>"Dubious" is in the eye of the beholder. What may be sharp practice to one, may feed another's family.

To an extent I agree. This could be construed as a form of Darwinism – survival of the sharpest. However this axiom ignores another; that one can get more from cooperation than competition. Which in turn ultimately boils down to, do you believe in the abundance or scarcity model? And this says nothing to the question of what does it mean to be civilized – should we as a race be above Darwinism?

>The legal system is how we agree on what is unacceptable practice - e.g. in Japan, where the "one-ring" practice you outlined is under legal review.

Again, I partially agree, however if one bears in mind that we are all very creative and a minority of opportunists etc. will always be seeking out ways or means to exploit loop holes, then we have to conclude that the law can only increase in magnitude and complexity – I believe that we are already at the point that it has become unworkable. Look alone at the unbelievable numbers incarcerated within the U.S.

>In any case, this is off-topic - or are you alleging that outsourcing IT jobs overseas is dubious/sharp practice (as opposed to being merely "dumb")?

I am not alleging anything of the sort – in most cases outsourcing whether local or overseas is undoubtedly a sound business decision and this is especially the case if one completely ignores the unwritten social expectations that we have of our employers.

Margaret Thatcher’s employment secretary Norman Tebbit once responded to a question about how we can find work with ‘Get on your bike’. The ease with which your job can go to India is not the same for you!

>The first two questions I asked in this thread:
>"Do you really think offshore outsourcing has stood still over the last 6 or 7 years? Do you have hard evidence that Sprint's actions will lead to lower quality, and lead to poorer service and higher costs for you, the consumer?"

I have no doubt that “offshore outsourcing” has improved over the last six or seven years – but I would hardly be tempted to compare it with the pace of semi-conductor developments. For me this is more of a social issue and not purely a technical one. I have no “hard evidence” – I have first hand experience which I believe is relevant despite being a few years old. Perhaps when I started this thread I should have phrased my opening more in social terms than technical.

Why Sprint? Why not?