The Power of the Boycott
One of the surprising things about the Internet is the power of public opinion. Time and again, things have happened - or rather, been made to happen - because enough people have become indignant about it online.
That fact lends some hope to the following idea:Anti virus developer Trend Micro accused Barracuda Networks of patent infringement but what they really did was attacking the users of ClamAV free anti virus software with a bogus patent. As a first reaction we feel disgusted about what Trend Micro did: stabbing free software with a knife right in the heart. A company should operate between borders of a certain ethical environment. When a company exceeds the borders of decency - as Trend Micro did by attacking computer users and free software developers - it has become a pariah and should be punished.
You can help by starting to get rid of Trend Micro software in your organization
Will it catch on? Will it have any effect? We shall see? (Via Boycott Novell.)
Posts
2 comments:
More important than whether is is an interesting idea is whether you are going to boycott yourself or advocate others to boycott?
Well, since the whole premise of this blog is that people should be using open source rather than proprietary software, I don't think I need to make any further comments.
I've been using ClamAV for years now, and singing its praises for a while. I've never used Trend and have no intention of doing so.
Unfortunately, this also means that the people reading my blog are probably already convinced, and so exhorting them not to use such products is probably totally redundant....
Post a Comment