IBM Gets 30 Days Community Service 147
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."
Boo.com used "Urbane Viral Marketting" too (Score:1)
Fly posting is illegal under the Town and Country Act and carries fines of up to £1,000 per offending poster - or in this case, sticker... ouch, now that could really add up.
Those figures are nothing though, the old Boo.com managed to eat through a whopping £178 million ($250m, yup a quater of a billion bucks) in funding in 3-4 months. Man... what were they spending it on?
Re:Why an individual employee ? (Score:1)
Re:Street control (Score:1)
Re:still there (Score:1)
IBM get it (Score:1)
I work for a better known Linux related company, and was at a trade show earlier this week in London. I was approached by two IBM representatives who I chatted to for a while. They weren't stupid and knew what was happening on the Linux front. But I also didn't get the impression that Linux was their primary focus, it is just a part in an overall strategy to them to ensure they have all their bases covered.
I don't believe they truely want to push Linux on to consumers, instead they want to have a handhold on Linux incase it takes off and also make it appear to the Linux community that they are Linux friendly and not a threat, which is true for now.
I think we should try to ride on the publicity they give Linux as much as we can, for now.
Truth different (Score:2)
Who would mastermind such a clever plot? That's right. Bill Gates, noted mastermind behind the Microsoft phenomina. Publically available second quarter financials show that a sizable chunk of Microsoft PR money was spent last quarter, but has a new campaign come out? No! In addition, the general profit report of the firm IBM hired to do the advertising was up this quarter, but how? They were down for the last three consecutive quarters before this, and no new changes have occured in their general financial statement besides the profit boost. Suspicious? Yes! Microsoft may have been funneling money into this PR firm.
Now, why this type of attack? Well, that is clear. What is the greatest threat on the horizon for Microsoft? Not AOL, but Linux! And who is the largest corporate supporter of Linux? That's right, IBM! In addition, IBM is Microsoft's old rival from the days of OS/2 and Windows 3.1. What better way to attack Linux, but through IBM? They could portray Linux supporters as vandals, and at the same time do major damage to IBM, all while hiding behind the latest information on Windows XP. That's right, Windows XP. Microsoft needs Windows XP to go big, because Windows ME wasn't the powerball that they expected it to be, in the face of the Linux threat. Windows 2000 helped, but Microsoft desperately needs Windows XP to overcome Linux in the corporate and home user environment, even if it can't challenge it on the server just yet. We should have known all along that Microsoft was behind this!
Re:Grammar (Score:2)
I fully agree. While it does not follow the classical rules of grammar, it has fallen into such common usage that it should now be considered correct. Strict grammar dictates that you should say "R.E.M. is appearing on stage"; but everyone but the worst kind of pedant says "R.E.M. are appearing on stage".
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you've read the news now wear the shirt (Score:3)
What? You think $18k for global publicity is waste (Score:5)
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.
Frightening. (Score:1)
Well, I guess that's why so much of the money you spend on things goes to marketing and advertising. People wouldn't be spending so much money to manipulate you if they weren't, on the average, getting more back from it.
Picture anywhere? (Score:2)
This is a memorable laugh, a real mind-boggler.
Let him keep developing Linux! (Score:5)
Well, isn't developing for Linux a community service? ;)
no, your honor, you don't understand... (Score:2)
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Re:Punishment proportional to the crime? (Score:2)
And it wasn't even paint, it was water-soluble chalk.
Punishment proportional to the crime? (Score:2)
Hmmm, thirty days of community service for painting something on the sidewalk. Meanwhile, the President's daughter got what, eight hours, of community service for underage drinking?
Weird.
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Re:Ineffective Punishment (Score:1)
I don't think sidewalk-spraying is a terrible crime, and I would probably get over it if it were made legal (as long as individuals got the same freedom as corporations.) However, my point is that if society has decided that sidewalk-painting is illegal, then the given punishment is clearly far less of deterrent to a corporation than an individual and is therefore unjust as it makes it "easier" for corporations to break the law. It doesn't make sense to me that corporations (or rich people, for that matter) should have more rights than the rest of us simply because the punishment meted out upon them de facto has a lesser effect due to their great ability to pay.
I'm not going to get into a whole corporations-are-not-people rant here, but look up AdBusters or the Student Alliance to Reform Corporations or any one of a large number of other organizations if you'd like to see one.
