Open Code Has Fewer Bugs

in other news.... by mrpuffypants · 2003-02-20 02:17 · Score: 0, Funny

in other news....duh

Re:in other news.... by Junks+Jerzey · 2003-02-20 02:51 · Score: 2, Interesting

in other news....duh

Yup. Note that this doesn't tell you anything about the overall quality of the software, though. So much open source software tends to be writter by students with little experience ("this was my first large project") and it shows. Just because other people find and fix the bugs doesn't change this.
Re:in other news.... by JohnFluxx · 2003-02-20 03:04 · Score: 2, Insightful

>So much open source software tends to be writter by students with little experience and it shows.

You mean it's been written with the latest design and coding ideas, to a high quality, tested, documentated and above all written by someone who cares about the program, without the bother of office politcs?

I agree!
Re:in other news.... by CrayzyJ · 2003-02-20 03:34 · Score: 4, Insightful

"You mean it's been written with the latest design and coding ideas, to a high quality, tested, documentated..."

I have to respectfully disagree with you that this is a good thing. All too often students will learn a new design or coding idea and want to apply it even when it is not neccessary or the best tool for the job. Furthermore, students, in my experience, are way too ambitious to test much. The just want to code, code, and then code.

Finally, have you read much of the kernel? Documentation is sparse (though getting a little better in 2.5.x).

Office politics no. Dorm politics - e.g. my stack is better than yours? Maybe.

--
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
Re:in other news.... by JohnFluxx · 2003-02-20 03:47 · Score: 2, Interesting

Hmm..

Say you have a load of CS students, and some of them code OS programs for a hobby. Now intuitively the ones who code for a hobby are more likely to be better coders than the average CS student.

When the hobbiest-student-coder has to do his 6 month computing project (I assume that most uni's have similiar projects - or at least some coding projects) then you have to produce plans and documentation etc for it. They are also far more likely to make their said software open source.

When in the work place, then you have all the coders together producing code - resulting in a lower average quality of code.

I'm obviously making some assumptions here, but you get my point..

Btw, as for kernel, it's not quite so clear cut. I do not dispute that there isn't enough documentation, but sometimes people take up issues in the wrong places.
For one example, when AA wrote his memory manager, and non-coders complained and booed because it wasn't documentated. One big reason for this was that the algorithm used was a standard well documentated algorithm, and anyone that understood the algorithm well, would be able to easily understand the code.

Anyway, I have a quantum computing lecture to attend.. bye!
Re:in other news.... by Junks+Jerzey · 2003-02-20 04:00 · Score: 2, Insightful

You mean it's been written with the latest design and coding ideas, to a high quality, tested, documentated and above all written by someone who cares about the program, without the bother of office politcs?

I agree!

No, I mean it's written by people without experience architecting large projects, so the result is verbose, brittle, and messy. Period.
Re:in other news.... by Carewolf · 2003-02-20 04:38 · Score: 1

Well studies of Open Source developers shows that they have 10+ years experience on average. More 80% programs or designs for a living, mostly writing closed source programs.

Also this study and others have shown that open source is as good or better than equivalent commercial projects.

Or in other words, you are wrong! (and trolling)
Re:in other news.... by WzDD · 2003-02-20 04:45 · Score: 1

You mean it's been written with the latest design and coding ideas, to a high quality, tested, documentated and above all written by someone who cares about the program, without the bother of office politcs?

We obviously didn't attend the same university. :)
Re:in other news.... by fitten · 2003-02-20 04:57 · Score: 1

I bet the OSS folks funded this study! :)

(If you don't know what ":)" is, go look it up before replying.)
Re:in other news.... by fitten · 2003-02-20 04:59 · Score: 1

It doesn't show usability either. When some folks think of OSS, they think of solid code but extremely poor usability (very cryptic command line, very poorly designed GUI, or whatever). It doesn't matter if a particular app *never* crashes if you can't use the damn thing, or every time you use it you get a headache trying to figure out where functionality is hidden or how to tap it.
Re:in other news.... by Dalcius · 2003-02-20 05:11 · Score: 1

"So much open source software tends to be writter by students with little experience"

Yes, this is the case with some peripheral programs. Servers, core programs, drivers, etc., are written by pro programmers or by very good college programmers who don't fall into your "students with little experience" category.

--
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Re:in other news.... by JohnFluxx · 2003-02-20 05:18 · Score: 1

Where did large projects come into this? I thought we were just talking about projects in general.

And anyway, is this supposed to be as opposed to full time developers who write large code bases like netscape that had to be scrapped and redone?
Re:in other news.... by gbjbaanb · 2003-02-20 06:12 · Score: 1

Don''t forget that the 6 month project you do in Uni would take a professional 2 weeks. And that pro. would only have 2 weeks to get it finished because then he'd have another one to do, and document it so it can be maintained. Fortunately, the design is usually finished before he starts work on it...

I also think that you are joking comparing uni project documentation with real world docs. I have the GD92 fire mobilisation spec on my desk - 300 double sided pages. That's before I start on my specs and design, and reports.

you are making assumptions. Until the lack of programmers changed things, nearly all companies would not take grads until they've had 2 years experience. There is a reason for this, which has nothing to do with PHB's attitude, but more wth the Grad's attitude that he thinks he knows it all.
Re:in other news.... by rusty+spoon · 2003-02-20 06:44 · Score: 2, Funny

There is a reason for this, which has nothing to do with PHB's attitude, but more wth the Grad's attitude that he thinks he knows it all.
As they say; Hire a student while they still know everything!
Re:in other news.... by tuba_dude · 2003-02-20 12:28 · Score: 1

Hehe, we can't afford anything like that! We're too busy buying new toys...er...computers!

--
"The government of the United States is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion."
Re:in other news.... by JohnFluxx · 2003-02-20 16:20 · Score: 1

Sir,
You make a sort of strawman argument again. Did you single handedly produce 300 double side pages of docs? (I'm really asking - it is possible) Does the average project require this sort of thing? (Average is a dodgy word I admit..)

I'm not trying to say that a lone student will produce in the few hours a week, a project that is comparable to a crack team of full time programmers with 40 years experiance.

I'm saying that a /good/ student will be able to produce code comparable to that of an average programmer - although it may take them longer.

What do I base this on? Well for one thing a startling number of projects fail, and huge amount of code that I see isn't particular nice. It hardly seems that a full time programmer is perfect - or even close to it.
Also have you looked at the code of, for example, many of the GNU tools - it's horribly put together. Not a good example, but I don't get to see many closed source programs to compare with.
Also as I mentioned before how netscape had to start over again...

And then I read articles on /. about how people complain that other fellow coders check in code that breaks the system - and this is supposed to be the standard I'm aiming for?

It seems that what people call experiance is the whole teamwork learning, politcs, dealing with bad specs, drawing UML diagrams, and so on. Not stuff that directly or hugely affects my coding abilities.

I suppose I should point out that I am to some extent playing devil's advocate. But I am annoyed when I'm not taken seriously just because of my age - although that has changed a lot now that I'm older (21 now).

Anyway, I waffle too much ;)
Re:in other news.... by gbjbaanb · 2003-02-20 22:23 · Score: 1

I think that one day you'll be posting to /. saying 'damn students, what do they know' ;-)

There's a lot of dodgy code out there - I think the problem is that its written too quickly, after all, once its finished, rewriting it or tweaking it to get it perfect isnt going to held the profits, doubly so when there are other projects to get cracking on (like all the bug fixes for previous projects....)

The reason people check in code that breaks the system is simply because it takes too long to verify that you've done it right - you've been coding all day, you've given it a quck test, everything seems to be OK. So in it goes... and breaks something else. you cannot test *everything*. This is just one of those things, and it is the standard you will be aiming at - the standard where you don't have enough time to get it perfect, you only have enough time to get it done.

I'm not saying that some students won't make good programmers, or that all pros are good (oh god no...) but that the difference between the projects you do at uni and the real world are miles apart. My 300 page document is for a fire mobilisation 3rd part app I have to integrate with our c&c system. it has to be 300 pages long because otherwise I wouldn't know what the messages were supposed to do or how to construct them - and getting it right in this case is quite important, hence the document has to be totally correct and complete.
Incidentally, this c&c project (that has been developed over 15 years) is now over 100 Mb in 130 directories on disk of only source code (I deleted the objects to count it.) This is larger than normal, but still the kind of scale you'll probably be working with.

Normally my projects require about 10-20 pages of doc for anything reasonably serious, 3-4 pages for simple stuff. (though screen shots and diagrams pad them up considerably).

good luck with your course though, I'd be happy to answer any more questions you have, but please email them.
Cheers.
Re:in other news.... by JohnFluxx · 2003-02-20 22:31 · Score: 1

> I think that one day you'll be posting to /. saying 'damn students, what do they know' ;-)

I have no doubts that I will. On the other hand, hopefully I won't be an average coder by that time. :)
Re:in other news.... by gilesjuk · 2003-02-21 02:40 · Score: 1

If you're working on a kernel you shouldn't need much documentation, hopefully many of the concepts will be familiar ones. I would also hope that only experienced developers are working on the kernel.

Anyway, these articles like "Open Source has less bugs" are misleading, are you telling me the 2.5 kernel has less bugs than the NT kernel? of course not. It's all dependant on release numbers, the difference is Microsoft doesn't release a product until it has passed their test critiria, with open source you can get the CVS version straight away in most cases. Either way it can be hard to determine which release of a product is stable, just like you often have to ask which kernel revision is best to use.
Re:in other news.... by CrayzyJ · 2003-02-21 07:10 · Score: 1

> If you're working on a kernel you shouldn't need much documentation

Yes and no. Documentation should not state what you are doing, but why. Sometimes it is hard to figure out why something was done even if you understand the 'concept'. The devil is in the details.

--
Holy s-, it's Jesus!
Re:in other news.... by gilesjuk · 2003-02-21 12:15 · Score: 1

I agree with that totally as it stops people "optimising" code by removing redundant code that might actually have a purpose (like padding something out).

What you don't want is "I'm assiging 0 to x", "print hello" :)
Re:in other news.... by Xtifr · 2003-02-21 14:02 · Score: 1

it's written by people without experience architecting large projects, so the result is verbose, brittle, and messy. Period.

Well, I agree with you, the quality of code in an average OS project is pretty low. But with two decades in the biz, I can assure you the same is true of most proprietary commercial code too. The bottom line is that most code sucks.

The worst problem is even when you do have people who have experience in "architecting" large projects, they frequently lack experience in long-term maintenance, and their elegant architecture turns out to be much more fragile than they realize.

Ooh baby by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:17 · Score: 4, Funny

But bugs are cool..does that make me a geek for using Redhat?

Re:Ooh baby by jo42 · 2003-02-20 02:57 · Score: 0, Troll

> make me a geek for using Redhat?
That makes you a User. A Real Geek would take one look at RedHat, proclaim it bloatware worse than any Microsoft byproduct and then install either Gentoo, Debian or FreeBSD.
Re:Ooh baby by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:11 · Score: 4, Insightful

Mmm, troll! Just what I always wanted.

Let me tell you -why- I wouldn't choose any of the below that you've mentioned:

1) Gentoo. Well, on principle I like the idea, but in practice it's a pain in the ass. Having to wait around for hours on end just to have the latest version of KDE compile isn't for everybody. On top of that, there's very little hardware detection, if any. The elitist response to this complaint, I suppose, would be that it's more "configurable" that way..well why not offer two installation modes, the configurable one and the sane, easy-to-use one? Seems like the despised Windows, MacOSX, and yes, even Redhat seem to have that working pretty well for the most part.

2) Debian. I like the packaging system, but other than that there's no reason for me to use it. Redhat 8.0 installed in 20 minutes, and at that point I had a fully usable system. Sound worked, graphics worked, I didn't have to touch any configuration files. The last time I installed Debian I had to recompile the kernel for support for a number of pieces of hardware I had, and I never did get 3D acceleration working properly. If I wanted to use packages made in the last 1-2 years, I would have had to use the "unstable" packages. I wasn't really keen on that, when RedHat provided everything that I needed.

