Re^2: Eating your own dog food

[sundialsvc4]

I’m slightly worried by the fact that some of those bugs have been reported by big military manufacturers and space agencies.

I likewise briefly wondered why the Norwegian Department of Defense bought =CLASSIFIED= copies of a product that I wrote.   (But I sold it to them anyway.)

[cavac]

Yeah, i'm in a similar (but yet a bit different) situation: I work for a big automotive supplier, helping to build 4x4 vehicles. So, in effect, my boss and my end customers pay me to help them pollute the planet.

Now, i myself don't even own a car anymore - i decided to ride a bike and use public transportation for longer trips. (Talk about using your own products...)

Well, from what i see, all we can do is to promote responsible use of our products. But ultimately, what the customer does with that products is out of our control... Even if the brick manufacturer makes bricks so customers can build houses, the customer can still use that brick to kill someone. What can the brick manufacturer do about it... except to continue making bricks and putting food on the table for his family.

I think that is the true price of having a free, open market, where the only thing that counts is shareholder value.

[sundialsvc4]

Well, I didn’t mean to make a political statement here (and, perhaps, neither did you).   (And if anybody else wants to, “let’s not.”)   Government agencies use a lot of computers and databases, and “defense stuff” is one of their many legitimate concerns.   But it does make you ... wonder ... sometimes.

[cavac]

No, i didn't mean to be political (altough, in retrospect it sounded like i was trying to be, i guess).

Anyway, i rather have my governments use Perl than {some-other-homepage-scripting-language}. That way i know that there is at least a chance they know what they are doing - they get their money into the perl community ;-)