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Comment by spacelizard | Hacker News Reader

You can tell a lot about a company by their attitude on this. The fact that "you should let your users have freedom" is still a controversial statement in those type of companies should tip you off as to how they treat their customers.

Also, the fact that we still often have to use "open source" as a euphemism for "free software" in these type of situations illustrates the point even further. Freedom or liberty does not matter to these companies. It's not even about money or greed to them as they often give away their software/services without charging. All they care about is establishing complete control and dominance of the market.

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I think you are conflating two different things here. I am not debating the first paragraph on how companies treat users but I really doubt the 2nd para.

Not using "open source" doesn't mean what you are implying. There are a lot of considerations companies go through on selecting to work on OSS or not.

That said, the quoted example is confusing at best. Companies are made of people and people have biases. You never know what kind of bias or consideration the hiring manager had in mind. Normally, for me if someone makes a statement which I don't agree with - I do make an effort to ask "Why?". I don't simply walk off because someone has a different opinion. But maybe, that is my idea of getting hired - understanding what and why of things I might end up doing.

This is exactly what I mean though. The term "open source" has become so incredibly politicized that it doesn't mean anything any more. I used to use the term in business contexts but I don't anymore because of this. The real issue is how they treat others. For me a good metric has been if a company is willing to focus on empowering the customer and giving them freedom and liberty.

I've noticed that hammering "why" only seems to work at mid-sized companies -- in the case of a fortune 500, then the whys are usually significantly disconnected from what most employees are doing, unless you're talking to the board or senior management, in which case you are probably being paid to determine the why. In the case of a startup, everyone seems to be running around like chickens with their heads cut off frantically trying to determine the "why" but no one is really sure of what it is.

>The fact that "you should let your users have freedom" is still a controversial statement in those type of companies should tip you off as to how they treat their customers.

Apple is well known for not giving its users freedom. And their products are preferred by the majority.

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