3) FreeBSD. I have no problems with FreeBSD..my first webserver ran on it. I wouldn't use it for a desktop, however, which is my primary usage for a system, simply because it barely supports any of the hardware I have. If FreeBSD supported the same amount of hardware that Linux did, perhaps even with auto-detection similar to RedHat or Knoppix, I'd probably use it..and I bet a lot of other people would too.

The wonderful thing about Linux distributions is that there are many of them. There's ones for people who want to spend their time messing with text files to get their hardware set up properly, there's distributions for people who just want a stable, fast operating system that they can get to work with quickly. Perhaps that does make me a "User," if by definition a "User" expects a certain amount of the work to be done by the operating system, and not themselves. In that case I'm proud I am a "User," as the prospect of being a "Real Geek" sounds monotonous and time-consuming.
Re:Ooh baby by Atzanteol · 2003-02-20 03:40 · Score: 1

Bloatware? I assume you missed the 'Custom Install' option while installing RedHat? Or are you one of those who has never installed RedHat, but love to bash it?

If you're one of the latter group: RedHat includes an option to individually select which packages are installed. You are fully within your rights to select nearly nothing.

Oooh, wait... Did I just respond to a troll? Doh!

--
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

- Charles Darwin
Re:Ooh baby by Gta-Klue · 2003-02-20 03:41 · Score: 1

I agree with the Gentoo ,and FreeBSD .. but Debian? I don't get the "debian is so far behind the technology curve why use it" statements.. I myself have used RedHat, Mandrake, SuSE, Gentoo, and a couple of other 1 CD type distros, but I keep comming back to debian. Why? Well, like you posted before me, the package management just plain rocks. But, with the release of Woody, Debian is NOT so far behind. Granted, KDE2.2, Gnome 1.4, etc.. but wasn't the philosophy behind debian to make a distro that's rock solid? Why does a distro have to have the "bleeding edge" to be good? debian seems to just "work". Granted, this is just my own opinion, and as long as it's OSS, who cares?

--
This is PURE EAU DE TROLLETTE
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Re:Ooh baby by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:35 · Score: 0

Oh, it's not so much of a matter that Debian is far behind..I probably just worded that incorrectly, sorry. I don't think Debian's use of older-generation packages makes it less "good" than other distributions, on the contrary..there's something to be said for sticking with a stable base of software. It does make it less "current," however, and current software is just one of the features I tend to prefer in a distribution. It's just a personal preference.
Re:Ooh baby by Dalcius · 2003-02-20 05:16 · Score: 1

The cool thing about (most) Gentoo folks is that, like Linus, they just don't care. They want a system that they can use, be damned whoever doesn't care. If it helps convince you, I work with a Gentoo developer. =)

The best leaders are those who lead with or without followers.

--
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Re:Ooh baby by jiminim · 2003-02-20 05:57 · Score: 2, Informative

>RedHat includes an option to individually select which packages are installed.

Once upon a time I installed RedHat 7.3 with absolutely NOTHING selected. It still wanted to install 400MB of random stuff...

So I did switch to Gentoo because I know pretty much everything that is installed.
Re:Ooh baby by Penguin+Follower · 2003-02-20 06:43 · Score: 1

Why does a distro have to have the "bleeding edge" to be good? debian seems to just "work". Granted, this is just my own opinion, and as long as it's OSS, who cares

It doesn't have to be bleeding edge on the application front, but I would like it to run my bleeding edge hardware :) That is more Mandrake's expertise, in my experience. (OT: Although I did have a problem with Mandrake 9 not correctly setting up my Hauppauge tv card... whereas with RedHat 8 it works fine... It's strange quirks like that that I stay with Red Hat).
Re:Ooh baby by Penguin+Follower · 2003-02-20 07:01 · Score: 1

Once upon a time I installed RedHat 7.3 with absolutely NOTHING selected. It still wanted to install 400MB of random stuff...

Being a Red Hat user since 5.2, I can attest that the minimal install has grown a good bit now at v8.0.

I haven't done this since broadband became decently available... I used take old packard bells, dells, compaqs, whatever,etc... that were 486 machines, and turn them into NAT boxes for small offices in the area where I live/work. (This was before broadband, and ISDN was too expensive for a very small office = 4 people at most.) So, I made their 56k connection available through NAT on a 486 w/ a 500MB hard disk and as much ram as that 486 could take, and of course a good modem. Slap on a minimal RedHat install, and still had room left over on a 500MB drive! Unfortunately, RedHat has allowed some bloat over time, I would need a slightly faster system and a slightly larger hd to achieve this easily now.
Re:Ooh baby by Atzanteol · 2003-02-20 07:23 · Score: 1

That so? I've never actually installed with *no* packages... Did you happen to do a 'rpm -qa' to see which were deemed 'mandatory' by RH?

--
"Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge"

- Charles Darwin
Re:Ooh baby by MWelchUK · 2003-02-20 07:30 · Score: 1

Ok, I see your point, but I also see a few that you have missed.

Gentoo - It allows you to control almost _exactly_ whats on your computer, it can be compiled explicitly for your processor type increasing performance and Package update due to security risks and updates are easy to install and appear very soon after the new release or patch. I know as I jumped from Mandrake to Gentoo with very few problems. It uses a packaging system a little like Debians crossed with Ports from BSD.

Debian - Targeted at servers, where stability and security are far more important than whether 3D acceleration is supported. A lot of the packages marked as unstable are probably those packages that are installed as part of distributions such as Redhat, but Debian's maintainers do not feel they have been sufficiently field tested yet.

FreeBSD - Never used it so I can't comment.

One of the reasons why I switched to Linux was because settings were made in text files. Given good guides (by which I mean those like the gentoo installation guide]) It isn't too difficult given patience (a skill I wanted to learn when moving to Linux) and the wish to _learn_. I find the major distributions a little wired - they are getting to the state where the default config files are completely ignored (RH7.3 wireless for example) making it near impossble to configure without the graphical front-ends given generic HOWTO's, which I feel is a great shame.
Re:Ooh baby by Gta-Klue · 2003-02-20 07:58 · Score: 1

I can relate and argue with your points :)

RedHat 7.3 gave me some issues with my Radeon card, while 8.0 didn't. mandrake 8.2 worked fantasticly while 9.0 left me wondering..

With "Woody", granted I don't have the 3D acceleration,(and that's just because I'm to damn lazy to actually try and install the NVidia drivers lol) it does work with my NVidia GeForce4 card rather well.. and my SB Live! card worked on the install, and since it's a brand spankin new 1.8ghz PC.. I can't really complain.

As another user posted with Gentoo, thier Install guide really does a good job to walk a user through it... and if i could afford to have my PC down a couple of days, I might just switch to see what it's like. But like Gentoo, debian does provide a ton of docs, and the text files you edit + man pages, I'm learning alot more than I did with RedHat and Mandrake.. but then I think I've grown more daring in trying to FIX problems, than re-installing ;)

--
This is PURE EAU DE TROLLETTE
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Re:Ooh baby by Penguin+Follower · 2003-02-20 11:58 · Score: 1

But like Gentoo, debian does provide a ton of docs, and the text files you edit + man pages, I'm learning alot more than I did with RedHat and Mandrake.. but then I think I've grown more daring in trying to FIX problems, than re-installing ;)

I can somewhat relate to that, but on a different note. I recently tried FreeBSD 4.7... eek!! OMG that installer, while not too terrible, was a huge difference from even RedHat's text installer. Oh, and if that partitioning program was fdisk, it sure didn't look like the one i'm used to on linux! After my initial "freak out" I managed to plod along, and the system installed, X included. After installation, things didn't get any easier. Even though my "unix basics" can get me around the system. I didn't know where half the config stuff was! LOTS of man page reading!! Anyhow, I nuked it and went back to RedHat :) LMAO
Re:Ooh baby by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 14:26 · Score: 0

1) Gentoo. Well, on principle I like the idea, but in practice it's a pain in the ass. Having to wait around for hours on end just to have the latest version of KDE compile isn't for everybody. On top of that, there's very little hardware detection, if any. The elitist response to this complaint, I suppose, would be that it's more "configurable" that way..well why not offer two installation modes, the configurable one and the sane, easy-to-use one? Seems like the despised Windows, MacOSX, and yes, even Redhat seem to have that working pretty well for the most part.

well there's your problem.
You're using KDE.

I'm not bashing KDE. I used to use it all the time.

But then I found Blackbox and ratpoison.
Re:Ooh baby by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 14:53 · Score: 0

I don't think it's that I've missed the point, really. I realize that Gentoo provides very finely-tuned control of just about everything related to your system, compilation and so on..that just doesn't interest me :> Conversely, when I did try Gentoo last, I had quite a bit of difficulty setting up my hardware when I was using it, but that's objective anyway. Some people will like it, some people won't. My not liking it doesn't detract from its usefulness.

I can understand why Debian lags behind on its packages, but really..I think KDE 3 has been tested well enough by now, don't you? It's being used by thousands of people as we speak, bugs are being repaired on a regular basis. However, in a secure workstation/server environment Debian's more than ideal It has its place, just like all the other distributions. My point was that I myself was more interested in newer software, not necessarily that Debian's worse off for not having adopted it.

The reason I switched to Linux was that I wanted a change, more or less. The first distribution I used was Slackware, to replace my Windows 3.1/DOS combination I'd been using for a while..and I've stuck with Linux on an on-off basis for quite some time now. When XP rolled around I didn't really like the direction it was going in (product activation et. al.), so I decided to look for something that would get me up and running without too much hassle, and with a fairly wide selection of software available. I had a slight problem with Mandrake 9.0 and nVidia's drivers, so I switched to Redhat 8.0 and have been liking it ever since.

I think people are under the impression that I was railing on their respective operating systems, sorry if it came out that way. My comments were from the perspective of what I like in a distribution, and what I look for in one moreso than what makes a "good" distribution. That would depend on how you were going to use it I suppose :>
Re:Ooh baby by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 14:55 · Score: 0

Well that's good enough of course, there's nothing wrong with them taking the project in the direction that best fits their own needs. My own needs were best fit by Redhat, hence my choosing it..it's a system I can use, and like using :> That doesn't mean that Gentoo is bad because it isn't like Redhat, it just isn't my preference to use it.
Re:Ooh baby by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 14:59 · Score: 0

I don't view my use of KDE as being a problem. I've tried both of the window managers you've mentioned, I didn't particularly like either of them too much :> In fact I only mentioned KDE as an example of one of the many packages that take hours upon hours to compile under Gentoo. I dont even necessarily view that as being a problem, but it is a detractor from my use of Gentoo..I'd rather just install programs and use them, I'm not too interested in all the fine-tuning. The appropriate solution in my case was to choose the distribution that did those things for me :>
Re:Ooh baby by crrobinson14 · 2003-02-21 01:06 · Score: 1

Gentoo has binary packages now. Actually, they've always had them for the base distribution. Now they have them for things like X, KDE, and OpenOffice.

I must admit I still prefer to do the compilation. It's very easy to keep a system up-to-the-second, especially with things like the new OpenSSL being released. There's already an ebuild for it, and my experience has been that the ebuild maintainers (Gentoo's package format) release their updates faster than RPMs come out for the same items. Perhaps this is because they generally just have to update the entry that specifies which file to download. There's no need to compile multiple binary distributions for different platforms...

--
Real programmers don't comment their code. If it was hard to write, it should be hard to understand.
Re:Ooh baby by Dalcius · 2003-02-21 04:18 · Score: 1

That's the thing I love about open source: all of the derivations that spring up. Many different browser programs, many different IM programs, email, news, yadda yadda yadda. And a distro/desktop/wm to fit most people's style.

If you care enough, you choose; if not, taking the most popular distro (in the US, Red Hat seems to take the cake) and using their good defaults works perfectly.

