a) The lawsuit was settled in 2006 (ref andyjohnson0's post http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4687336). The article doesn't say when it was instigated, but it was likely a couple of years prior to that. In 2006, the tech industry was still working its way out of the collapse of the tech bubble.[1][2] Workers and companies were still pretty shell-shocked.
b) A lot of people live in places where the technology sector is not that strong and thus there are not that many options. Often moving is not a viable option due to family responsibilities or other circumstances.
Uh, thanks for the wiki link to the dot-com bubble, I guess.
a) I don't really care about. I doubt much has changed and I don't think it was from fiscal necessity. Also, if they were shell-shocked in 2006 I can't imagine things have improved since then. It's actually disappointing as I rather admire IBM's leadership in open source. Alas, much easier to damage a reputation than build and keep a good one.
As for b), okay point taken. So, don't work at IBM, if you can help it.
"b), okay point taken. So, don't work at IBM, if you can help it."
You can't really help it because there is no guarantee that IBM won't just come along and buy the company you work for. I know lots of people that quit my company when IBM bought it. For this one older lady (HR Director) she has had to keep getting new jobs because 2 of the last companies she worked for got bought by IBM. She doesn't want to work for them so she just had to find another job and then quit.
a) The lawsuit was settled in 2006 (ref andyjohnson0's post http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4687336). The article doesn't say when it was instigated, but it was likely a couple of years prior to that. In 2006, the tech industry was still working its way out of the collapse of the tech bubble.[1][2] Workers and companies were still pretty shell-shocked.
b) A lot of people live in places where the technology sector is not that strong and thus there are not that many options. Often moving is not a viable option due to family responsibilities or other circumstances.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dot-com_bubble
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Nasdaq2.png