Purpose of Copyright
Purpose of Copyright
Posted Nov 5, 2024 9:14 UTC (Tue) by farnz (subscriber, #17727)In reply to: Purpose of Copyright by intelfx
Parent article: Open Source Initiative announces Open Source AI Definition 1.0
This is less a Google thing, and more a US thing; most US states are "at will employment" (i.e. no notice required to quit or fire someone unless the firing is for an unlawful reason), and being fired for being seen as criticising your employer is not an unlawful reason.
The result is that people in the US are very much more cautious of risking being seen to criticise their employers than people elsewhere; I've seen this talking (in person) to friends who work at Google, where the UK employees were fine to go down paths that had their colleagues from the US telling them to shut up because it might upset their common employer, and I've since seen it with other multinationals, including Intel and Arm.
Posted Nov 5, 2024 12:24 UTC (Tue)
by pizza (subscriber, #46)
[Link] (17 responses)
It's is _extremely_ common for your employment (and severance) agreement to include some sort of anti-disparagement clause. Even though these clauses are largely unenforceable in jurisdictions with strong worker protection rules and/or unions, publicly badmouthing your employer rarely goes well in the short or longer term.
Posted Nov 5, 2024 13:15 UTC (Tue)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (16 responses)
Specifically what I've noticed is that US-based employees tend to construe anti-disparagement clauses much more broadly than non-US employees.
A non-US employee would happily consider whether or not Google's training of search indexing ought to be legal or not; they'd still assume that it is legal, since their employer obviously wouldn't deliberately break the law, but they'd happily go down the line of "should the law be changed so that an implied licence does not cover commercial use", where a US employee will often refuse to speculate for fear of going over that line. The non-US employee is quite likely to bring up their employer's products or services as an example of what you'd lose if you changed the law to make the thing they do illegal, but will happily have that discussion even though it veers close to "maybe my employer's behaviour is not legal".
Posted Nov 11, 2024 13:05 UTC (Mon)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link] (15 responses)
I did some searching and it seems that while anti-disparagement clauses do exist around they world, their actual usage varies a lot. I'm in NL and I've never had one, but apparently they're more common for senior management positions.
One big difference appears to be that in much of the world such clauses are limited by (constitutional) freedom of expression which severely limits their applicability for most employees. But in the US since the constitutional freedom of speech protection is only against government censorship, employers can muzzle employees much more easily. As long as I'm not representing my employer I can express my opinion about them as much as I like.
(It's funny the comment about how people in the UK appear much more open to talking about their employer than Americans. I find UK employees very reticent compared Dutch people.)
Posted Nov 11, 2024 15:46 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link]
I can be very critical of my employer. But it's always in a "We should be doing better" context. If people outside of work criticize them, I would defend them strongly, because while Americans seem to see companies as amoral sociopaths, I (and I hope most Brits) tend to see companies as collections of people who all individually want to do "the right thing".
In part I think it's because we have far fewer "Megastar" CEOs, and those we do have are generally viewed as pretty bad - Robert Maxwell, Philip Green, ...
Cheers,
Posted Nov 11, 2024 17:15 UTC (Mon)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (13 responses)
The Netherlands has something of an ingrained culture of upfront "honesty" though. To the extent that people from other countries - Anglo ones especially - pretty much have to get cultural-man-up training when moving to NL. ;) You've grown up with it, but the dutch, uhm, .... "lack of reticence" is something foreigners definitely notice. ;) Possibly only Germans can walk into that without culture shock.
I notice it and I partially grew up with it. This is something that is quite specific to certain Germanic countries - NL particularly, DE too. (I wonder what SE and DK are like - no experience. My limited data points are that Swedes and Danish are a touch more.... "reticent").
Posted Nov 11, 2024 18:03 UTC (Mon)
by rschroev (subscriber, #4164)
[Link] (1 responses)
Posted Nov 12, 2024 10:26 UTC (Tue)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link]
Posted Nov 11, 2024 21:37 UTC (Mon)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link] (10 responses)
Especially when one of the foundations of good software engineering is than you can give each other honest reviews so we all learn and get better. If you let bad choices pass it will cost everyone more in the long run.
The funny thing is, management in the UK had to really get used the Dutch directness. Later they actually started to appreciate it, because when we said something was a good idea we meant it and weren't just boot-licking. Which meant projects actually moved forward because there was buy-in, rather than being subtly held back by people who disagreed.
Apparently it's historically due to Calvinism, which explains why our Flemish neighbours don't do it. Also, seeing the tide come in and not daring to point out the dike is shoddy gets people killed.
Posted Nov 11, 2024 22:05 UTC (Mon)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (6 responses)
Well, quite often I find that when I try to say something, people jump in, talk over me, and put words in my mouth that I would never ever say. Maybe that's why I say far too much here :-)
But it's quite likely that Dutch directness has a quite chilling effect on Brits - if the Dutch kept their mouths shut they might find the Brits spoke out much more. If the imbalance is really that bad in your meetings, you need to ask the Brits their opinion, and if any of your Dutch guys tries to talk over them, you tell them in no uncertain words to keep their trap shut and LISTEN, DON'T SPEAK.