--
~Dalcius
Rome wasn't burnt in a day.
Re:Ooh baby by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-21 10:30 · Score: 0

But before there was gentoo the only way to have a distribution compile was to go and grab a copy of the kernel source and compile it urself. After all, gentoo makes it easier, but easy is not the geek way. Hard and difficult are the geeks way, this way they can proclaim their "l337n33s". But if there's a gui that can configure something for me with the same results as editing the text files manually, then why insist on editing the text files manually to be the geek way? Only because it makes it harder. Seems to be the only reason out their. What a crude way of thinking of pushing yourself up their. Do something useful instead and make something thats really hard to do easier. Now thats using brain power effectively.

Hmmm... by Craig+Maloney · 2003-02-20 02:18 · Score: 3, Funny

I guess it stands to Reasoning that more developers hammering on code leads to fewer bugs. :)

Re:Hmmm... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:28 · Score: 2, Insightful

i think the enjoyment is also important.

take 2 people that have the same skills, one enjoys a complicated task, the other does not. more than likely the result will be better by the person enjoys it, because they will show more care.
Re:Hmmm... by cyb97 · 2003-02-20 02:38 · Score: 2, Insightful

Depends on how the source-tree is managed...
Too many cooks spoil the broth!
Re:Hmmm... by Tony-A · 2003-02-20 03:03 · Score: 3, Funny

No, too many cooks fork the broth.
This begets competition, back-porting, and maybe even eventual convergence.
Re:Hmmm... by scott1853 · 2003-02-20 03:07 · Score: 3, Insightful

Not just that, but anybody will tend to produce a higher quality product when they aren't being badgered to meet deadlines and being dragged into meetings every other day.
Re:Hmmm... by Ooblek · 2003-02-20 04:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

I suppose you don't find it odd that a consulting company, who has some of the biggest names in commercial software development as clients, finds that the very threat to the people that pay them is of a higher quality? While I don't doubt there are cases where open source software is of better quality, I also believe the converse that there are cases where commercial software is of higher quality. So one little scan on a sub-system of Linux vs. "commercial software" means that open source is the best hands down? I doubt it.
Also, why is it that they won't name the commercial software they scanned on their home page? Why is it that I have to provide contact information to view their report? Since everyone here is so critical of BS moves MS makes, why are they not asking the same questions of this for-profit entity?
Re:Hmmm... by Chakotay · 2003-02-20 05:00 · Score: 1

What would be the effect of Chef (Southpark) converging his soup with the Swedish Chef's (Hergee Bergee Muppets Bork) walking spaghetti?

--

Never underestimate the power of stupidity
To err is human, to moo bovine
Re:Hmmm... by doorbot.com · 2003-02-20 05:51 · Score: 1

...when they aren't being badgered to meet deadlines and being dragged into meetings every other day.

Or filling out those TPS reports...
Re:Hmmm... by arkanes · 2003-03-06 07:44 · Score: 1

If I were going to give them the benefit of the doubt, I'd say that they either scanned the source, and are therefore almost certainly under an NDA, or they scanned the binary and therefore fall afoul of the EULA which (probably) says they aren't allowed to publish benchmark results.

Maybe, maybe not by Raul654 · 2003-02-20 02:18 · Score: 5, Funny

Companies such as Oracle and Microsoft typically sell binaries incomprehensible to humans rather than the comparatively understandable source code.

After seeing this, I think that statement is being a bit generous

--

To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all law into contempt.
--E.C. Stanton

Re:Maybe, maybe not by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:39 · Score: 2, Funny

.. Also opening those binaries in Notepad resulted in a message, file too large, please use wordpad, which resulted in a message, file too large, please use Office XP which resulted in a message, file unreadable please open in .NET.

On other hand opening a open source file resulted in a quick readable file, which was in simple comprehensible english. the first word was some bin or bash , a proper dictionary word.

AK
Re:Maybe, maybe not by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 07:45 · Score: 0

notepad XP has no filesize limit. but it does take a long time to open large files... wordpad has never had a filesize limit. why is it i think you pulled this sequence of errors out of your ass? yet another fcking /.r talking smack about yet another thing they have no idea about.
Re:Maybe, maybe not by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 23:42 · Score: 0

On other hand opening a open source file resulted in a quick readable file

Does this result in double-open source files?
To have open source on Unix side is easy: put the command
exec emacs `find ~/src -type f`
on the last line in your bashrc.

Big Suprise. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:18 · Score: 0

I thought this was common knowledge by now?

This is true.... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:19 · Score: 0

the more people working on a project, the better it is? I dont necessarily agree, although I do love open source software (no flames please)

Done slashdotting? Check out the hot or not babes at pajonet.com.

Re:This is true.... by solidox · 2003-02-20 02:26 · Score: 1

well microsoft have 5,000 people working on windows... that about sums up your statement :)

--

What if there were bugs in their code? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:19 · Score: 0

What if there were bugs in their code?

Statistics by Caractacus+Potts · 2003-02-20 02:19 · Score: 5, Insightful

How about using a larger sample of code before making such bold statements. It's probably true that the code has fewer bugs, but when you abuse statistics it just makes things look dishonest.

Re:Statistics by Xtifr · 2003-02-20 02:42 · Score: 5, Interesting

This is not the first such study, there was a paper published in the early nineties which tested various standard unix command-line tools from a variety of vendors. They subjected the tools to horrendous stress and abuse, and found (to their suprise) that the GNU tools were the most reliable, with approximately a 1% failure rate in their bank of tests. The second best was HP, with about 8% failure rate, and everyone else was between 12-20%.

I don't have a link, but the paper was pretty widely publicised at the time, and should be fairly easy to track down. It was the first major study to really show an emperical link between openness and reliability, but it was far from the last. This latest one is merely one more in a long list.
Re:Statistics by 7-Vodka · 2003-02-20 03:05 · Score: 1

what would be interesting to find out, is if some enterprizing young lad who read this paper, decided to go ahead and fix the bugs which caused the 1% fail in the gnu tools just because it was FS and he could. I would like to see the results of the same tests run again today :)

--
Liberty.
Re:Statistics by Erasmus+Darwin · 2003-02-20 03:20 · Score: 2, Informative

"there was a paper published in the early nineties which tested various standard unix command-line tools from a variety of vendors."
I believe you're referring to the fuzz papers. They basically threw a bunch of random garbage at different commands and then watched for core dumps.
Re:Statistics by dglo · 2003-02-20 03:23 · Score: 5, Informative

there was a paper published in the early nineties which tested various standard unix command-line tools from a variety of vendors. They subjected the tools to horrendous stress and abuse, and found (to their suprise) that the GNU tools were the most reliable, with approximately a 1% failure rate in their bank of tests. The second best was HP, with about 8% failure rate, and everyone else was between 12-20%.

I'm guessing you're probably referring to Bart Miller's Fuzz Testing software. They did a survey in 1990 and a followup in 1995. They've even got the software available if you want to do the 2003 version!
Re:Statistics by patbob · 2003-02-20 06:26 · Score: 1

How about using a larger sample of code before making such bold statements.
Yes. Include the desktop, windowing system and user level apps. Given the amount of bugs I encounter, they would get the exact opposite story. This sort of yanks the legs out of the adage that people working without a deadline for fun are producing better code -- if it were really true, then Open Source code would be better from the initial release instead of worse.
Of course, what do I know.. perhaps the TCP/IP stack is the only part of Linux that most users typically use out of it :-)

--
Welcome to the net of 1000 lies. Upgrades are scheduled soon that should bring us to the 10,000 lies mark.
Re:Statistics by jrumney · 2003-02-20 12:08 · Score: 1

The Windows GUI does particularly badly at the fuzz test, as it's message passing mechanism is inherently insecure, and most app developers do not bother to check their input before using it within the message handling loop.
This includes the Windows port of Emacs; most of the bug reports the fuzz team sent to GNU were specific to that one program, and many of the bugs uncovered are almost impossible to fix without rearchitecting Windows to prevent third party apps from sending arbritrary messages to threads.
Re:Statistics by patbob · 2003-02-24 12:45 · Score: 1

The Windows GUI does particularly badly at the fuzz test...
I'll grant you that the Windows GUI is worse. Its derived from their old 16-bit verison which wasn't architected with today's knowledge. I'll also grant that it is less secure and that programmers are sloppier.
Unfortunately, I wasn't talking about just the underlying windowing system (although that is less stable on Linux too), but rather the desktop apps that I have to use to get my work done. For example, take the two bugs: the KDE calculator doesn't give even vaguely correct answers in fixed-point mode, and the X windowing system can silently rewrite it's configuration file when a button on one's monitor is pressed. I've experienced both first hand. Neither is a problem on Microsoft's GUI/desktop and can only be explained by lack of testing.
This is why I say that if the code statistics included the windowing system and desktop apps, it probably would have shown a different answer.

--
Welcome to the net of 1000 lies. Upgrades are scheduled soon that should bring us to the 10,000 lies mark.

Big surprise, really. by Big+Mark · 2003-02-20 02:20 · Score: 0

The more people who can look at the source,
The more people who can spot bugs,
The more bugs are found,
The more bugs are fixed.
What I would like to know is whether or not the quality of open code is any better than closed code. Waitasec, RTFA!

-Mark

Re:Big surprise, really. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:35 · Score: 2, Funny

By the same token, the more managers you haven the better is your work ?
Re:Big surprise, really. by ClosedSource · 2003-02-20 17:06 · Score: 1

The fact that more people have the option to view source code doesn't mean that they will. Even if they do, it doesn't mean they can understand it or have the ability or motivation to find flaws in it.

So open source doesn't automatically lead to more code review and bug fixes than closed source. It all depends who is doing the looking and what their skills and motivations are.

In other news by asmithmd1 · 2003-02-20 02:20 · Score: 4, Funny

Pope is catholic
Bears are found to sh*t in woods

--
Free cell phone tracking

Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:00 · Score: 0

hmmmmm, but your statements are not backed with statistical analysis. What is the confidence interval for those claims?
Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 07:52 · Score: 0

Turns out those were typos. The corrected version is that Bears are catholic, and the Pope shits in the woods.
Re:In other news by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 17:02 · Score: 0

In a funny bit in a comic book, a charecter once said, "is a bear catholic?"
I have used that construction in polite company, myself.

(Hawkeye, Avengers, find the issue yourself)

Title of post misleading by jfrumkin · 2003-02-20 02:21 · Score: 5, Insightful

Over time, successfull open source projects which address a particular issue will most likely have fewer bugs; just being open source doesn't mean fewer bugs (or better software). It just means that it has a better chance, if it survives, of being better software.

--

"What we have here, is a failure to communicate." - Cool Hand Luke

Re:Title of post misleading by Anonymous Coward · 2003-03-01 12:40 · Score: 0

Of course. That's obvious, code that happens to be open isn't magically better, it's better for a reason.

I get it by undertoad · 2003-02-20 02:21 · Score: 3, Funny

Open source has fewer bugs.
Bill Gates: bugs are cool.
Ergo, open source is not cool!

Re:I get it by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:19 · Score: 0

Well, thank you, Aristotle! ;-)
Re:I get it by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-21 07:21 · Score: 0

You forgot:
Bill Gates is NOT cool.
Ergo, open source IS cool.

Yeah right by Czernobog · 2003-02-20 02:22 · Score: 0, Flamebait

I'll never forget Mozilla's DHTML bug. I'm still using 1.2 and when it crashes, I quietly curse the lives of the developers and restart the damn thing.

Given enough eyes all bugs are shallow?
Yeah right.

--
/. Where the truth

Re:Yeah right by AndersM · 2003-02-20 02:27 · Score: 1

There aren't that many eyes besides the Netscape developers what look at the source code of Mozilla, compared to, for instance, the source code of Linux, which is often used as an example in education and studied by many others as well.

--
My opinions may have changed, but not the fact that I am right! =)
Re:Yeah right by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:29 · Score: 0

I do realize you're a troll, and thus your comment is based upon too severe a level of ignorance to be taken seriously..however, if you'll actually read the article (I assume you can read), you'll note that it's written about operating systems, not their component parts.

