I really don't want to dignify the slashdot poster's comment with a reply nor does Clemens need a small-time guy like me to prop him up -- but for what its worth I have worked in a fairly big financial firm in Wall St., for quite a while -- although the poster's point is correct to an extent about GNU infrastructure, the conclusion is about as stupid as it can get. I worked on a completely Windows infrastructure (DCOM/ActiveX and the like) and for the architects out there they simply want the best technology that can get the job done while expecting a return on the investments they have ploughed back into their IT infrastructure. They are practical people and the last thing in the world they would do is get religious about the whole thing. Atleast that has been my experience.

Ok, the commenter doesn't sound like someone who actually works on Wall Street and you might argue over how important Linux is over there, but he makes some excellent points about employers. Mostly that most employers hire along a "5 years Java, 10 years C" template and that it would be better to look for people that "deeply care about technology" and that having written Open Source is a good way to show that. Clemens in his original letter derides 'geek fame', but hey, if the other geek is a hiring manager (rare but happens), great, no? He's indirectly making money out of his Open Source project, getting a job and a 'life', just like Clemens asked for. It would be a very time-consuming thing if you'd write an Open Source application just to get a job, but hiring managers these days are really poor at telling the good ones from the bad ones, so better than nothing. It may not contribute to Clemens' ultimate goals though, those that were only mentioned marginally in his open letter, but which I agree very much with: That Open Source developers should 'get a life' by directly making money out of their projects by keeping them private, or even inventing something like a new user interface and making an even bigger profit out of that!

Hey, Clemens, don't pay so much attention to anonymous.

This guy obviously wants somebody else: he wants a simple coder. But in my opinion software development is much more then just coding. The real difficult stuff is building the architecture, designing the application(s) and to take all aspects of modern, stable and long lasting software into account (this does not mean that there is no brilliant GNU-public-whatsoever software out there). This is where I make the difference between a software designer/architect and a coding-guy. Releasing a piece of code under public licence shows nothing about the skills of the author.

the real annoying thing about mr. anonymous: he is not alone...