At 11:16 AM -0700 7/24/01, mmotyka@lsil.com wrote:
A very sound prediction about the behavior of a subset of potential employees. I would bet that 40-50% of SW people haven't even heard of the DMCA and Sklyarov or don't see it as a problem.
While I'd like to think Adobe's behavior will limit their access to people who fall on the high side of the curve, I've met plenty of bright people who just don't care about certain issues.
Another counter-factor for your prediction would be continued economic decline and a scarcity of jobs which while not a certainty is certainly a possibility. The all-consuming Bay Area monkey-on-the-back mortgage might tend to eclipse the politics for all but the most stallwart technology freedom fighter.
I know of people who refuse to buy Intel-based machines "on principle." Some are Sun users, some are Mac users, some think they are bypassing Intel by using AMD Athlons. And the anti-Microsoft efforts are legendary. Alternative OSes, Star Office, etc. If some people will go to these lengths to avoid MS products, imagine the programmers they are missing out on. (I understand that there are still tens of thousands who work for MS. The interesting regime is at the margins, in the five sigmas zone.) Likewise, I know of even some Cypherpunks who have left their employers for ideological reasons. And if some have _left_ jobs, the effects are likely greater on the _recruiting_ side (where the costs of a decision are much less). No wonder Adobe is back-pedalling so furiously. (This, and fears that Adobe salesmen and engineers may be arrested for violating _Russian_ laws, e.g., the European laws (I have read about) that make it a crime to sell a software product which cannot be backed-up. And if not this law, they may find something else to arrest and Adobe person for. Trading cards. Adobe escalated the war. Now Adobe realizes what can of worms they have opened.) --Tim May -- Timothy C. May tcmay@got.net Corralitos, California Political: Co-founder Cypherpunks/crypto anarchy/Cyphernomicon Technical: physics/soft errors/Smalltalk/Squeak/agents/games/Go Personal: b.1951/UCSB/Intel '74-'86/retired/investor/motorcycles/guns