TomS Words of Wisdom

Toady I was informed, in a somewhat formal meeting with my supervisor, that my initiative to develop and deploy an open source barcoding tool for my co-workers to use has been rejected because our legal department is fearful about using software that is covered by the GNU Lesser General Public License. This despite the facts that: 1) Another division of our company (like many other companies) manufactures and distributes a Tivo which includes many software components covered by the exact same license and even the more restrictive GNU General Public License. And 2) that our upper management has historically been strong supporters of open standards such as the compact disk and the universal serial bus. Oh well, this in and of itself is simply an example of the old adage that the quickest way to kill a good initiative, is to consult the legal department.
As if simple rejection weren't enough punishment, I was also informed that my web site included or contained inappropriate "self promotion" using the {Employer’s Name Removed} name [and/or trademarks?]. While parts of my web site, including TomS Barcode Bonanza, are blatant self-promotion, I thought that my referential use of the {Employer’s Name Removed} name was typically editorial in nature. And I certainly haven't tried to pass my self off an official spokesman for {Employer’s Name Removed}. I've even tried to link to official {Employer’s Name Removed} sites for those who are looking for that kind of information and stumbled across my site instead.
For the most part I've been proud to be an employee of {Employer’s Name Removed}. So I am somewhat disheartened, that I feel I need to censor my web site to keep from offending my employer. So in the coming weeks, I will be updating various past posts to my blog and other pages to reflect this paranoia.