// mlc, user 16290
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Ineffective Punishment (Score:2)
Some sneaker company (I forget which one) did a similar thing a couple years ago where they spraypainted ~ 200 ads on the sidewalk. Of course this was found to be illegal and they were forced to pay to clean it up. However, the cost of cleanup was more than an order of magnitude less than it would have cost them to buy 200 payphone ads or whatever! They prefigured in legal penalties as simply a cost of doing the campaign, and still decided it would be cost-effective to violate the law!
Clearly, stiffer penalties are needed when corporations violate the law -- the fines that are sufficient when individuals do bad things are peanuts to large corporations such as IBM.
(And, you'll have a hard time getting me to believe that IBM is about peace or love. Please! The co-opting of '60s imagery is disgusting in and of itself.)
// mlc, user 16290
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Facts different (Score:5)
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.
Great HTML! (Score:1)
Re:Punishment proportional to the crime? (Score:1)
Re:We have been forever harmed... (Score:1)
Re:Believe it or not, this is good. (Score:4)
Lame.
Community service? (Score:1)
the painting has to do the community service.
It's IBM's VP of marketing who should be out doing
the community service. The corporation has
committed this offence, not the poor slob with the
paint.
Re:Grammar (Score:1)
No, it's clear that you are the one who doesn't know English as it is spoken throughout the world well. To wit, in Australia, collective nouns take plural, not singular, verbs. In this case, since LinuxWorld is composed of numerous individuals, it takes a plural verb.
(Did you know that using US grammar rules, collective nouns can also take plural verbs? Yup! They can when there is some degree of disunity: "The group were unable to decide what to do.")
While it is true that many people who write on slashdot (either as editors or as posters) apparently can not or choose not to write worth a damn, it is also true that many people like to criticise it for the wrong reasons.
(Another aside: what would you say if I declared that slashdot bashing is old and has long since become tiresome? I used to do that in 1997! I even got a defensive email from Rob Malda. Bashing slashdot before bashing slashdot was cool! I like to think that I've since moved beyond that sort of thing, though. In other words, bashing slashdot, for all its faults, is no longer cool.)
My advice: go travel a bit; you might learn something. There's a big world outside of where you live, wherever that is.
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if only... (Score:1)
If only every employee of every marketing and ad agency would be forced to do public service for every billboard, banner ad, tv commercial, etc. they churn out...
the world would be a better place.
Point and Grunt
Re:What? You think $18k for global publicity is wa (Score:2)
That's just for a daily newspaper.
The spray paint advertising from the IBM employee has allowed thousands and thousands of city people to see the ads. With
$18,000. Dirt cheap advertising for international attention...
...with the minor cost of it being done illegally.
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Re:Fake Grass Roots (Score:2)
Re:Why IBM offended me (Score:4)
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:Why an individual employee ? (Score:1)
In 1993, 800 people got arrested for blocking a logging road to protest the provinces logging decisions. Some of them were sentenced to community service -- and spent that time doing volunteer work for environmental organizations.
It's entirely possible that this guy could end up doing his 'community service' for an IBM-sponsored "community project".
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Re:Ineffective Punishment (Score:2)
"The legal system is about rules, not justice."
-- retired lawyer
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Hippies and Power Outages (Score:1)
Re:Grammar (Score:1)
Perhaps if you are a linguist, you can make a descriptive argument about what is "common place grammar" but a linguist is only concerned with deviations from the norm when it results in a failure to communicate (and leads to the creation of a new dialect, which is not necessarily a bad thing).
As for your comments on the story, I tend to think that perhaps you know as much about the situation IBM and its employees are in as you do about grammar.
Re:$18k (Score:1)
Re:Jews (was RE: Grammar) (Score:1)
Re:trolls (Score:1)
Re:$18k (Score:1)
Re:you've read the news now wear the shirt (Score:1)
Re:Why IBM offended me (Score:1)
$18k (Score:2)
Re:$18k (Score:2)
Re:What? You think $18k for global publicity is wa (Score:2)
What if I spray paint .... (Score:1)
Will I be forced to make love with Cindy during 30 days ?
Re:What if I spray paint .... (Score:1)
Re:$18k (Score:1)
And haven't you been paying attention to the SF news, too?
