Not a consumer boycott; an employee boycott. It might make a company think twice before touching this type of work if they knew it would make it impossible to hire or retain good programmers.

A boycott might have worked in a better economy, but there are far too many unemployed workers capable of implementing SOPA restrictions that would love a job, regardless the moral implications.

Also, the employees that work at SAIC/Raytheon/federal contracting are already more used to working on things that are morally questionable. Sometimes they're black-box implemented (where each party makes only a small part of it, and it is then pieced together later,) but usually it isn't.

I like the idea, but so far the attempts to make that happen with companies that work on the Great Firewall of China have been, I think, pretty unsuccessful. Cisco's gotten some bad press at times, but programmers still go work for them.

Many of employees have mouths to feed, and they might become unemployable if the company they're applying needs references and comes to know of this. Not to mention guest workers on H1 visas who have to pack up and leave the country along with children the day after they quit the job.

I'm not sure you read the article or pg's post. Consumers aren't boycotting. Programmers and those building SOPA would quit, so Raytheon and SAIC wouldn't have an employees to build it.

I've known lots of contractors for companies such as SAIC (I was one myself for a few years, not for SAIC, but for another much smaller company in Indianapolis) and they will have no such compunctions.

Sorry, pg - I know you talk with a lot of smart people, but you don't have to be too smart to break something. You just have to be venal, and there's never a shortage of venality.

This boycott is doomed to failure from the get-go.