IBM Titles Considered Worthless and Many IBM 'Fellows' Are Vanishing (Also: IBM Staff Inside Linux Attacks the Rights of Computer Users for Recognition or Rewards Like "Distinguished Engineer")
MANY decades ago IBM and computing could be considered almost synonymous. Maybe the term "computing" wasn't used as much back then (the "I" in IBM is "international"* and "M" is "machines"). Nowadays IBM is often not named by those who give a list of "tech" giants (GAFAM does things that aren't tech, but GAFAM companies are presented to the public as "tech").
The following new and ongoing thread discusses what association with IBM means these days:
What seems to be an insider or former insider said "titles have ALWAYS been worthless outside of IBM, like an Employee of the Year award. No one outside the bubble will recognize it. And, look, if you have one and you’re proud of it, good for you. I’m not sh-----g on you. I’m just saying the prize itself is pretty worthless both outside, and now even inside, of IBM. If you have to explain how your Distinguished Whatever is the IBM equivalent of a Fulbright, maybe it isn’t? It’s giving “It’s the Harvard of Guam.” You’ll know the worth of an honor pretty quickly by how hard you have to justify it to others."
James Bottomley is still "a Distinguished Engineer at IBM" (based on his upcoming talks; it just means highly-paid non-manager), but look what he will be promoting next month: TPM**! He'll be giving two talks promoting TPM [1, 2] at FOSDEM, i.e. besieging computer users and taking away freedom/s. IBM is totally on the same page as Microsoft - to the point of compelling computer users to buy new PCs for the additional restrictions in them. █
"He joined Novell in 2008 as a Distinguished Engineer at Novell," i.e. he joined Novell about a year after it became a 'subsidiary' of Microsoft.
The Linux Foundation (Jennifer Cloer) reminds us that he comes from a proprietary software company (Parallels). It's all about money, not freedom.
____
* IBM's so-called founder was doing nazi salutes before it became so popular that even the chief of Twitter does it. The person who sold it to him (to become obscenely rich) is VIP speaker at FOSDEM even though Twitter is still proprietary and so is BlueSky.
** Debian's state-connected people do the same. Their agenda isn't the same as the community's. They are not interested in security for all.