Paraphrasing both Joel S and Marc G : Do you do everything my way, just 'cos I ( ... think I know better than a guy that ... ) runs a two-bit software company in New York?

Of course I sodding don't: my company writes for it's conditions and requirements, and not yours.

If I choose to use SVN or GIT or even PVCS, what's it got to do with you?

If the personal dynamics in the team are slightly competitive rather than perfectly "A: let's do it your, way. B: No your way. A: no, insist - your way. ... ad nauseam", does that preclude producing decent software? (I'm C, "C: will you just get it done already!")

Software development isn't about one process or another, it's about meeting the sodding customer's requirements, so they can get on with THEIR business, and most of the time they couldn't give a flying duck what methodology you use, as long as the software does what it says on the tin, doesn't cost too much, and isn't a pain in the ass to use every other day!

In the run-up to 2000, I was consulting for a large international pharma company. My area of concern was in making sure that the software that monitored the maintenance schedules of all the expensive (and in-expensive-but-dangerous) plant didn't suffer from date-difference errors. For example, when does that 500 gallon pressure vessel next need a scheduled maintenance cycle? One-hundred years ago? WHAT? QUICK... EMERGENCY! Shutdown the production line of that drug, the FDA will castrate management for un-auditable maintenance logs!!

So, as others have said, the problems were real, but it was the idiot journalists who couldn't understand the real problem. Afterall, if they were real experts, why the hell are they writing for a newspaper instead of doing it for real?

How about one of the Crown Dependencies of the UK... like the Isle of Man or the Channel Islands.

Both are natively English-speaking, have laws *based upon* but not direct copies of UK law. Personal taxes are lower than the UK, but the health care system is free at the point of delivery, like the NHS.

And it's quite convenient to get back to the UK to see your less adventurous relations. :)

The only down side is that at least the Isle of Man requires you to get a work permit for the first five years, and I think some of the Channel Islands still have minimum income/assets requirements for residency.

They're even nice places to live.