OLPC and Microsoft [LWN.net]

OLPC and Microsoft

Posted May 16, 2008 8:01 UTC (Fri) by jmettova (subscriber, #25848)
In reply to: OLPC and Microsoft by mtall
Parent article: OLPC and Microsoft

_Every_ company only seeks for gains&profit&money. That's what they are for. 

Philanthropy is different. Hobby is different. Those effectively "spend" money.

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OLPC and Microsoft

Posted May 16, 2008 12:23 UTC (Fri) by dgm (subscriber, #49227) [Link]

In an ideal capitalist society every individual should just seek for money and profit, and a
company would be just another individual. Imagine a society like this (or just read books
about early-industrial Great Britain) and you will realize *why* we cannot accept that
enterprises just seek profit.

OLPC and Microsoft

Posted May 16, 2008 22:54 UTC (Fri) by nix (subscriber, #2304) [Link]

Just another individual: immortal and required by law to be sociopathic.

So just like normal men and women, then.

What companies are

Posted May 16, 2008 13:41 UTC (Fri) by tialaramex (subscriber, #21167) [Link]

No, this is a popular misconception.

Companies may be created and operated for any goal or set of goals. Public and some types of
private companies must specify these goals at the time of incorporation and update them as
necessary. It is very rare for the stated purpose of the company to be just "Make money any
way possible".

It is very rare (perhaps even unheard of) to hire a CEO for a company and tell him "The only
thing we care about is making money". It goes without saying that a company, like a person,
usually must generate income in order to survive and certainly to thrive. But that doesn't
have to come at any price, many companies have principles that they hold about profitability.

What companies are

Posted May 18, 2008 5:45 UTC (Sun) by drag (subscriber, #31333) [Link]

YES.

Absolutely. Many companies are created for the pure pursuit of money. Many are not. (what
could you do if you were rich?)

It's like saying that all political parties are created with the goal of pure power and they
don't care about anything else but achieving that power. That's obviously very silly.

Corporation is just a legal category for company. A legal entity that shields it's owners from
certain amount of liability.. ie: if you business fails they won't take your house. This sort
of thing allows companies to take more aggressive risks, like starting a new restaurant at the
edge of town.

If you look at the charter of many businesses they are created for a goal. Maybe it's getting
into space, build a better bicycle, or a new sprocket or whatever. This sort of thing is all
over the map. It's better then being a wage slave for your entire life.

Don't confuse 'corporations' with the sort of publicly held corporations that you'd find on
the stock market. Most of those guys are mostly publicly owned and the board of directors have
a pure profit motivation. They control most of the capitol, but (at least in the USA) the vast
majority of people work for (and most work gets done by) much smaller businesses.

Small and medium businesses are the true backbone to our economy. Hell the entire stock market
isn't really all that relevant to the economy anyways.. although people pretend it is. (I
think it's due to the fact the stock market is so heavily controlled and everything is
accounted for so on a daily basis so it's easy to make pretty graphs to point at on the news
at night and on newspapers)

What companies are

Posted May 21, 2008 8:50 UTC (Wed) by pboddie (guest, #50784) [Link]

Most of those guys are mostly publicly owned and the board of directors have a pure profit motivation. They control most of the capitol

I'm not sure if you meant to write that (instead of "capital"), but there's an element of truth to it, certainly. ;-)