Flash and IE and Eolas

Due to the patent litigation by Eolas, Microsoft is making changes to IE as part of automatic updates, so this will affect all IE user (and all web developers). Here is the solution:
http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/?url=/workshop/author/dhtml/overview/activating_activex.asp

This was a particulary insightful reaction by one person on Slashdot:

Let’s say I was a consultant doing web work:

1. If I do something for a client that later breaks, they will attribute it to the quality of my work, even if I explain it’s Microsoft’s fault. If they were web savvy enough to understand the distinction, they would not need someone like me to do their website. So that means this fiasco makes me look bad, not MS.

2. Some clients will not notice this issue. It will be an embarassing or otherwise annoying problem that one of THEIR clients will eventually point out. My client will look bad. Subsequently, I will look bad. This means I have to actively go out and seek my old clients to update my work before their clients/users see the problem. I can’t walk up to a client, tell them something broke overnight, that it’s not my fault, and I need to charge them to fix it. This brings up (1) in that it makes them question the quality of my work.

3. I can’t charge very much for what will literally be 1 minute of work. But I don’t want to work for free. But, as I pointed out in (2), I may be the one that approaches them and points out the "new" problem (new is in quotes because that’s how they will see it). This puts me in an extremely tough position.

This is going to be a headache for anybody who has a client with a site that will be breaking in the near future. Good luck explaining it to somebody who doesn’t understand web technologies (aka all your clients).