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All Source Code Should Be Open, Revisited

Posted by timothy on from the and-should-come-with-good-toys dept.

cconnell writes "In my last article, I presented the idea that all commercial source code should be open. In other words, part of the delivery package for any software purchase should be a copy of the source files. If everyone saw software vendors' design and coding, the vendors might stop shipping us such lousy programs. The article generated a fair amount of controversy. My latest piece follows up on this idea and includes a few adjustments that respond to reader feedback."

2 of 509 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Honestly, it would never fly. by sconeu · · Score: 4, Informative

    \i{Look at how today's technology compares to NASA. They sit and pore over every detail, examine and re-examine; approve and check. What are they using in the space shuttles? 386's for main computers still?}

    BZZZT! And thank you for playing. They don't use '386s because they spent so long checking the code.... They use 386s Because they've been proven reliable. They spend hours and months poring over the code, providing traceability and working on correctness because if they fuck up, people die.

    You can't compare NASA to today's "Ship it now! If we ship an hour later we'll lose $1M" business world. Totally different set of requirements.

    --
    General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
  2. Re:Simply Answer by russianspy · · Score: 4, Informative

    You have not read the article. Nobody is asking you to give away the source code for free, but to include it with the binary. If I pay for something you spend 400 hours writing, I want the source to that as well. The source is part of the product.
    The article says nothing about giving it away for free.