[Cialug] Mandriva - open letter to Steve Ballmer

[Nathan Stien]

On Nov 2, 2007 9:35 AM, Dave J. Hala Jr. <dave at 58ghz.net> wrote:
> I don't really know what Ballmer did. But after reading the Mandriva
> "open letter" it would appear that Francios thinks Ballmer did something
> unethical. Also remember that ethics are "relative"

Right, none of us really know.  And I agree that it smells fishy.
(Jeff Davis' post seems pretty spot-on IMHO.)

As to the subjectivity or relativity of ethics, hoo boy that might be
a bit of a heady topic for a friday linux mailing list conversation
;-)

> Bribing officials in Nigeria probably isn't any different than making
> large campaign contributions in the US. Granted, I think its wrong, but
> one wonders if I had the resources, would it be a viable business
> practice? When was the last time you saw a business person go to jail
> for making campaign contributions to a legislator that was friendly
> toward the contributing company?

As a point of interest, Lawrence "Free Culture" Lessig has recently
started focusing on this topic.  (I reckon we have a number of
slashdot and boingboing readers on here who would recognize the name.)
 He's assembling thoughts and resources about corruption in the sense
of "influence peddling" on his wiki.  Among other things, he and his
minions have compiled an interesting reading list -- it takes a lot of
open-mindedness to put a Chomsky book on the same list as F.A. Hayek
and Milton Friedman.  I admire someone who can get past the crusty old
"left-right" axis and evaluate thinkers on their own merits.

http://wiki.lessig.org/index.php/Corruption

- Nathan