Re:$18k (Score:1)
Re:What I fail to understand is (Score:2)
//rdj
Re:What I fail to understand is (Score:3)
//rdj
Re:What I fail to understand is (Score:1)
I agree, but it's also very obvious that killing someone is illegal. I submit that it's much less obvious that drawing chalk designs on a sidewalk is illegal. The employee doing the actual grunt work might well have assumed (and reasonably so given that he works for a "responsible" company such as IBM) that his company had obtained any necessary permissions from the city. Heck, he probably never gave the matter a second thought. It's the people higher up who should suffer, not the guy with the chalk in his hand.
Re:This *IS* a rather different form of advertisin (Score:1)
I guess they had planned this whole thing including fines or community service all along - because easily removable or not, this is against the law.
Re:Let him keep developing Linux! (Score:1)
Mod this up!!
Re:$18k (Score:1)
I believe the spelling you're looking for is "could've." Sort of like "I've" or "you've." That way, it still sounds colloquial, but it actually makes grammatical sense.
BLAME CANADA BLAME CANADA (Score:2)
Ok so don't blame Canada, but don't blame Big Blue either, it wasn't them who set out to have someone commit this crime, it was a publicist/marketers fault for this stupid action, and it was someone else's stupidity for not drawing the line regarding morals, and money.
If Sig Sauer had paid someone to promote their guns, and some idiot decided to do something like shoot up a crowd, it would be wrong to place blame on Sig Sauer for the actions of any other than themselves. (poor example I know but I was reading Guns and Ammo earlier so sue me)
Listen there is nothing wrong with advocacy, so don't think this is a bash Linux post, it's nothing more than a reality check. You don't commit a crime (vandalism) because someone pays you to do it, that'll make you as guilty as the one who conspired the crime. The guy should have known what he was doing was wrong and opted not to do it. As for the punishment, he should do the community service for it, and be given a swift kick in the ass for being dumb.
What is Deviation v.1 [antioffline.com]?
gotta love it (Score:1)
Wonders never cease . . . (Score:1)
International Business Machines Performs Act of Civil Disobedience to Promote Open Source Operating System . . . George Bush honored at Mensa ceremony
Actually, in real life George W. is getting an honorary Ph.D. from Yale today. Next up:
Temperatures in Hell drop sharply
Boggle... (Score:5)
In other news:
Ariel Sharon plans pilgrimage to Mecca
George Bush honored at Mensa ceremony
Tempratures in Hell drop sharply
Re:BLAME CANADA BLAME CANADA (Score:1)
You can be sure that IBM had a significant say in this propaganda beyond merely funding it. A stable, stolid blue-chip company will not pay some lunatic just "to give them some publicity." IBM had a large stake in this and a large say. They want to change their image to appeal to the next generation of CTO's and other large corporate buyers.
I suppose for someone relatively unthinking, it wouldn't be hard to believe that the graffiti campaign was legal. I mean, they have 12-story pictures of Ru Paul painted on buildings in New York, surely a few 3" circles on the sidewalk (that really don't look altogether unattractive) can't hurt.
trolls (Score:1)
Re:$18k (Score:1)
OK, I'll bite. I can't resist a grammar flame war.
Simply because language is defined by usage does not give you the right to simply make up a "convention" that only you understand. I read the original post some four or five times before I understood what he was saying. Saying "could of" instead of "could have" inhibits understanding. It's wrong and deserves to be made fun of.
N.B.: Yes, I'm sure if you tried you could come up with something wrong with my post. But it can be understood, and is therefore valid. That's the whole point of your (stupid) article.
Why IBM offended me (Score:2)
Well, that's how I feel about this IBM campaign. Peace, Love and Linux
. 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. Not to mention that hippies have always been associated with of "naivette" and "counter-culture". I was offended (in a minor way... not like I lost sleep).Then it hit me, that there are many similarities to the younger compsci culture and the hippies: ludicrous idealism, hypocracy, and disrespect. Kernel hacking is the new LSD. When we're 50 will we have some kind of crazy inode_hashtable or jiffies flashback? Anyway, I now realize that my opinions of so many /. articles/posts can be summed up with the word "techippy" because that is exactly what most of these people are.
See picture of the IBM ads (Score:1)
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Served to you by Sandlab.org [sandlab.org]
Re:What? You think $18k for global publicity is wa (Score:1)
Re:How about... (Score:1)
Contrast (Score:1)
Re:$18k (Score:1)
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Re:Grammar (Score:2)
At the risk of feeding the trolls, using a plural verb for a corporate entity (e.g. "Linuxworld have") is perfectly normal British/Australian English. The reasoning is that it's not a Linuxworld which has an article, it's all those happy folks at Linuxworld who have an article.
