[Info-vax] OT: The New Face of HP

[seasoned_geek]

On Oct 17, 10:06 pm, Arne Vajhøj <a... at vajhoej.dk> wrote:
>
> I think the harm to HP's reputation by the fact that they do not
> offer free technical support for beta versions of Ubuntu is
> rather minimal.
>
> Arne

Once again Arne, you have proven that you never read before
responding.

HP has cut loose thousands of IT workers in their pursuit of the low
skill $10/day labor market.  Many of them are or could be registered
volunteer package maintainers.  Philippe was the first to get
desperate enough to attempt extortion in the name of HP.  Odds are he
won't be the last.

I posted this here because HP has shat upon OpenVMS so much nobody
outside of the tight knit OpenVMS community and a token from from HP
come here.  I didn't take this off to the Linux newsgroups or other
places Wired, Computer World, and/or Information Week troll looking
for juicy bits.  I brought the story here so HP could clean this up
and get in front of any future occurrence.

Let me use the big crayons for you Arne.

This is going to be a far reaching problem for HP.  The acquisition/
merger of/with EDS has unceremoniously dumped thousands into the world
of unemployment.  EDS was known far and wide as the bottom feeder of
the consulting industry where margin meant everything and quality
meant nothing.

Given the common business practice of flying IT workers in on a
tourist visa and paying them via an offshore entity so no local
government gets wise, (eventhough it is against the law in most
countries) it is going to be a while before those cut loose by HP in
favor of lower skilled labor find jobs.  Many will be forced to leave
IT itself.

How many of those who were dumped for cheaper/illegal labor were also
registered volunteer maintainers of various Linux packages?  I don't
know.  I will hazard a guess that the little MBA who put together the
spreadsheet showing how much the company would save using lower
skilled labor didn't include a line covering the financial exposure of
axing these people during a down market.  If they did, the decision
wouldn't have looked good on the spreadsheet.

Right now, it's an isolated case, as far as I know.  I don't believe
that will be true for long.