Sad but true, it’s going on at my own work place…

Q: How do you know that a die-hard software company is off course?
A: When marketing has too much influence.

Q: How do you know that marketing has too much influence?
A: Among other things, when the pre-configured email format becomes HTML instead of plain text.

The place I work at used to be a proud Unix shop. Meeting minutes and notes were written with Emacs and other plain-text orientated text editors. Some of the founders and long-time employees use Pine and Mutt to this day to process their emails. Of course, we required that our employees send plain text email only. This sense for purism was something that set us apart from competitors. I feel we cherished this and were proud of it.

Being a long-term HTML-email hater and, therefore, supporter of the the ASCII Ribbon Campaign myself I felt really let down when it was announced recently that our new default email format would be HTML. Many of my colleagues just shook their heads in disbelieve. We feel that ungodly forces are getting a hold of the place we still feel proud working at. Let’s see for how much longer…