Cheers,
-j.
Re:Ineffective Punishment (Score:2)
Re:Street control (Score:2)
Effectively, it is a government-controlled medium of expression, with predictably bad results. Good art rarely begins with submitting a proposal to a government agency.
What does he have to do? (Score:1)
How long is 30 days? (Score:3)
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?
this has applications in the Microsoft case... (Score:2)
Community service is what got them into this (Score:1)
Community service as punishment for doing community service? Cute :)
How could luring people away from Windows be considered as anything other than community service :)
/* Wayne Pascoe
Re:you've read the news now wear the shirt (Score:2)
I sure know that I would by at least two as long as the proceeds went to OSS funding...
Time served... (Score:1)
Re:Boggle... (Score:2)
--Fesh
Re:Punishment proportional to the crime? (Score:1)
Please remove your head from the rectal position.
It was supposed to be water-soluable chalk. It was, in fact, spray enamel (at least here in San Francisco, according to the local paper it was Krylon Enamel). That was the problem.
In my own neighborhood, there are many areas where the sidewalk was damaged by the attempted removal of the enamel. I have photographs of this, which will be on a website as soon as Ritz gives them back to me.
Chalk would have presented no problem. This wasn't chalk.
We have been forever harmed... (Score:3)
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.
Re:You don't see the FreeBSD folk.... (Score:1)
How can I put this so it isn't modded as a troll?
When I first read this, I interpreted it to have just the opposite meaning as you meant it. I then realized how you meant it. There must be a better way to phrase this.
This *IS* a rather different form of advertising.. (Score:1)
Had that happened, then 5 years from now, we might be seeing ads on EVERY sidewalk. It's even scarier to think that this is probably going to happen anyway.
Re:IBM get it (Score:1)
I get the feeling that they are only supporting open source as a way to sell other products that are totally non open source related and that those products only get pushed for Linux once the possibility of selling an NT or AIX solution to is almost dead.
I don't believe they truely want to push Linux on to consumers, instead they want to have a handhold on Linux incase it takes off and also make it appear to the Linux community that they are Linux friendly and not a threat, which is true for now.
Look at any IBM product. There may be a Linux version but don't expect it to have all the bells and whistles of the NT or AIX versions.
I think they are only doing the Linux thing to, as you said, cover their bases in case it actually gains a critical mass. For a company who keeps telling us how much money they are spending on Linux there's not much to show for it... apart from a couple of graffitted foot paths!
That said, anyone who even contemplates running production DB2 or Content Manager systems on Linux (or NT for that matter) is a moron.
Re:Street control (Score:1)
I live in Chicago (Score:1)
Criminal Record? (Score:1)
Re:What if I spray paint .... (Score:1)
Grab.
Re:Grammar (Score:2)
In other words, if we don't talk the way the rules say, then the rules just aren't keeping up.
Grab.
Re:$18k (Score:1)
Spray your message in latex glue or similar substance onto the dress of a white house intern.
Paint it onto the roof of a sports personality who wants to kill their wife.
_O_
Re:$18k (Score:2)
Re:Fake Grass Roots (Score:2)
I'm simply saying that every organization lies, which makes everyone I know a liar.
I have a hard time believing you.
Re:What I fail to understand is (Score:2)
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haha (Score:2)
still there (Score:2)
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You don't see the FreeBSD folk.... (Score:4)
Publicity of course (Score:2)
IBM's campaign is being duplicated like crazy (Score:2)
Not only is IBM getting a lot of publicity off this, so are the copycats. If you ask me, anyone who's copied their campaign (whether on sidewalks or on billboards) ought to be just as liable as IBM. I hate people who can't come up with their own ideas.
Shaun
Re:This is Retarded (Score:2)
If I knew I could get free advertising by defacing public property, I'd be a billonaire right now.
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Re:This is Retarded (Score:3)
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What I fail to understand is (Score:2)
By the looks of it, this poor person has been suckered into doing something which he does not deserve.
irc addict.
But if it was ``Peace, Love and MS-Windows''... (Score:2)
... then the Linux zealots at /. would cry
"Put this stupid Bill-Gates-slave on a jail
for ten years!".
Come one, guys. This was just yet another "we are the good boys because we promote Linux so anything we do will be considered right even if it is against the law".
All in all, it's just business...
Street control (Score:5)
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.
How times have changed... (Score:2)
Nothing (Score:4)