Individually Smart, Collective Stupid [LWN.net]

Individually Smart, Collective Stupid

Posted Mar 26, 2008 0:20 UTC (Wed) by mikov (subscriber, #33179)
In reply to: Individually Smart, Collective Stupid by ldo
Parent article: A tour of the Microsoft open source lab

No it doesn't. While there are many individually smart people working at Microsoft, collectively a lot of their intelligence just seems to cancel out.

I am sure the same thing can be said for any sufficiently large company.

Regardless of your opinion about their intellect, the presumption that individual employees are evil or hostile, is not only illogical but harmful, especially if they happen to be using Linux and proclaiming their love for it .

I personally think that it is naive to consider whole companies "evil". It simply does not make sense. A company is a business entity which has to make money (especially if it is a public company). Microsoft does it by developing proprietary software.

RedHat happens to be "friendly" because they use Open Source and Free Software. Of course they must be friendly - they rely on it for their business! However it is just that - a business decision. If it was more profitable to develop proprietary software they would do it in a blink.

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Individually Smart, Collective Stupid

Posted Mar 26, 2008 7:39 UTC (Wed) by man_ls (subscriber, #15091) [Link]

I personally think that it is naive to consider whole companies "evil".

I am not sure of that: a company is an organization, and organizations can be less evil or more evil, just like people. Imagine if we said: "Hey, the Mafia is neither good nor evil: they are just an organization, just like the Catholic church or Doctors Without Borders". Sorry, but some organizations are more inclined to commit crime than others.

There is something called corporate culture, and it includes a tendency or willingness to do evil or be fair. Standard Oil was bent on keeping a monopoly, just like Bell or now Microsoft. That doesn't mean that good things can't happen despite that environment (think Unix), but it can be harder.

A company is a business entity which has to make money (especially if it is a public company).

That is true, but a bit lopsided. Making a profit is only one of the objectives of a company, and not always the most important; there is also maintaining its stock price, keeping a good public image, respecting the law, making its employees happy, keeping ahead of the competition... And that is besides its particular objectives such as delivering product or developing free software.

Focusing only on one objective for a company is not likely to capture the whole picture. Case in point: what is more important for Microsoft, keeping its monopoly or making a profit? And now its logical consequence: is Microsoft likely to lose money in a deal, just to keep its monopoly in a market?