I'll also note that the DHTML bug was fixed quite rapidly after it was reported, and if you're still experiencing the problem it's more likely because you are too lazy to install the fixed version.
Re:Yeah right by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:37 · Score: 0

go fix it yourself.
Re:Yeah right by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:41 · Score: 0

That bug was fixed in 1.2.1. Maybe you should quit winging and UPGRADE!?

Actually, that reminds me, I've lost count of how many times I'd have to repatch my IE because a previously issued patch didn't work. So there!
Re:yeah right by gmuslera · 2003-02-20 03:02 · Score: 2, Informative

There is also an article about this here.
They not searched for any kind of possible bug, the article says specifically what they were looking for:
Reasoning looked for programming problems such as memory that was marked as free when it was in fact still in use, memory that was being used without being properly initialised, and attempts to store data that exceeded the space reserved for it. This last problem is often associated with buffer overruns, a major weakness that under some circumstances can let an attacker take over a computer.
Re:yeah right by nomadic · 2003-02-20 16:25 · Score: 1

The idea that they can quickly and accurately find every memory allocation bug is still ridiculous. These are common bugs, they afflict a lot of OSes, and they can't usually be spotted that easily.

No sheeet Shear Luck by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:22 · Score: 0

Guess it took a rocket scientist to figure that one out.

Re:No sheeet Shear Luck by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:27 · Score: 0

With this new homeland security act, we might not have many Rocket Scientists left anymore. Heh. (see previous post)

Oh boy... by caino59 · 2003-02-20 02:22 · Score: 1

Let the linut zealot vs. m$ zealot postings commence!

and to them I say...

Someone's boxen is only as secure as their updates go...Not all m$ boxes are as secure as linux boxes and vice versa. End it there.

oh...read the article too...it's not even about m$

Re:Oh boy... by nomadic · 2003-02-20 02:34 · Score: 1

There are no MS zealots on slashdot. It's linux zealots against people who occasionally use MS and feel that it's not quite as bad as the linux zealots think.
Re:Oh boy... by Ashran · 2003-02-20 03:12 · Score: 1

The funny part is - people always say the TCP/IP stack from windows is ripped off from FreeBSD.
So the conclusion is not OpenSrc/ClosedSrc
Its Linux TCP/IP stack contains less bugs than the FreeBSD one.

--

Before you email me, remember: "There is no god!"

A little off topic? by Beatbyte · 2003-02-20 02:22 · Score: 1

Is it me or does the article start out talking about a comparison of code quality the slide over into the Microsoft bad, Linux/OSS good?

Its also kind of strange that they don't even disclose what they compared Linux (kernel 2.4.19) to. Not really a big selling point for Linux. Oh wait its free ;)

On a side note, I would like to see the .1 errors per 1000 lines of code. Let the people know where the problems are so there can be less.

--
Get paid to code OSS

Re:A little off topic? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:36 · Score: 0

On a side note, I would like to see the .1 errors per 1000 lines of code. Let the people know where the problems are so there can be less.
This is the problem with Microsoft, they round .1 to 0. Which means, if Windows contains 50 million lines of code, they have zero errors. Or was it .1 x 50,000,000 ??
Re:A little off topic? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:54 · Score: 0

Its also kind of strange that they don't even disclose what they compared Linux (kernel 2.4.19) to. Not really a big selling point for Linux. Oh wait its free ;)

No, it's not strange. Reasoning has access to commercial TCP/IP source code under strict NDA. They are performing their analysis as a service to their commercial customers. If they were to release names, then they would lose business. They can mention Linux because its free and they weren't paid for the analysis.

But aren't TCP/IP stacks mostly BSD? by mccalli · 2003-02-20 02:22 · Score: 5, Interesting

'The open-source implementation of TCP/IP in the Linux kernel clearly exhibits a higher code quality than commercial implementations in general-purpose operating systems,'

Really? But I thought most commercial OSes derived their TCP/IP stacks from BSD code in the first place. And since BSD is open-source, shouldn't these commercial OSes show roughly the same level of quality then? Or are they arguing that the Linux TCP/IP stack is superior to the BSD one?

Cheers,
Ian

Re:But aren't TCP/IP stacks mostly BSD? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:33 · Score: 0

+1, insightful
Re:But aren't TCP/IP stacks mostly BSD? by gurps_npc · 2003-02-20 03:18 · Score: 5, Insightful

While the commercial OSes derive from BSD code, it is not the same thing. Related to that, there are three sources of bugs that Closed OS's will have but Open OS's will not. 1) Errors in the derivation of the BSD code - that is they generally have to make minor changes in the BSD code to get it to work with their product. 2) Bugs in the Non-BSD code that is wrapped around the BSD code. 3) Errors found in the BSD code after the Closed code was written. Usually the closed Os will NOT upgrade the BSD code for a bug found in it because either 1) they are lazy, 2) they are ignorant of the bug, or 3) doing so would require a re-write of the Non-BSD code.

--
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
Re:But aren't TCP/IP stacks mostly BSD? by bicho · 2003-02-20 08:00 · Score: 1

No.
I always though that BSD is BSD, then there is OpenBSD and FreeBSD (which are Open and Free respectively, as per the terms of their respective licenses, but theyre not BSD)
or am I wrong?

--

errera hunamum ets

"The Linux" by sczimme · 2003-02-20 02:23 · Score: 4, Funny

Reasoning, which sells automated software inspection services, scrutinized part of the code of the Linux and five operating systems,

Including the Solaris, the Windows, the AIX, and the HP/UX.

--
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.

Re:"The Linux" by Beatbyte · 2003-02-20 02:27 · Score: 1

"Reasoning examined the TCP/IP, ..."

The awesome grammar. The MSNBC-CNET.COM.COM is obviously very focused on quality content.

--
Get paid to code OSS
Re:"The Linux" by sirket · 2003-02-20 02:38 · Score: 1

The article didn't even say HPUX. The mentioned HP's AIX. This article has so many grammatical and technical errors it was not worth reading.

-sirket
Re:"The Linux" by Spunk · 2003-02-20 02:40 · Score: 3, Funny

Reading that article gave me "the AIX"
Re:"The Linux" by karlm · 2003-02-20 03:44 · Score: 1

"Don't fuck with the Jesus" -- The Big Labowski (sp?)

--
Copyright Violation:"theft, piracy"::Anti-Trust Violation:"thermonuclear price terrorism"<-Overly dramatic language.
Re:"The Linux" by Theaetetus · 2003-02-20 03:53 · Score: 1

Neo, welcome to The Linux...
-T
Re:"The Linux" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:00 · Score: 0

... and an OS/2 (you forgot the fifth one)
Re:"The Linux" by SN74S181 · 2003-02-20 04:10 · Score: 1

It's JALAA.
(Just Another Linux Advocacy Article)

Remember, Linux Advocates are the Palladins of OS advocacy. They are on a Holy War and compelled to do battle with evil. As such, they may make occasional errors, but they are always Right.
Re:"The Linux" by The+J+Kid · 2003-02-20 04:22 · Score: 1

The Linux

Knock knock, Linus.

--
Moderation: +4. Modded 70% Funny and 30% Overrated. 100% Saturated.
Re:"The Linux" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 05:34 · Score: 0

It did mention HP-UX and IBM's AIX.

cut and paste from article:
"IBM's AIX and Hewlett-Packard's HP-UX."
Re:"The Linux" by UnclePaeng · 2003-02-20 06:19 · Score: 1

That should be "Including the Solaris, the Windows, the AIX and the HP/UX operating systems" like in the original quote, then.
Re:"The Linux" by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 06:34 · Score: 0

It's pronounced 'ayIyehx', not likes 'aches' or 'ayzix'. That's how the Linux guy from IBM says it, anyway.

Umm, not true. by pkcs11 · 2003-02-20 02:24 · Score: 1, Interesting

Over time open source has the *possibility* of having fewer bugs. There are plenty of older open source projects that have TONS of bugs, moreso than equally old MS suites.

--
"I have an odd craving to whisper about those few frightful hours in that ill-rumored and evilly shadowed seaport of dea

Bah. by KefkaFloyd · 2003-02-20 02:25 · Score: 5, Interesting

I find the fact that they did not say what OSes they compared to be very... suspect. What about Mac OS X, FreeBSD, and other open source OSes that have Open Source TCP/IP implementations in their kernels? Since they did not say what OSes are being used...

"Reasoning declined to disclose which operating systems it compared with Linux, but said two of the three general-purpose operating systems were versions of Unix."

How lame. For all we know, they could have tested the Amiga OS, Mac OS 9, Windows 3.1, A/UX, and NeXTStep! Other than this, the article is pretty vague and does not seem to give me much meat on the subject, nor a link to the study (you have to go through some forms and give up personal info to get it at www.reasoning.com).

--

Conglom-O: We Own You (TM).

Re:Bah. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:32 · Score: 0

Mac OSX isn't open source. If you happen to come across the code to the excellent GUI while you're hacking around, send it over to me.
Re:Bah. by Tadu · 2003-02-20 02:54 · Score: 1

How lame. For all we know, they could have tested the Amiga OS, Mac OS 9, Windows 3.1, A/UX, and NeXTStep!
Hehe, AmigaOS doesn't even come with a TCP/IP stack, you had to add your own...
Re:Bah. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:46 · Score: 0

You're probably trolling, but I'll bite. The GUI may not be open source, but certainly the core layers are. This study looked at TCP/IP stacks, which would fall in the Darwin/BSD layer in Mac OS X.

whoa by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:25 · Score: 0

i'm switching to linux immediately!!

any1 know if the no-cd cracks for C&C Generals, mohaa, and morrowind will still work under linux?

State the bleeding obvious. by Arimus · 2003-02-20 02:25 · Score: 2, Interesting

Most cryptographic algorithims do not gain acceptance without being open to peer review to spot flaws and potential weaknesses...

So why should any of this article be a suprise or even particulary note worthy?

--
--- Users are like bacteria -> Each one causing a thousand tiny crises until the host finally gives up and dies.

Re:State the bleeding obvious. by blackbear · 2003-02-20 03:44 · Score: 3, Insightful

So why should any of this article be a suprise or even particulary note worthy?

perhaps because when large numbers of people are uneducated about something they use and make daily decisions about, it is shocking to them to learn that their assumptions (probably brought about by marketing) are erroneous.

Other notable, and obvious "surprises" in research:

-Two parents are better than one.
-More concealed carry = less violent crime.
-You are more likely to get sick at a hospital than at home.
-Breast milk is better for babies than formula.

A lot of money and time have been spent researching these topics, only to find what many of us already knew to be true and obvious.

Not everyone is educated and experienced in everything, and it can be painfully difficult to dissuade people of their delusions. Especially when they've been formed out of ignorance.

Wake me up... by EvilJello · 2003-02-20 02:26 · Score: 1

...when they've got software like this for the halting problem.

No Suprise There by Greyfox · 2003-02-20 02:26 · Score: 5, Insightful

The attitude I've seen in the corporate world is that open source products are made by amateurs and is therefore in some way not blessed by the magical corporate coding fairy which makes all the shit churned out by corporate code shops stink less. This attitude is arrogant and does not take into account the simple fact that all those people who got into programming just for the money tend not to work on open source products. When you've got code that is both written and reviewed by legions of people who love to code and who find good computer programs to be beautiful, you're going to get better code.

--

I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

Re:No Suprise There by syle · 2003-02-20 02:39 · Score: 4, Insightful

This attitude is arrogant and does not take into account the simple fact that all those people who got into programming just for the money tend not to work on open source products.
It also doesn't take into account that many people working on open source ARE professional programmers during the day.

--
/syle
Re:No Suprise There by sir_cello · 2003-02-20 02:41 · Score: 3, Insightful

"get better code"

Better code is not the only thing in the world. What about better design, better architecture, better dedicated talent, better testing resources, better hardware and tools support, etc. It's hard to take something about code defect ratios and turn that into a wide-sweeping statement. I can show you plenty of low defect code that is part of a bad design.
Re:No Suprise There by mrpuffypants · 2003-02-20 02:42 · Score: 5, Insightful

I'm encountering this in my new job that I recently took. I walked into a company that was using an antiquated MS Exchange system for most of their communication, old networking hardware(which is another issue entirely), and software packages that hadn't been updated in about 5 years because the company that originally wrote them has gone under in recent years (.bomb)

After looking at everything I suggested a lot of open-source alternatives to all the current software. The prices to buy it all was zilch, and upgrading all the hardware can be done in-house, without the help of "contractors" that charge out the ass just to support their own software. The system would work great, a lot better than the currently antiquated crap we are using.

