, but when the same laws are used to suppress advertisers as well as artists, I sense a slippery slope ahead.

Nothing

That's nothing. MS has been spraypainting the Windows logo on my monitor for years.