Just saying.
Have Oracle's attacks on open source software [1] affected their ability to hire and retain talent?
Is there any example where bad behavior by a large organization [2, 3] meaningfully affected its ability to buy the talent it needs?
[1] http://www.wired.com/2010/08/oracle-attacks-opensource/
I know that I have had the opportunity to apply to work at the NSA. When I was looking for job opportunities after college I perused lists of government jobs, including positions at the NSA. I know that today, I would not apply to work there. I'm one person, but I know many engineers of a similar mindset and read about many more, so I assume it's a trend. I definitely don't know what rate of potential applicants conform to this mindset, but I know some do (me, the people I know like me, and voices I've heard on the internet).
Therefore, I can meaningfully argue that they would have a harder time hiring. Of course I might be wrong but that's what you get when you operate with incomplete data.
However, it takes a special type of odd personality to work there (doing amazingly cool stuff but not being able to talk about lots of it). The personalities that fit there well don't fit elsewhere very well.
Source?
I think NSA employs over 30k people. You're going to make a baseless claim that they all share one common personality trait, making them a poor fit for any other possible place of employ, in the whole world?
Really?
We know, for a fact, that the vast majority of NSA employees are willing to subject themselves to enhanced scrutiny (limited travel), behavioral controls (they will discuss your porn and online accounts), and submission to a fairly arbitrary set of rules (such as polygraph tests) that have no proven connection toward their job or efficacy.
Okay, so, we HAVE demonstrated that NSA employees do share at least one common personality trait that is reasonably unusual in the general population.
Perhaps I was being a bit overzealous and should provide a bit of exception. People who stay with the NSA for very long don't fit elsewhere very well.
Now, this probably doesn't apply to those who don't have security clearances. But then, you're basically claiming that the NSA is just like a standard employer--and that's not normally what people think of when they think of "working for the NSA".
I'm not sure this part is true. "submission to a fairly arbitrary set of rules" sounds like every job.
> that's not normally what people think of when they think of "working for the NSA".
Most people working for the NSA aren't working as a "Jason Bourne"-type (which is what we think of as "working for the NSA).
I would claim the NSA's very much like a standard employer... but with a (significantly) more heavily enforced NDA.
That makes a huge difference.
(long-form: https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinteresting/comments/2j7jo4/r...)
If you develop a web service and make it accessible from the public internet, what restrictions should you be allowed to place on its usage? And what should the consequences be for individuals trying to bypass those restrictions?
Whatever you want. Public API access =! protected right.
> And what should the consequences be for individuals trying to bypass those restrictions?
Denial of future access by technical means.
However, providing the tools that allow instituting legal restrictions is a big can of worms; property rights just don't apply cleanly to client/server communications.
The solution is to require API accounts, which you can then monitor and terminate with prejudice. Tie the account to something unique-ish, or difficult to constantly cycle (SMS? check provider, deny if Google Voice, Twilio, has to be a physical carrier if we're talking messaging client).
The law may eventually catch up to tech. Maybe.
Similarly when someone uses a server in a way you don't like you send 'people with guns' to resolve any disputes, because in this case lawyers are believed to be cheaper than changing the server.
This isn't about the ideals of law and power, it's about getting people to stop doing things you don't like, apparently WhatsApp chose a reasonably effective strategy.
Not everything is special simply because it's digital.
Imagine if Windows Server had been SaaS; Samba would never exist, Mac OS X and Linux couldn't operate in a Windows environment.
Where property law falls down is when we consider what it is you're selling -- access to a service, or a fully controlled end-to-end service agreement where you assert control over both the client and server.
If it's the latter, does this create a healthy market, or does it create something that could never exist before: the ability to create a "natural monopoly" on an individual customer level. That is, once people are invested in your platform, the cost to compete for that person is so high that it creates a nearly unassailable barrier to entry?
Pre-SaaS, if someone wanted to compete with Microsoft Office, they could invest the effort supporting the Office file format to ease customer transition.
Post-SaaS, if Google Docs, Office 365, et al disallow data/API access to third-party clients, supporting your competitors' existing customers becomes impossible.
Anything else basically ends up a) not working and b) requiring government intervention of one sort or another, eventually, and that harms everyone.
Just saying.
In a longer term, open solutions prevail. OTOH it might be not the moment yet for WhatsApp. Compare the stance of Microsoft in 2005 and 2015.