After presenting my ideas to management they shot it down totally. They, with their mind for the bottom line, couldn't understand how people would release software totally for free. They kept asking me when they would pull the bait and switch on us. It's two whole different schools of thought, and the only way that I can implement it now is to do it slowly behind their backs until they don't even know what hit them when they don't have to reboot the server daily anymore =]
Re:No Suprise There by trikberg · 2003-02-20 02:43 · Score: 1

Exactly.

With the small addition that people working on open source projects choose projects that they have a passion for, and do the coding when they feel like it.

This must produce better quality code than the code done in cubicle paradise at 10AM on Monday morning for whatever project the PHBs think leverages the synergies this week.

--
This post is free (as in cheese in a mousetrap).
Re:No Suprise There by Rary · 2003-02-20 02:58 · Score: 4, Interesting
I'm quite happy to report that this is not entirely the case everywhere in the industry. I happen to work for a consulting company that has become quite fascinated in recent times with the magic that is open source. And we love selling open source-based solutions to our customers, who in turn, love buying them.
Basically, the business logic goes something like this:
We can build your application in one of two ways.
1. $5000 for proprietary products (app servers, IDEs, etc.), and $5000 for our time and effort (total = $10000), or...
2. $1000 for proprietary products (the rest are all open source), and $7000 for our time and effort (total = $8000)
Needless to say, this goes over well for the client ($8000 expense is better than $10000 expense), and also for us ($7000 revenue is better than $5000 revenue ).
Obviously, I'm just picking numbers at random, but I think you get my point.
Not every client is eager to jump on open source tools, but more and more they're finding that it's a really good idea. Especially when a major consulting company with an excellent reputation (ie. us) comes along and tells them that this is a good idea. People tend to listen to us, because we tend (historically speaking) to be right a lot of the time.
PHBs might tend to be stuck in the mindset that "if it's free, it must suck, if it's expensive, it must be worth it". But when they pay a high-priced consultant to come in and give them advice, and that consultant says "you know, you can buy IBM's WebSphere Portal Server for $140,000 per CPU, or you can use the open source Jetspeed, which is practically the same thing, in fact, WebSphere Portal is basically just Jetspeed repackaged with some extra tools that you probably don't even need," even PHBs can understand that kind of logic.
--
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Re:No Suprise There by mccalli · 2003-02-20 03:13 · Score: 4, Insightful

After looking at everything I suggested a lot of open-source alternatives to all the current software....After presenting my ideas to management they shot it down totally.
What would be their motivation to replace the software? Does the current set-up work? Is there a burning need to replace?
Often "it would be a better system" isn't enough. If the old system works well enough and takes few resources, then it's doing its job fine and doesn't need a potentially risky replacement. And it sounds like what you proposed was a large change.
the only way that I can implement it now is to do it slowly behind their backs
Careful, young grasshopper. These aren't your private machines. If you've presented your ideas and they've been rejected, then do not sneak in those changes anyway. To do so could have serious ramifications for your job. Stick by what you've been told, and do things openly.
Cheers,
Ian
Re:No Suprise There by mrpuffypants · 2003-02-20 03:31 · Score: 1

well, it wasn't a huge change at all, just a few mail systems and other stuff that can be migrated quickly and easily. They recognize that their systems is ailing, but when I came in they were looking at dropping a huge chunk of change on a Novell system, which I immediately said no to myself. Since they are evaluating their options, i suggested open source software. They rejected it because they didn't understand it and it's "ideals"

Careful, young grasshopper. These aren't your private machines. If you've presented your ideas and they've been rejected, then do not sneak in those changes anyway. To do so could have serious ramifications for your job. Stick by what you've been told, and do things openly.

as for that, doh, i was just shoting off my mouth...it's too early in the day and I hate using this crap system. =]
Re:No Suprise There by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:47 · Score: 0

Tell them the history of OpenMosix and how even when the owner proprieterized his project it still went on going from the last GPL release
Re:No Suprise There by SN74S181 · 2003-02-20 04:18 · Score: 1

Needless to say, this goes over well for the client ($8000 expense is better than $10000 expense), and also for us ($7000 revenue is better than $5000 revenue ).

You forgot to include the other reasons it goes over well for you. The vendor lock-in you can achieve by using less well-known software that requires command-line configuration, regular updates (because it's open source, more people are crawling through the source discovering exploits, which are published in IRC and on Usenet, then fixes are implemented, etc. etc.), and so on. The client can't just pull in any run-of-the-mill certified MSCE to maintain the OS system. They will need YOU.
Re:No Suprise There by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:32 · Score: 0

bull. You did read what he wrote before mouthing off, did you? He's talking about WebSphere. That's not part of the MSCE background, Mr Smartypants. It turns out that there are MORE companies willing to support open-source tools than companies that will help you with websphere.
Re:No Suprise There by p3d0 · 2003-02-20 04:36 · Score: 1

That's a false dichotomy. All that stuff doesn't mean squat if it doesn't translate into better code.
Now if you had said that low defect rates are not the only thing in the world, I would have agreed.

--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Re:No Suprise There by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:37 · Score: 1, Interesting

but these professional programmers/coder might also be the ones programming the more buggy commerical closed sourced programs.
Re:No Suprise There by Rary · 2003-02-20 04:43 · Score: 4, Interesting

>> "The client can't just pull in any run-of-the-mill certified MSCE to maintain the OS system."
Well, judging by your reference to MCSEs, I'm forced to assume that you are assuming that my reference to open source products necessarily equates to choosing Linux over Windows. Which it does not.
Regardless, this "vendor lock-in" is really not an issue. Basically, because we are not the creators of the open source software in question, we actually have little advantage over our clients in terms of knowledge and resources for support. We have to pour through the same newsgroups that their own IT departments would have to pour through in order to diagnose a problem. So there's really little advantage for them to insist on continually hiring us to support the system, when all we would do is precisely the same thing their own IT people would do. Granted, we wouldn't recommend a specific open source solution if we didn't have some experience with it, but over time their own IT staff will acquire that experience as well.
On the other hand, if we were to sell them a proprietary solution, we have the benefit of partnerships and certifications which we can use to "lock them in", or at least give them the illusion of being "locked in".
To put this in perspective, let's look at a real example. We do a lot of J2EE development. We could sell a client a complete proprietary IBM package, including WebSphere for the application server and WSAD for the IDE. This means they will primarily rely on IBM for the bulk of their support, or else turn to us, as we have lots of WebSphere certified people (myself included). Or, we can sell them an open source solution that includes JBoss for the application server and Eclipse for the IDE. Eclipse is open source, but it's primarily backed by IBM, so they would still have IBM available for support, as well as us, as well as the Internet community (it's all too easy to assume that "open source" equals "some virgin hacker in a basement", but that's not always the case). JBoss comes with plenty of readily available support -- lots of books on the subject, newsgroups, etc.
As far as application servers go, JBoss is no more complicated than WebSphere (WebSphere requires a certain amount of "command-line configuration" and "regular updates"). Eclipse and WSAD are actually pretty much the same tool (WSAD is built out of Eclipse). I don't see how using tools such as these locks our customers into relying on us to support them.
Which is not to say that "locking them in" is a bad thing, from a business perspective. I just don't think it's an accurate assessment in this case.
Your response makes me sad. How are we to get PHBs past the perception of open source as sloppy unsupported crap slapped together by idiots in basements, if we can't even get geeks past this perception. Yes, some of it is. The same is true of some of the crappy closed source software that is for sale these days. We don't recommend crappy unsupported software to our clients, whether it's open source or proprietary.

--
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Re:No Suprise There by Abcd1234 · 2003-02-20 05:22 · Score: 1

but these professional programmers/coder might also be the ones programming the more buggy commerical closed sourced programs.

Yes, but there are two arguments to this. First, because the source is open, other professional developers can look over the code and find bugs in the implementation. After all, no developer is perfect, but having multiple eyes on a problem can expose defects quickly.

Second, the volume of bugs in closed source software could be attributed to the development model. After all, OSS has the luxury of virtual no, or at least very soft, deadlines. This means the developer can take his/her time and do things right. In a closed business model, often times there are immediate deadlines looming which may force the developer to cut corners, test inadequately, or just plain make mistakes due to rushing.
Re:No Suprise There by gbjbaanb · 2003-02-20 05:35 · Score: 2, Interesting

Possibly the reason open source is looked down on is the lack of professional documentation. Sure, quite a lot of packaged products come with huge sets of docco that have little content besides "click on the 'install' button to install our wonderful product", and less than perfect technical documentation, but O/S products generally have nothing more than a readme.txt that tells the user to visit the product web page and read some generated docs, or a user-supported forum. (which quite often has too much noise that a PHB will accept).

If a company could package O/S software with nice manuals and guaranteed 'support' then it'd gain much more acceptance, however, I suppose it would stop being 'free' software then.
Re:No Suprise There by Rary · 2003-02-20 05:53 · Score: 1

>> "If a company could package O/S software with nice manuals and guaranteed 'support' then it'd gain much more acceptance, however, I suppose it would stop being 'free' software then."
This is happening. The various Linux distributions are the most obvious example, although the documentation and support do cost money, while the software remains free. They're still much cheaper than closed source alternatives.
I agree that open source in general has a long way to go on this issue, but a great many open source products are, right now, perfectly viable alternatives to costly closed source products. My favourite example is Eclipse, which is my Java IDE of choice. Why spend thousands of dollars on JBuilder or WSAD (which is Eclipse, only with a big price tag attached), when Eclipse is free and does (almost) everything you could ever want an IDE to do. It may not have the support options that something like JBuilder has, but here's the thing: I've never needed support. It's a solid product. On those rare occasions where you might have a problem with it, there is plenty of information online, but I've never known anyone to need it.

--
"You cannot simultaneously prevent and prepare for war." -- Albert Einstein
Re:No Suprise There by FallLine · 2003-02-20 07:20 · Score: 1

That's a false dichotomy. All that stuff doesn't mean squat if it doesn't translate into better code.
Yeah sure, then explain why MS WIndows and numerous applications (even non-MS ones) have managed to both retain users and keep them on an upgrade path (over older and more stable code bases) despite Linux and related open source projects with supposedly higher quality code? It's not all marketing mumbo jumbo. Your Linux code may be very pretty, but that prettiness is not terribly relevant to the user if they can't even install it easily. You won't find me defending MS very often, but I'd argue that crashing a couple times a day under various versions of MS Windows even is FAR preferable for most users than putting up with Linux's (yes yes, I know) lack of features and overall poor UI (even completely ignoring Linux's crashes in X, its various competitive apps, etc)
Re:No Suprise There by p3d0 · 2003-02-20 07:58 · Score: 1

Ok, you're right. I stand corrected. There's more to the quality of a program than the quality of its code. There are installation procedures, documentation, support, etc.

--
Patrick Doyle
I mod down every jackass who puts his moderation policy in his sig. Oh, wait a sec....
Re:No Suprise There by Ardias · 2003-02-20 10:59 · Score: 1

Apparently, the managers do have a very different way of thinking about free (as in price) software than you. A lot of people just don't understand how using free software can save them money.

But, there may be more to their rejection than what they think of free software. The managers may have other issues such as:
Will they replace a lot of existing software at their customer sites with all this great new software you have in mind?
Will they have to retrain their customers, their sales people, and their customer-support staff to use the new stuff?
Will there be a whole new set of bugs to fix in any software they build on top of the open source products?

