Let's say that I hire you as a software engineer. I tell you to implement several new features in the product you are assigned to. But, you aren't allowed to read any documentation or source code of the project you are working on. It exists, but by law you aren't allowed to read it.
That's the situation TCS contractors are in. Now, laws are laws, and we have to follow them. There is always plenty of money to do things by the book. I thought this was a gov. project, not insurance, but the principle is the same. Transamerica is getting worse service because the contractor that they prefer wanted to look at documentation for a system they payed for. This is why enterprise IT is a legally mandated mess.
> Transamerica is getting worse service because the contractor that they prefer wanted to look at documentation for a system they payed for. This is why enterprise IT is a legally mandated mess.
No, I don't believe that's at all what was happening. I really recommend reading the original compliant[1]. TCS was leveraging their employees with access to CSC's documentation and source code to glean information about how a particular feature was implemented, _not_ for supporting Transamerica, but for reimplementing the feature in their own product.
From paragraph 29 of the compliant:
> A TCS employee, who upon information and belief is part of the U.S. BaNCS development team, wrote in an email: “Quite honestly, I’m not sure how VTG [Vantage] does this today, so maybe we should engage [TCS employees with access to the Vantage source code] if we want to emulate that?”
The complaint goes on to describe the engineers sending the actual source code to the team. This is pretty clear cut theft IMO.
Yes, I have stated that I understand it is legally a no-no because they are violating the terms under which they have access to that documentation. But ethically, I think it is a lot less clear cut, because it allows CSC/DXC to hold their platform hostage and not really have to try for re-competes because they know that they can try their luck in court. They gave TCS access to the documentation, is it really a good use of the American justice system to enforce what they do with it? Is it a matter of ethical concern? I don't think so.
This is why enterprise IT is a mess. Every time you need to do anything, you have to triple check that you aren't violating some clause buried in some obscure legal agreement that you probably don't have access to. Or else, you could cost your firm a quarter billion dollars or more. So you end up with reams of dead software that is unusable by design since it is being held hostage by various different commercial interests. I understand that is just the world we live in when millions of dollars are involved, but we can do better.
On the other hand I get the concern: you would want some legally enforceable agreement with TCS that they won't steal confidential information you share with them in good faith to steal business. Nor go and hire a bunch of staff to poach your contract. But documentation of the software that Transamerica paid for is secret, are you kidding me? They would have been fine, legally, if they got the materials directly from Transamerica. Because they got it from someone who merely used to work there, it is a quarter of a billion dollar mistake. Seems like a pretty narrow difference to me, hardly some kind of grand ethical quandary.
It sucks that they wrote a contract where they didn't have legal access to redistribute documentation to the contractors they hired, but them's the breaks when you write shitty contracts. Any insurance company has armies of lawyers available, so it's hard to feel bad for them.
Oh yeah, you need to follow the law, no doubt about that. But is the law there to provide an ethical framework for productive business to occur, or to provide a level of protectionism to local interests? I don't think you can look at the Indian IT industry and think the former.
> That's the situation TCS contractors are in. Now, laws are laws, and we have to follow them. There is always plenty of money to do things by the book. I thought this was a gov. project, not insurance, but the principle is the same. Transamerica is getting worse service because the contractor that they prefer wanted to look at documentation for a system they payed for. This is why enterprise IT is a legally mandated mess.
This is not the case. Regardless you state that there is a single choice to be made, getting something that works OR having it done legally.
Why would it have to be one, and not both?