Is it okay for a certain organization or firm to force their IT staff to use proprietary software and then forcing to illegally snatch the development tools from the internet?
I have a friend of mine who works for an Engineering and Consultations firm, she works in the IT staff their as an ASP.NET developer. She says that the IT staff is neglected there, that the company doesn’t provide them with licensed versions of .NET, so she has no choice but to snatch it from the internet in order to get her jobs done.
Is this okay..?
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14 Answers
No. The point at which her company asks her to do something illegal, she should explain that it is illegal and why it is illegal, that she can’t do her job without the software, and get it.
@EmpressPixie
And what if her company ignores or dismisses her complaints?
What’s a licensed version of .NET?
Isn’t that like saying they don’t provide her with a license for HTML?
@fireside
Sorry, I meant, they don’t provide her with a licensed version of Visual Studio .NET.
Do they provide her with any other type of IDE?
I find it hard to believe that they wouldn’t provide any tools for her to do her job, but that is not to say that some employers don’t do just that.
So the real question is, does she want Visual Studio over another option, or is there no way to do her job without Visual Studio?
The question was “is it ok?” yes? well… if you felt the need to use the word illegal to describe the activity doesn’t that answer itself?
@fireside
By the way she said it, I can certainly say no, they don’t.
@Dr_C
Yeah, probably, but I want to make sure, I need to hear that from professional or experienced people.
Well, then it is not okay. She should mention that it is illegal and refuse to do it herself.
If someone else does it for the company, then at least she is not the culprit and is simply working with what they provide her, as opposed to being the person to illegally download the software.
The next concern is, does she need the job or can she find another. Employers who cut corners on things that could cost them thousands in fines are typically hiding other oversights or blatantly illegal activity. If possible, she should just get out.
If it is not possible and they balk at her suggestion to pay for the program, then she is sort of stuck.
@gsiener
Yeah, but unfortunately, her job requires her to use VS.NET 2008.
@archaeopteryx it’s been a while since I worked with .net/asp.net but you should be able to do everything you need to do w/ sharp develop.
You can’t be forced to do anything illegal.
@gsiener
Actually, I haven’t worked with .NET, and actually hate it too.
I’m a Pythoner.
@mattbrowne
She’s probably not forced as if she’d loose her job if she doesn’t do an illegal thing.
It’s just that, she has no choice by to snatch it from the internet, because she can’t afford it. Plus, her company probably won’t buy it for her, because, like she told me, her company is an Engineering company, they treat Engineers as kings and the rest of the staff are merely pawns, they have almost no priority at all.
However, I told her, that I was were, I wouldn’t have stayed in such a ridiculous business environment.
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