Believe, I have advocated using open-source products to various employers. Sometimes they were really interested, and understood that there are some high quality open source programs. But if they had to replace existing stuff, then they also had a lot of other questions to ask. (Other managers were just mentally filtered out any sentences containing the words "open source" or "free software".)
Re:No Suprise There by jafac · 2003-02-20 13:36 · Score: 1

I have had the pleasure of working for two separate closed-source software companies.
One was one of the top 10 largest software companies in the world.
The other was not strictly a software company, but did large custom projects.

All and all, I'd say talent on the engineering team and management team were about equal.

The first company had rigorous testing processes, but did not adhere to them when schedules got tight. The engineering process was rather ad hoc. The result was fairly typical bug-ridden business software. Easy to install and use, but if something went wrong, it was usually "off to the developer for a code-dive". There was almost nothing that could be done in the field to troubleshoot. The only option was to hope it might possibly be reproduced in the lab where a developer could sit and debug it.

The second company had extremely rigorous engineering, internal peer-review, testing, and change-control processes, and they stuck to them, schedule be damned (often the schedule was padded to account for this - but the managers only rarely got it right), and in many cases, it saved their asses. Their product was still rather buggy, performed poorly, and fell far short of the customer's requirements. The UI was a usability nightmare, but the software was so specialized, it didn't really matter - the answer to that was thorough documentation. When it came to troubleshooting in the field, it was by comparison, very transparent. And there was no shortage of available team-members who knew what was going on in any given part of the project, so if Sammy was sick, and his component was acting weird, Debbie could tell you what was going on and fix it.

Guess which company I'd MUCH rather work for? Sure, the rules and regulations of the rigorous process are a huge pain in the ass, and watching helplessly as schedules slip over and over is a pain. But when you need to know something, it's nice not to get a vacant stare or a shrug from the developer who was supposed to be the guy who wrote that particular component.

In the end, this is an apples to apples comparison of two closed-source software projects. The difference was the engineering process. And THAT is where I think open source software really shines - because behind the seemingly ad hoc collaboration of hobbyists and geeks is an engineering process that results in a team that knows what the fuck they're doing. In the closed-source world, there's really no guarantee what the development team is doing behind the scenes, and in my opinion, is MUCH LESS worthy of trust.

One additional example I'll provide, is an experience I had with Microsoft Developer Support. I had been having problems with a component of the Windows 2000 OS, not behaving as it should. And it was affecting our product. So I got ahold of developer support, and at first, they took 3 days to figure out which team I was supposed to be routed to. Then, after talking with the manager of this team, stressing how important this issue was to one of our large accounts, they listened to my description of the problem again, looked at my logs and analysis, and sent me to some canned PowerPoint presentation about how this component was supposed to work. I went through it, and again, concluded that this component was definately not working as Microsoft was advertising. I could demonstrate that - independent of my own product and the problems we saw. Using only Windows, and Sysinternals Filemon. So I called back, and they admitted that they were stumped, and were trying to get ahold of the developer who wrote that part of Windows. They could not locate a person who knew how this component worked, or could look at the code, or could explain the behavior I saw. They basically gave me the okay to tell the customer that this was a bug in Windows 2000 (XP does it too), and even gave me a reference number. To my knowlege, nobody has looked at this issue within Microsoft. This, to me, illustrates precisely, the problem with closed-source software, and the sloppy engineering practices it conceals.

--

These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
Re:No Suprise There by Greyfox · 2003-02-20 21:02 · Score: 0

All of which means fuck-all if your product is a steaming pile of crap. I could show you code from supposedly CMM-Level-4 shops that will be worse than anything you've ever seen before. Anywhere.
The best IDE in the world won't make you a better programmer. Nor will the best hardware, pretty pictures, uber-mondo-process-buzzword of the day nor even a piece of paper that says you know how to program.
I'll take code made by someone who likes to code and deal with the remaining problems any day, if my choice is between that and someone who hates programming and only does it for the fat paycheck.
Don't get me wrong. I've looked at plenty of hideous open source code. And I've looked at plenty of corporate code that was worse. But there is no magical corporate code fairy who comes down and blesses corporate code before it goes out the door. The people writing that code are not supermen. A lot of them can't code as well as you or I. A lot of them can't code at all, much less design. And despite what managers may think, having an architect draw a pretty picture of what the system should look like does not allow you to hire trained monkeys for your programming staff.

--
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Re:No Suprise There by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 22:07 · Score: 0

MSCE - and how is that not vendor lock-in?
Re:No Suprise There by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-22 06:21 · Score: 0

Bullshit! Name the CMM4 org that's pumping out shitty code.
Re:No Suprise There by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-24 02:21 · Score: 0

The group that's writing the replacement for the product I'm maintaining right now has this amusing little habit of writing JSPs that use static member variables and are therefore suitable for just 1 user. They're certified at CMM Level 4. Not that anyone's been auditing that. They supposedly had a code review about a year ago and decided that code reviews were an optional part of the process and they wouldn't do them anymore. Not that it's hard to find programmers in the industry that don't understand concurrency issues (Must have slept through their CS courses that mentioned that, or taken the business track that doesn't talk about concurrency.)

Something we all knew .. by phuturephunk · 2003-02-20 02:27 · Score: 4, Insightful

The more points of view you apply to solving a problem, the quicker, and better you'll solve it. The beauty of human reasoning isthat no two people will view the world in *exactly* the same way, therefore each one of their respective paths to the solution will be different...Travelling that path to one solution can, as we know, lead to other SOLUTIONS to other PROBLEMS.. The more heads that work, the more solutions discovered . . and so on..

Re:Something we all knew .. by Kombat · 2003-02-20 03:17 · Score: 1

The more points of view you apply to solving a problem, the quicker, and better you'll solve it.

"Better?" Maybe. "Quicker?" Definitely not. If you've even been to a single high level design review, you'd know that not only does everyone have their own opinion, but they all adamently believe theirs is the only right way to do it. And they'll fight with you and argue for hours trying to convince you that their way is better than yours, John's, and Ted's. Meanwhile, Ted can't believe that John would propose something so stupid, and John thinks your idea will be a memory hog.

So where does the "quicker" part come in?

Also, I would like to refute the idea that open source projects have all these eyes scouring them. There are a helluvalotta mothballed projects on SourceForge that looked pretty cool, but there's no interest in them. Sure, there are quite a few people actively working on the latest-and-greatest, bleeding-edge Apache mods, and kernel patches, but does anyone care about the Widget Formatter that *my* company needs? No. But throw a little money behind it, and you can have 2 or 3 developers working on it, full time, who will produce software *exactly* to your specification, not just how some programmer in New Zealand thinks it shoud work, in his opinion.

--
Like woodworking? Build your own picture frames.
Re:Something we all knew .. by thx2001r · 2003-02-20 04:30 · Score: 1

Exactly. And, the more involved people become in projects, the more tunnelvision they tend to get with the particular segment they are working on. If someone less closely involved takes a look, they also bring a fresh perspective of the overall picture and can easily spot mounting design problems.

--
-Joe
If we're all god's children, what's so special about Jesus? - Jimmy Carr
Re:Something we all knew .. by phuturephunk · 2003-02-20 04:42 · Score: 1

..I'm guessing you're Ted in this scenario...:-P..

Claim is too general by Peter_Pork · 2003-02-20 02:27 · Score: 5, Insightful

Open Code Has Fewer Bugs

The study looked at a single part of an operating systems (TCP/IP stack) and then the posting made a very general claim about open source software. This is cheap engineering (a.k.a. bad science). Period. You need a much larger sample to make such a claim. A single data point is meaningless. In fact, I believe that code bugs are much more a function of programmer performance and code complexity than open vs. close source development model. Opening the code may have a positive impact, but it is not the major factor to consider. The last thing Open Source needs is this kind of marketing strategies...

Re:Claim is too general by tsetem · 2003-02-20 02:46 · Score: 1

It's not like other Software Vendors market the same way...
Re:Claim is too general by dnoyeb · 2003-02-20 04:29 · Score: 1

Indeed code bugs may be a function of programmer performance and code complexity rather than open vs. closed source. However, the fashion and frequency of when those bugs are discovered and/or fixed IS a function of open vs. closed source.

Personally I use mostly Microsoft software and have experienced many bugs in it, but have yet to contribute 1 single patch or even file a bug report. Who dares when as soon as you pick up the phone they start talking about how much you want to spend today!?

As for open source I have contributed development and/or patches to

JHotDraw
PMD
Netbeans
Java

And I have made specific bug reports on many more open source projects like

Linux sound drivers
XDoclet

I tried unsuccessfully for about 2 years to get a simple but tremendously annoying bug fixed that really affected the usage of VisualCafe.(switched to JBuilder then Netbeans)

I have done these things only for my own personal benefit in general. Yet the open source products have benefited, while the closed source ones have not.
Re:Claim is too general by ArthurDent · 2003-02-20 05:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

You're right. This study alone does not prove anything. However, trying to draw out trends that would lead to that conclusion that could be verified through further study is valuable. Taking your arguement to an extreme no one would ever study anything because a single data point on anything would be useless.

Perhaps it would be better to say that there is preliminary evidence that seems to show that open code has fewer bugs.

I believe that code bugs are much more a function of programmer performance and code complexity than open vs. close source development model

Open Source projects have access to many more developers which leads to there being a much larger body of knowledge and skill to bring to bear on a project. The more eyes that look at the code the better the code will become.

number doesn't matter by Apreche · 2003-02-20 02:29 · Score: 3, Insightful

Severity of bugs is more important that number of bugs. I could have a program with one bug, doesn't work. And you can have two bugs, feature broken and memory leak, but it works. Who is better?

I also like the assumption in the title that because linux was found to have fewer bugs than some other OS's that open software in general has fewer bugs. Take a look at some of the bug lists on sourceforge projects and tell me that again. Number of bugs varies by project, not by open-ness.

--
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!

Re:number doesn't matter by m1chael · 2003-02-20 02:33 · Score: 0

"Severity of bugs is more important that number of bugs"
and i guess the fixing of those bugs in a timely manner is pretty important too.

--
I know you are psychotic, but please make an effort.
Re:number doesn't matter by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:43 · Score: 0

The review is about working practices. A lot of companies don't do full code reviews, escially if there trying to meet deadlines.

Linux is evolved code and doesn't really have deadlines, bug in all parts of the OS are found and corrected daily. One short fall is that it's hard to know what code has been reviewed and checked. I found a couple of critical bugs in the linux USB implementation, the area of code I looked at hadn't had any changes in the whole of 2.5. The patches were posted a few months ago, but havn't made it yet, I'll report a bug in the kernel bugzila soon so that the bugs will be fixed before 2.6 is released.
Re:number doesn't matter by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:37 · Score: 0

really you found bugs in the kernel USB implemenation? That's a shocker, considering there are maybe all of 2 USB devices that actually work in linux. If you can make a Gravis Gamepad Pro work, I'd like to know how.

Open code is only Linux? by GammaTau · 2003-02-20 02:30 · Score: 2, Insightful

Why did they test only one free software kernel while testing four proprietary ones? I'm not saying that if, say, a *BSD kernel was used, the results would necessarily be something else, but making general statements of open code by examining only one open project is certainly not very accurate. Although I suspect that these inaccurate conclusions are more in the Slashdot side than in the study.

Stating the obvious by seanadams.com · 2003-02-20 02:30 · Score: 5, Informative

'The open-source implementation of TCP/IP in the Linux kernel clearly exhibits a higher code quality than commercial implementations in general-purpose operating systems,

Well of course it does! The Linux and BSD IP stacks are benchmarks. This is where practically all protocol research happens - how would anyone be able to verify your results otherwise? Furthermore, only the free stacks are useful for compatibility testing because they are so configurable.

So obviously it stands to reason that this code is much more complete and bug-free than any commercial implementation. THOUSANDS of people are studying every single line of this code on an ongoing basis.

I've worked on a number of commercial IP stacks - some from scratch, and some based on Linux. Any IP stack written from scratch is understandably simpler, but it's not that hard to implement the essential RFC requirements (i.e. the "MUST"s) and make it stable. Now, making it FAST and making it use all of the bleeding-edge TCP stuff... that's another story. Only Linux/BSD are there (and of course any other OSes which use their stacks).

