So this weekend myself and the family, big culchies that we are, are off to the Dundrum Town Center (pathetic flash site - hello guys, HTML please) for a gawk. This is Ireland's latest and greatest "mall", which includes a Harvey Nicks, and a Sony Centre.

Hold the phone?

A Sony Centre? Well, like any gadget-geek-freak programmer I was just gonna go wild buying stuff! Not any more. You know why.

By the way, if you're still buying stuff from Sony, shame on you.

And if you think the little guys can't make a difference, think again. I'd like to show you something. When the SCO thing was just starting, many moons ago, I wrote some emails to companies that were selling SCO, informing them of my, er, distaste for their behaviour. Here's a sample:

Dear Sir/Madam,

I am an independent software consultant and I notice
that you are a reseller for The SCO Group.

As I am sure you are aware, The SCO Group has made
baseless claims to own the Linux Operating System.
Such claims have already been withdrawn by SCO in
Germany by court order.

I'm afraid that so long as [NAME DELETED] continues to
support the actions of The SCO Group by providing a
sales channel for them, I will refrain from recommending
your other products and services to any of my customers.

Yours Faithfully,
Richard Rodger.

-----------------------------------

Dear Richard,

Thank you for your email.

Unfortunately we have never heard of you, therefore, we are
unaware of the effect this will have on the worldwide sales of SCO software.

Kind regards,
[NAME DELETED]

And where is SCO now? Bet you've changed your strategy. Lot's of little guys that you have never heard of can be quite noisy.

If big companies do nasty things, complain! They need your money to survive you know.

Oh and in case you think I'm some sort of free software nut, I have my own software company, and I sell software for a living, and I rely on copyright laws to do that.