I'm glad you have that option. Not all of us do. I'm newly out of college, newly hired at a local company in a tech-poor area of the US. While I have free reign to use Perl internally (on an NT box), I know that trying to fight to be able to use Perl in the products we ship is a battle that I won't win, due to lack of political clout.

I can't afford to walk out of this job, not without the experience it'll give me, not without a clear idea of my prospects for the future. I would love to find a local, free-software based Unix or Linux shop that would hire me to hack perl, C, etc. There just aren't any around, and I feel lucky with what I have. As it is, it's a good company to work for.

My company produces software that is used for mission critical applications involving a significant amount of legally-required confidentiality and attention to privacy. It is perfectly reasonable for the customer to say "we can't trust that code" -- and reasonable for us to say "we won't certify your installation because of x, y, z", when warranted. Some of us have to work in such an environment, and live with the requirements of others who are, quite frankly, just trying to look out for their concerns as much as I am looking out for mine. Walking away because the customer doesn't trust a particular piece of technology you want to use in their mission critical app is a bit extreme. I'm glad you have that option.