Not sure if I believe this by tmark · 2003-02-20 02:31 · Score: 1

They decline to name the commercial OSes. In a world where DBMS makers often refuse to let reviewers disclose performance benchmarks, could this be because no company like Sun is going to disclose the source code for their OS so that some company can go and run a comparison of the quality of their code against their competitors ?

As for Linux beating one of two "special purpose" networking products, the flip siding of beating one of two is that one of two of the commercial OSes was superior to Linux.

Re:Not sure if I believe this by owenomalley · 2003-02-20 04:39 · Score: 1

*smile* I believe it. I used to work there and know the guy that wrote the original white paper. He can't name the other companies for the obvious reasons. But they do get LOTS of code from different companies. There haven't been any problems with code falling into the wrong hands. Trust issues are one of the important things for Reasoning to deal with. Reasoning has been offering code inspection services for the last 3 years and has built up quite a database of error rates across a wide variety of companies. They can't tell you specifics, but they say that your code has X errors/kloc and other people writing this kind of code have an error rate of Y.
Re:Not sure if I believe this by Silk · 2003-02-20 04:53 · Score: 1

There's a possibility that the other product is superior. The product could also be equal to Linux.

If they found them, I hope they reported them. by Queuetue · 2003-02-20 02:31 · Score: 1

Both to the linux dev team and to the commercial vendors. Pointing out an aggregate number of defects is pretty stupid without telling the developers what they are.

What I'd love to see is: If all of the significant defects found were reported, how many *still* exist 1 month later.

Re:If they found them, I hope they reported them. by Corgha · 2003-02-20 04:44 · Score: 1

Right. They should pay money to open a support incident and then spend hours or days on the phone talking to techs who have no idea what they are talking about.

Emailing linux-kernel with a bug report is one thing, but most commercial vendor bug reporting is such a pain in the neck that only the really desperate engage in it.

Fiar Comaparision? by Quill_28 · 2003-02-20 02:31 · Score: 1

I am curious why they choose the TCP/IP stack. My guess would be that TCP/IP would be where Linux and BSD's would be the strongest. I am also a little confused because I thought Win2000 used BSD's TCP/IP stack.
I am sure those guys are alot smarter than I, but I am a little confused on testing.

Anyone?

Re:Fiar Comaparision? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:41 · Score: 0

All of Microsoft's Windows TCP stacks and some of the support utilities are directly based on BSD code. For example, you can find a University of Berkeley copyright in the commandline FTP client.

upgrade maybe? by fiiz · 2003-02-20 02:33 · Score: 2, Informative

Well ya know you can either go on cursing or upgrade...

"Mozilla 1.2.1 was released to correct a DHTML bug in Mozilla 1.2. The only difference between the two releases is the fix for this bug (Bug 182500). If you have already installed Mozilla 1.2, you should upgrade to Mozilla 1.2.1. "

--

yours ever, fz.

Re:upgrade maybe? by Czernobog · 2003-02-20 02:40 · Score: 1

Ever tried to download Moz on a 33.6 modem?
I suggest you give it a try. It puts discovering bugs like that under a new light.

That is why I decided I won't bother with Moz anymore. Next programmed release I'm getting is going to be around 1.4 and that only after it's been out for nearly a month. Needless to say, my linux box is going to keep 0.98 for a loong time still.

--
/. Where the truth
Re:upgrade maybe? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 05:43 · Score: 0

You got unlucky. Would you bitch about downloading the latest WindowsXP service pack on a 33.6k modem?

Yes, and... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:34 · Score: 0

Sweeping generalizations have more critics

Misleading in terms of project selection by Jeppe+Salvesen · 2003-02-20 02:34 · Score: 2, Insightful

They chose the TCP/IP stack. That is almost certainly the best tested of all the components in Linux. It is used by everyone, so the eyeball count is particularily enormous.

If they would compare the implementations of something less popular, the numbers MIGHT be different. x.25 or something.

--

Stop the brainwash

Re:Misleading in terms of project selection by TheRaven64 · 2003-02-20 03:31 · Score: 1

And here you have the fundamental point. The parts of OSS that all the coders use are better than the parts of CSS that the coders use, since CSS is usually aimed at end users, not developers, and designed with someone other than the author in mind as an end user. CSS is more likely to have a consistent level of code review (i.e. ISO9000), while OSS is likely to focus on the bugs that cause the developers problems. If you use the software in the same way as the developers, then that's great, if not then OSS can be less stable than CSS. While this article gives some useful propaganda for use on PHBs, it's not actually very objective or useful.

--
I am TheRaven on Soylent News

I am skeptical of the results by BigBir3d · 2003-02-20 02:35 · Score: 2, Insightful

For this reason:

Reasoning declined to disclose which operating systems it compared with Linux, but said two of the three general-purpose operating systems were versions of Unix. The comparison was done with version 2.4.19 of the Linux kernel. For the comparison products, the company had access to the source code that for proprietary software is usually a closely guarded secret.

Fewer bugs than what? by haunebu · 2003-02-20 02:35 · Score: 1

Specifically, Reasoning examined the TCP/IP stack and found fewer errors in Linux.

I don't know which OS he's talking about, but Microsoft pinched their TCP/IP stack from *BSD. So open code has fewer bugs than, what, open code?

--

Blue skies, Barthy Burgers, girls...

Re:Fewer bugs than what? by LizardKing · 2003-02-20 02:49 · Score: 5, Informative

Microsoft pinched their TCP/IP stack from *BSD

Not exactly true. I can't find the link off hand, but I read an explanation of the background to this myth quite recently. If you Google around you should be able to find it.

Back when MicroSoft were keen to add TCP/IP support to Windows, they contracted another firm to to do the work. That firm took the BSD licensed stack (from 4.3BSD as I recall), and did tyhe necessary porting work. This they then delivered to MS, meeting the original deadline. Since then, NT has gained a new TCP/IP stack written from scratch by MS engineers.

As a result, the TCP/IP stack currently used in Windows owes little or nothing to the BSD implementation.

Chris
Re:Fewer bugs than what? by JohnFluxx · 2003-02-20 03:09 · Score: 1

Was this out of pride, or problems with the bsd tcp/ip stack?
Re:Fewer bugs than what? by unapersson · 2003-02-20 03:45 · Score: 1

I don't know which OS he's talking about, but Microsoft pinched their TCP/IP stack from *BSD. So open code has fewer bugs than, what, open code?

But Microsoft's stack isn't open code, it's a fork of some open code at a particular point in its development.
Re:Fewer bugs than what? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:50 · Score: 0

It's been a while but I believe it was because the BSD stack essentially had to act like a black box for usage when they wanted something that was easier to integrate and hook. However, when writing the new version, the old version was used for regression testing so the behaviors should be pretty close even though the implementation got redone.
Re:Fewer bugs than what? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 07:12 · Score: 0

As a result, the TCP/IP stack currently used in Windows owes little or nothing to the BSD implementation

At least that explains it's great performance!

Space shuttle code is closed by MondoMor · 2003-02-20 02:35 · Score: 5, Insightful

The code for the shuttle's GPCs is closed, and it's regarded by many as probably the most bug-free code around with any degree of complexity. It's been upgraded several times since the '70s, and rarely have errors been found.

It probably had one of the longest development times for its size, too. Which helps a lot.

Quality has nothing to do with whether code is open or closed source. It's got everything to do with the environment in which it was written. Code written under extreme management pressure from a profit-hungry megacorp is just as bad as code written by an ignorant or uneducated dork in his basement.

Re:Space shuttle code is closed by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:50 · Score: 1

Yes, but, in either of those cases, if the code is open, it can be fixed by other people. If the megacorp doesn't release their code, they stick people with bad software. If the uneducated dork doesn't release his code, well, there are probably other alternatives out there to use (hey, if an uneducated dork can write it, a million other people can too, and some will be better).
Re:Space shuttle code is closed by dnoyeb · 2003-02-20 04:21 · Score: 1

How can it be regarded as bug free if no one has the opportunity to review it?

I'll believe it when I see it.
Re:Space shuttle code is closed by insac · 2003-02-20 05:59 · Score: 1

Nothing about shuttle code, I'm afraid, but..
Code written under extreme management pressure from a profit-hungry megacorp is just as bad as code written by an ignorant or uneducated dork in his basement.
Excellent point, but I should add, imho, that while I'm not forced to join an open source project, I could be forced to work with "shittish" projects under "extreme management pressure".
If an open source project is badly architectured, horribly coded and everything else, it simply fades away and disappears. Sometimes, the megacorp project still arrives in production phase and is sold thanks to great marketing ideas.
So, sometimes the code is "just as bad" but the megacorp one would make more damages.

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This message doesn't need a sig

BSD Is Dying? by RAMMS+EIN · 2003-02-20 02:37 · Score: 1

What about BSD? I was under the impression that at laest one of the major vendors of commercial OSen (no names mentioned) had taken their TCP/IP stack from BSD. BSD is open source (at least, the BSD they took it from). Wouldn't that invalidate the claim that open source has fewer bugs?

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"For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong."
-- H.L. Mencken

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Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.

yeah right by nomadic · 2003-02-20 02:37 · Score: 2, Insightful

Specifically, Reasoning examined the TCP/IP stack and found fewer errors in Linux.

So they just looked at the code and found all the bugs. They must have the best programmers in history working for them if they could just look and find all those bugs that it usually takes years for mortal programmers to find.

Now try the same with CIFS by solcity · 2003-02-20 02:37 · Score: 2, Interesting

Much more interesting would be a code comparison between open source samba and the micro$oft CIFS code..

Not about Microsoft! by Daengbo · 2003-02-20 02:38 · Score: 3, Informative

Before we begin the bashing, let's note that two flavors of 2.4.19 were compared to two closed source Unix operating systems. Let's try to keep the evil empire out of this one!

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Put identity in the browser.

Why that component? by DeadSea · 2003-02-20 02:40 · Score: 4, Insightful

The Linux TCP/IP is an area of code that is known to be robust. It has been analysed again and again. Windows TCP/IP stack is widely regarded to be inferior on many counts. If you choose TCP/IP as your area of study I don't doubt that you will come out with these results. If you chose another area such as USB protocol, you would find very different results.

TCP/IP is better on linux because many very talented people have worked on it. This is an area in which open source software development has worked well. However, it does not mean that open source developement always works better.

any kernel patches come from this? by dido · 2003-02-20 02:40 · Score: 4, Interesting

If they found 0.1 errors per 1000 lines of code, did they approach Linus and Co. to point them out? Has Reasoning submitted any kernel patches to address the errors they say they found?

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Qu'on me donne six lignes écrites de la main du plus honnête homme, j'y trouverai de quoi le faire pendre.

Re:any kernel patches come from this? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:49 · Score: 0

No, because didn't pay. After all, they are a company trying to make money aren't they?

Re:yeah, right by unborn · 2003-02-20 02:41 · Score: 1

As you can see in the article, they compare using ratios rather than exact numbers

hm by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 02:43 · Score: 0

Isn't it illegal to reverse engineer proprietory code?

But Bugs are Cool! by tbmaddux · 2003-02-20 02:47 · Score: 2, Funny

Right?

Were they testing code from 7 years ago?

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Re:yeah, right by fussman · 2003-02-20 02:49 · Score: 0

I thought we hate trolls at /.

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This only makes sense. by SatanicPuppy · 2003-02-20 02:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

The code I write for myself is the cleanest stuff in the universe. I get freaky about extra lines or lines that look "ugly" or inelegant.

Now when I'm at work I toss out functional, ugly code. Doesn't work quite as well, but 90% of the users will never know that. I'll write catch statements for the most obvious errors, but I don't sit and brood about what some hypothetical idiot might want to do with the code. If there are enough people who hit an error there, I patch it, and move on with my life.

By and large, high production commercial code is sloppy. There isn't any profit to be made in making it pretty or elegant, and we all know how (for a random example) MICROSOFT feels about profit.

