It's illegal to drive on public roads without a driver's licence.

It ought to be illegal to use a computer connected to the internet without some form of minimum qualification. i.e. an "internet licence"

A computer consultant advocating Windows is like a doctor prescribing cigarettes. It creates a lot of extra work.

Thanks for taking the time to write a thoughtful though flawed response. The thing is, I never mentioned Linux. Furthermore, I would say that the continued existence and popularity of the Apple Macintosh refutes the rest of your arguments hinging on ease of use and technical support. In fact you have perfectly illustrated the point that I am making here.

There was a time when doctors routinely prescribed smoking cigarettes as a quick and easy fix to all manner of ills. The long term hazards and effects weren't properly understood, and by the time they were, there was such a huge vested interest in perpetuating the smoking habit that the battle to remove it for the common good is still far from over, and may never be.

Likewise it is all too easy to facilitate yet another Windows installation, rather than risking your income by swimming against the tide. Even if you already know that the software that you are installing is inferior, you will go ahead and install it anyway, putting your own self interest ahead of those of your unfortunate clients.

As for the attitude of management towards this corruption that is so pervasive throughout the industry, I think a quote from one of my own past employers sums it up the best. "If we adopt this other more cost effective technology it will reduce my departmental budget and then Bob (the manager of another department) will get a better parking spot than me."

A computer consultant advocating Windows is like a doctor prescribing cigarettes. It creates a lot of extra work.

A computer consultant advocating Windows is like a doctor prescribing cigarettes. It creates a lot of extra work.

Yes, you do that.

Who knows, you could accomplish the space age equivalent of introducing syphilis to polynesia, or bring tobacco to civilisation.

But I expect that all you're really capable of doing is tearing up the sand dunes in your SUV, shooting stuff with guns, and leaving your empty beer cans behind.

So if you do go on a trip, don't come back.

And none of it to the military.

Don't despair, it can be done, as my friend Dave Keenan so ably demonstrated.

http://users.bigpond.net.au/d.keenan/CO/index.htm

NASA should stick to what it's so good at doing: sending robots into space.

We meat bags should stay on Earth where we belong.

You can get enough money to keep doing what you want to do, lots of different ways, from lots of different sources. However few people ever get the chance to really make a difference by doing something worthwhile like a successful open source project. You can't put a price on that so don't even try. If you can get this other company to sponsor you with no strings attached, great, but otherwise tell them no.

I was in the same position a few years ago with tracktype.org and I'm happy to say the decision was easy to make at the time. Now it's grown from a few thousand hits a week to a few million hits a week and no amount of money could have bought that much satisfaction.

...the CBS article reads like 1984, urging travelers to treat all electronic devices (from fax to cellphone and back) as compromised and then proceeding to talk about China's aggressive cyber-espionage programs.

This would be fine if it warned US citizens about the US government's invasive Internet and telecomm spying. What we have here is a severe case of the pot calling the kettle black.

However, in the case of the US government, said spying is in direct violation of the documents that give the government authority to operate (in particular, the 4th amendment); I'm not at all sure that anything similar can be said of China, which has an entirely different form of government. Consequently, I suspect the US deserves considerably less respect than China does with regard to these activities.