Can't remember where I came across it - many many years ago - but there was a story about a board of directors called in a management consultancy to help them improve their board meetings. And a lot of the board members were quite puzzled as to the value one guy provided - "Why's he on the board, what's the point of having him". Until the consultants asked them where all the board's ideas came from, and pointed out that nearly all the board's "good ideas" came from him.
I'd seriously suggest that if the Dutch are doing all the speaking, they need to learn how to listen. Sorry.
Cheers,
Posted Nov 12, 2024 10:41 UTC (Tue)
by taladar (subscriber, #68407)
[Link] (4 responses)
And I say that coming from a country that is pretty backwards itself when it comes to implementing necessary changes.
Posted Nov 12, 2024 12:59 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (3 responses)
I want PR but not STV! Which way do I vote? I want to keep our existing system, but with a proportional top-up - open ONLY to people who came second.
The snag is, the ENGLISH like to think everything dates from time immemorial and before - "Time Immemorial" being twelve hundred and something, and "before" being "1066 and all that". The Scots, Welsh and Irish would beg to differ, never mind that most of us are Britons/Welsh ...
But with the United Kingdom dominated by petty small-minded little-englanders, it's quite hard to make people look out at all these good ideas in the wider world - the NHS is a wonderful example of a sacred cow that - maybe shouldn't be shot - but deserves to be put out to pasture!
Cheers,
Posted Nov 12, 2024 15:05 UTC (Tue)
by farnz (subscriber, #17727)
[Link] (2 responses)
Note that in the case of the existing FPTP system for Westminster, "time immemorial and before" is the Representation of the People Act 1948, which is the last major change to our voting system (there have been minor changes since, like lowering the voting age and controlling election expenses, but nothing significant).
A lot of the people who feel that things "shouldn't" change don't realise just how recently they did change…
Posted Nov 12, 2024 16:02 UTC (Tue)
by Wol (subscriber, #4433)
[Link] (1 responses)
But yes, I think our current electoral system has probably only really been in existence for since "back to 1948 and the same again". When did they abolish the "rotten boroughs"? 1850-ish? and then Universal Suffrage about 1918 along with the gutting of the House of Lords?
(Or is Universal Suffrage technically the grant of the vote to all MEN over the age of 30? Again 1850-ish?)
Our modern electoral system is *mahousively* younger than Time Immemorial.
Cheers,
Posted Nov 12, 2024 16:52 UTC (Tue)
by amacater (subscriber, #790)
[Link]
Anything prior is assumed to have been there for forever unless there is documentary evidence proving things one way or another. Otherwise, it's a convenient pivot date: anything before is considered true by default- "whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary"
[Legal history was part of my undergraduate degree]
Posted Nov 12, 2024 12:15 UTC (Tue)
by kleptog (subscriber, #1183)
[Link]
Maybe, but it's not like they don't get the opportunity. Even when explicitly asked you get long silences. Maybe we just hire shy people. Even my manager (who is British) says this is normal for them.
Anyway, this is going quite far afield :)
Posted Nov 12, 2024 11:30 UTC (Tue)
by paulj (subscriber, #341)
[Link] (2 responses)
I'm in a weird place, cause culturally I'm not really Dutch, however there must be a genetic component to that directness or something (or I infused enough of the culture in the time I did spend in NL), cause I have it a bit myself and do appreciate it. It's ultimately better than not having it. Though, I do think the Dutch sometimes could do with learning how to sweeten the directness a bit.
An interesting culture is the Chinese one. It avoids directness and confrontation. However, they do still bring up issues, just in a very indirect way. If someone from such a culture seems to be talking to you about something unrelated to anything at hand, and almost abstract - start looking for the allegory! They're probably trying to send you an important message. It's an interesting approach, as it has the advantage of avoiding personal hurt and egos - the issue is never raised in a personal, direct way - and so possibly makes it easier for people to bring up issues.
(That said, there /seems/ to me to be another level to dealing with issues in Chinese culture, which can involve frank and loud exchanges of views usually a group - at least a 3rd party present - yet people don't get outright angry, and they don't seem offended with each other at the end either. I don't speak Mandarin, but it seems quite direct. I havn't figured out how this works, and how the culture manages this escalation from the indirect raising of issues to that more direct, outspoken exchange).
I think it'd be really funny to work in a mixed Chinese-Dutch culture company.
Posted Nov 12, 2024 18:19 UTC (Tue)
by raven667 (subscriber, #5198)
[Link]
I have no special insight but the first thing that comes to mind when presented with this behavior description is that the difference in attitudes would be most likely due to differences in relative social status, a small group of closely knit peers is a very different relationship than a hierarcal one (family or business) or the relationship with professional colleagues and acquaintances that may be similar status but is not personal.
Posted Nov 13, 2024 8:53 UTC (Wed)
by taladar (subscriber, #68407)
[Link]
Purpose of Copyright
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Wol
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Dutch upfront honesty
Dutch upfront honesty
The thing is, I don't understand how you can get anything done if people don't say what they mean. It drives me up the wall. Things like the Anglo-EU translation guide help, but only so far. Like we had a meeting to discuss some survey results about how the business could be improved. Attendance was 50% UK/50% NL, but I think we got three words from the UK side. How on earth do you expect things to get better if you can't even bring yourself to say when something is crap?
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Wol
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Wol
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Wol
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
Anti-disparagement clauses and effect on speech
