On 10/15/2015 4:02 PM, Vic Smith wrote:
On Thu, 15 Oct 2015 12:00:49 -0700, Don Y
wrote:

Actually, you would be surprised how often this continues to occur!
I worked at a firm that based their control system on an Apple ][
computer. Long after Apple ][ computers could be *purchased*!
(tell customer that you bought the guts of the control system for
his $1M production system AT A GARAGE SALE!!)

About a decade ago in Chicago there was an incident where a programmer
or systems analyst (CICS) left in some sort of dispute and took his
source code with him. Code for the air traffic control system of
either O'Hare airport, or the entire Aurora regional center.
Should be news articles somewhere on the net.
I think the feds arrested him before it got straightened out.

Ha! I wouldn't doubt it! People/firms don't really know where
their "value" resides. I've had clients contact me to recover
the source code from ROM images -- because they mistakenly thought
that having the ROMs was all they needed to *produce* their
product (which is technically true -- as long as you never intend
to CHANGE that product! : )

E.g., thinking potato chips and computer chips are of equal value
to an economy...

Big companies can be ineptly managed. I was sole support for a fixed
income system at a major insurance company for about 3 years.
$50 billion in assets. They were moving the system from mainframe to
client server, but the move wouldn't happen for a year.
The investments department had undergone massive changes in the move
to client server, and ALL of the mainframe guys who knew anything
about the system were gone.
My "IT manager" came to my desk one day, and told me my contract
wasn't being renewed. Two weeks. I nodded my head and said "Okay."
We didn't talk much anyway, just exchanged pleasantries.
I was surprised Vince, my client user, hadn't told me first. We had a
good relationship, and I respected him, but I never took anything for
granted in the corporate world. Still, I was surprised, since I had
many high-level friends there, and hadn't caught wind of it.
The system was active and doing all the fixed income business,
including the CICS trading terminals.
I had a couple weeks ago converted to hourly from salaried with the
contracting company I worked for. They had boosted my rate with the
insurance company. I had become "too expensive."
Later that day I went to Vince's office to tell him what a joy it been
to work for him - I never burned bridges.
All he could say was "What?" and "I'll take care of it" and "You ain't
going nowhere" before he stormed out the office.
Anyway, I maintained that system until it's demise a year later.

Something about "left hand" and "right hand" comes to mind :

A firm I worked at early in my career did a lot of subcontract work for
an IBM division. One of my friends, there, being the "heart and soul"
of that business at our firm.

He ended up leaving because he got fed up with *his* boss (who would
denigrate his work, take credit for *his* efforts, etc.). That boss
(and above) went out of their way to hide my buddy's departure from
the client (IBM).

One day, the big wigs from the IBM division flew into town and
demanded a meeting with our top management. When the conference
room door closed, the first words from their mouth we
"Does John Doe work here, or not?"

I.e., rather than being open with them about this change in KEY
(*essential*) personnel, they had hoped to hide that fact -- lest
they also have to explain why John Doe had left the firm (and
risk John Doe giving them "an earful" -- much to the dismay of
*his* boss.

The amount of business conducted with IBM thereafter steadily decreased.
Probably not from a decrease in quality but, rather, from this (stupid)
personal business fallout.