Musings

A week an a half ago, in an essay titled “I don't pay for Netflix”, I wrote:

IBM helped the Nazi's with genocide in the 1940's. Not hypothetically, actually.

Is this true? Let's find out.

Today, a linux contributor that is employed by IBM was forced to remove their name from the credits. To avoid any misrepesentations, this is the full context we have at this time, quoted below:

I am making this change again since I received the following instruction.

“As an IBM employee, you are not allowed to use your gmail account to work in any way on VNIC. You are not allowed to use your personal email account as a “hobby”. You are an IBM employee 100% of the time. Please remove yourself completely from the maintainers file. I grant you a 1 time exception on contributions to VNIC to make this change.”

Wow. This exemplary power differential reminds me of a Dave Chappelle quote.

My name and likeness is being used by them [Comedy Central] in perpetuity throughout the universe. It's in the contract. (Dave Chappelle, Unforgiven (2020))

Dave's situation reminds me of the situation that Lijun is found in currently. IBM has forced Lijun to remove their name and email from the credits. It is in the contract.

Hollywood at least puts names up at the end of a film. For Dave, his identity was stolen. Dave's monster wouldn't pay for content. That is like the monster that gets fed when people don't pay for software.

Dave's monster owned his name and likeness. Until Dave became powerful enough to reclaim them.

What would it take to get Lijun's [REDACTED] back? Can we even say Lijun? How many more Lijuns are out there in the world?

What are their stories?