It's the Year of the linux airplane !! YYYEEEAAAAHH

>>If you don't understand why you'd care about ensuring that you're using quality components rather than cheaply made knock-off fakes

Today, using a ftdi chip in a new design means :
- using a too common device, typical target for compatibles and fakes
- using a device which costs too much (hence the easy and obvious target for fakes)
- using a part which presents a serious risk of customer return you have to take the cost because of a malicious action from FTDI. You use original chips, but you will be bitten due to good fakes being non discernable

I won't use FTDI in my upcoming products. There are better alternatives who cost half, are of equivalent value, and don't try to screw you to keep asking for a premium price.

I should add :
>>>> Not if you actually test your product before you ship it.
>>Products are not always tested by a windows based tester
EOL testers never get driver updates. "a windows update blocked my production line for 2 days" is the last thing you want to hear.

>> Not if you actually test your product before you ship it.
Products are not always tested by a windows based tester

Not if you perform ANY sort of inspection/testing of incoming components.
>> fakes can be hard to detect. Factories assembling PCBs and sourcing components are rarely in direct control of the OEM.

1) No, we will just design new products to interface USB directly. This kind of action for FTDI tells me that never again will they be on any of my BOMs.
2) Use Linux, avoid malware in drivers.

Use Linux.

No, it's because "Windows X" would fool the buggy code MS suggested trying to detect windows XP :)))

>>The 3GS was released in 2009 and got a security update 2/2014
>>The iPhone 4 was released in 6/2010 and had the latest OS until 9/2014.

The release date is not relevant. Relevant is the end of production date.

Angry ribbon? like angry birds?
Ribbon is as crap as slashdot beta. LO is good :)

"nonsense, plenty of current malware run on XP, better than Microsoft's."

Corrected that for you.

>> Not really.
Yes. Scanning on the network port or scanning on in the inboxes is exactly the same. The purpose of the scan could be the same. Automated or human does not make a difference. Compromised is compromised.

>> Much of electronic collection is metadata
No. This is theory. In practice, they record everything for later (mis)use :
http://gawker.com/5991731/cias...
http://www.theguardian.com/com...

>> Not to mention that even if they aren't looking inside mailboxes for these images, they probably do scan messages traversing their network

Which is exactly the same than opening your mailbox.

>> Someone gets an Office file, modifies it with LO, sends it back. Then they receive the e-mail "hey buddy, everything looks wrong". What happens now?

Not a problem. Everybody uses Libre, and that's the whole point of migrations well done.

>> How much of those €1M savings will be used to sponsor LibreOffice?
Don't know for toulouse, but Munich contributed a lot back, in the form of a kind of frameword, at least.

>> Can we please hear a "status update" of these cities or governments switching to OSS?
https://media.ccc.de/browse/co...
https://www.google.com/search?...

>> Try using LibreOffice in a typical business environment for a couple of weeks

I use it for 3 years now, with shitty xlsx and docx from colleagues, no problem.
Compatibility issues in Libre have faded away since years.