Open source is just the opposite; if you're not making any money on it, you're doing it for your own personal satisfaction, and I think most people find it more satisfying to have clean baddass code, rather than sloppy junk code. Heh. Especially when your NAME is on it, and the SOURCE is available.

Just my .024 euros.

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ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.

Re:This only makes sense. by SewersOfRivendell · 2003-02-20 04:39 · Score: 1

You're assuming that the average developer knows how to write clean, well-designed code. That isn't necessarily the case.
Re:This only makes sense. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 11:45 · Score: 0

i'm just like you in that the code i write for myself is off the scale. i am also a partner in two software companies and in some ways i consider the programmers who write code for me as an extension of myself who are held to the same absurd standards. is this fair? no. do i care? no. this can in fact be a good thing or a bad thing. if you are billy badass and get off on working with a meatgrinder codebase then its a good thing. if you are incompetant, lazy or a shiestmeister who tries to pass functional garbage off as quality its a bad thing.

i can spot a crap-spewing hackmaster by sitting behind him and watching him work for 4 hours or reviewing his code after he thinks its "polished".

engineer founded companies are a different beast than your typical setup. when pointy hairs aren't running the show the rules can change drastically.

Let's think about this... by Anixamander · 2003-02-20 02:54 · Score: 3, Insightful

Reasoning "sells automated software inspection services."

The key word here is "sells." They would have a tought time selling this to open sourcers, what with everything wanting to be free and all. Instead, they show the big closed source companies that their code isn't nearly as bug free as the open stuff, therefore they really need to buy this.

I'm not denying that open source is less buggy, but always question the motivation of the company making the claims. Just because Reasoning's assertions fit your own neat world views doesn't mean that they are without bias or secondary motivation.

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Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball(TM)

Re:Let's think about this... by Zimm · 2003-02-20 06:25 · Score: 1

I'm not denying that open source is less buggy, but always question the motivation of the company making the claims. Just because Reasoning's assertions fit your own neat world views doesn't mean that they are without bias or secondary motivation.

Err no, i could care less what reasoning's motivations are, only if his assertions are true. Hell for all I know Linus wrote linux because he thinks he can score more with the chicks. If Bill Gates yells "look out you're being shot at!" I could care less what his motivations are.

Yes, but the code has diverged. by Jimithing+DMB · 2003-02-20 02:54 · Score: 5, Insightful

Actually, you've inadvertantly stumbled upon an excellent point.

No code is perfect to begin with. The BSD stack is still improved from time to time. The BSD stack that companies folded into their code years ago has since had some major changes and the companies haven't bothered to take many of those changes into account.

Had they been required by license (GPL) to keep the code open, then it could be fixed by other people. Instead, the implementation has languished. This in fact is one of Stallman's great resons for keeping all code free.

However, the reality of it is that our current environment still favors closed source software. With any luck, people will slowly start to wake up and realize that source code needs to be open for all software projects. Think about it. If it was normal to receive source with binaries, nobody would really think twice about it. It's only seen as a bad thing because it's not what Microsoft does. But the reality is that Microsoft has a business model that works well for them, a giant monopoly. The reason their competitors fall on their asses is because they are trying to play as if they were MS, which they are not. It's not impossible to compete with Microsoft, it's just impossible to compete head-on.

Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Daengbo · 2003-02-20 03:32 · Score: 1

However, the reality of it is that our current environment still favors closed source software
I think I would agree with you, but this editorial doesn't. Don't hate me, Trinity,. I'm just the messenger.

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Put identity in the browser.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Eccles · 2003-02-20 04:23 · Score: 5, Insightful

However, the reality of it is that our current environment still favors closed source software.

I'd say it's not environment, it's economics. Apache has flourished because the people who develop it are also people who use it. But what percent of graphic designers are really using the Gimp vs. Photoshop? Maybe Photoshop has more bugs, but it has more usable features (performance also?), and that's what its users want. Unless you can come up with a scheme to fund development of open source in the same way that software purchases fund closed source, closed source is going to be the only way to develop software where the users generally aren't also the developers.

I develop commercial closed-source software. I'd absolutely love it if some sugar daddy came up to me and said, keep doing what you're doing and I'll keep paying you what you're getting paid, except we're making the code open source. But it isn't going to happen.

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Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Bodrius · 2003-02-20 05:04 · Score: 5, Interesting

Aye. It could be that the TCP/IP stack that the article mentioned has "flourished" (become better software) because the people who develop it are VERY MUCH using it.

Linux geeks grok TCP/IP networking, and Linux users DEPEND on TCP/IP (not 'it would be nice to have web access and surf porn while I type this memo') for practically all of its market share. Like gcc, TCP/IP is part of the Linux deal.

It would be biased to regard this as conclusive evidence of the superiority of open-source unless other, less sexy areas of Linux development are compared to their commercial counterparts in the same way.

As evidence that certain commercial companies have not put priority on the TCP/IP stack of their OS, this could very well be good evidence.

But this doesn't necessarily mean the commercial companies are inferior; they may very well be right in having different priorities.

For example, for a Windows user it's more important that the Media Player works perfectly than having an efficient TCP/IP stack. Even on the server side it's not a big issue on their market. It's under so many layers of software, appearances and priorities that their clients would never notice if they made it better anyway.

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Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by fitten · 2003-02-20 05:12 · Score: 1

I'd mod this one up if I could :(

I'd do the same.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Abcd1234 · 2003-02-20 05:16 · Score: 4, Informative

However, the reality of it is that our current environment still favors closed source software. With any luck, people will slowly start to wake up and realize that source code needs to be open for all software projects. Think about it. If it was normal to receive source with binaries, nobody would really think twice about it. It's only seen as a bad thing because it's not what Microsoft does.

Please! I'm no MS apologist, but this is getting plain stupid. This isn't just about MS, believe it or not. The fact is, open source as a business model is seen as a bad thing because it's not what a huge number of companies making billions of dollars a year do. Have you heard of Oracle? IBM? Sun? Apple (our latest hero)? I could go on... the fact is, there are a TON of companies out there making big bucks selling closed source software. And more power to them!

In the real world, closed source is, apparently, a viable business model. And thus far, open source isn't. Honestly, how many companies are actually making some real money making products which they also release the source to? Until this starts happening, closed source is going to be predominant... and there's nothing wrong with that!

Personally, yes, I agree that open source is a good thing. But assuming that all software should be open based purely on some moralistic view is ridiculous. The world is far more complicated than that. Statements like "source code needs to be open for all software projects" is just plain naive, IMHO.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by zero_offset · 2003-02-20 05:24 · Score: 1

If it was normal to receive source with binaries, nobody would really think twice about it. It's only seen as a bad thing because it's not what Microsoft does.
I do agree with your observations about the BSD code and it's usage in closed source, but the conclusion quoted above twists things around a bit. You should have said, "If it was normal to DELIVER source with binaries..."
NOBODY would have any problems RECEIVING source, not even the companies who refuse to deliver it. However, people and companies do perceive DELIVERING their source as a bad thing, and it has nothing to do with Microsoft -- it is primarily because nobody TRUSTS other people.

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Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by pHDNgell · 2003-02-20 05:32 · Score: 1

Had they been required by license (GPL) to keep the code open, then it could be fixed by other people.

Um, no. Random companies forking open source projects and keeping them GPL won't get free engineers just because they're open source. The BSD stacks have improved, and any of the companies using BSD stacks can still integrate them, but even if they were parts of OSS projects, it's not just going to magically happen just because they're GPL.

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-- The world is watching America, and America is watching TV.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Eccles · 2003-02-20 05:34 · Score: 1

I'd mod this one up if I could :(

You could mark me as a friend, it's more personal that way...:-)

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Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by anothy · 2003-02-20 05:36 · Score: 1

Had [Microsoft & other commercial vendors who picked up the BSD TCP/IP stack] been required by license (GPL) to keep the code open, then it could be fixed by other people. Instead, the implementation has languished. This in fact is one of Stallman's great resons for keeping all code free.
yeah, and it's also indicitive of why Stallman's a simplistic fool. the fact that commercial vendors wern't required to reliese their derived source is why it took off. before adopting the BSD code, Micorsoft (and other networking vendors like Novel) had networking, but it was substantially more proprietary in nature. the BSD license provided a financial incentive for standardization. had Microsoft been required to release the code to the TCP/IP stack, they most likely would have either developed a propriatary protocol in-house, bought somebody else who was doing so, or licensed Novel's implementation (which, at the time, was substantially faster than the IP stack that got into Windows).
so, in this case as in many others, the GPL would have been detrimental to the adoption of cross-platform standards. it also, of course, assumes that Microsoft would take back any of the changes people came up with. GPL makes no requirement that they do so. sorry, Richie.

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i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by pantherace · 2003-02-20 06:40 · Score: 1

I doubt you are correct for one simple reason: The Internet. The systems on it used TCP/IP, which had replaced everything else. That fact, that the routers that allowed people to be outside their network (Each Novell server acted as (or could act as) a IPX\TCP/IP gateway, and you only saw that one way normally (you could probably come up with some single-point example, or series of, and I doubt they would be statistically significant.) So Stallman wouldn't really have mattered one way or the other, on this issue.
This entrenchment of IPv4 is what is now holding back IPv6. This is one example where entrenchment is both good and bad. (Novell, MS and others couldn't use their own non-open protocol, but now a new open protocol has problems replacing the old one.)
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by jelle · 2003-02-20 08:49 · Score: 1

[snip] "But what percent of graphic designers are really using the Gimp" [snip] "Unless you can come up with a scheme to fund development" [snip]

Ummm... Film Gimp Chalks Up Another Studio. It happens.

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--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by jelle · 2003-02-20 08:52 · Score: 1

"But this doesn't necessarily mean the commercial companies are inferior; they may very well be right in having different priorities."

Like "Making money" instead of "Making users happy"?

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--- Hindsight is 20/20, but walking backwards is not the answer.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by HiThere · 2003-02-20 09:24 · Score: 1

You explain why this is good for those companies. You fail to explain why this is good for their (potential) customers.

There are good reasons. Closed source project tend to come up with slick user interfaces more quickly, e.g. But that the companies selling it may make oodles of cash from their customers has to count as a truly lousy reason to become a customer.

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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by tupps · 2003-02-20 09:36 · Score: 2, Interesting

The thing is that open source products aren't necessarily made by a company whose primary purpose is selling software. Alot of open source is worked on by people who make companies work. Eg, Company X makes widgets, they need a widget inventory control. Company Y makes car parts, and have written an inventory control program. They release this as open source, Company X uses it, and there internal guys find & fix a bunch of bugs. Because it is open source both companies are gaining the added benefit. I think you will find that for most open source projects (especially those that are not high profile) this is how they are being financed. Remember 95% of code written these days is for internal systems that are not released onto the market.

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Go out and get sailing!
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Abcd1234 · 2003-02-20 11:58 · Score: 1

There are good reasons. Closed source project tend to come up with slick user interfaces more quickly, e.g. But that the companies selling it may make oodles of cash from their customers has to count as a truly lousy reason to become a customer.

Yeah, that's a very bad reason to become a customer. In fact, as a customer, it's your job to find a product which costs you the least amount of money while giving you the most bang for your buck. What the (closed source) model is (currently) good for is generating profit for the company. And isn't that the point?

Now, let's say the consumer of widget X decides that having the source to X provides added value. Well, companies that sell an OSS version of widget X will start gaining customers and generating more revenue, while the closed source dinosaurs lose cash. Voila! OSS is now a viable business model for widget X... companies will make more money selling OSS than CSS in this case, and the situation which now exists will reverse. The point is that there needs to be an economic incentive for companies to switch. It's called capitalism.

My whole point here is that there's nothing fundamentally wrong with a closed source model. Yes, it has it's drawbacks, but it works. And OSS also has it's pros and cons, one major one being that, right now, it does not a viable business model make (in general). So, making an outrageous claim like "all software should be free" is ridiculous... unless you're an OSS zealot or something. ;)

Frankly, there are a lot of consumers out there who couldn't care less if they have the source code to the software they use (much like most people don't care about, say, the recipe for KFC). IMHO, source code availability simply doesn't provide real benefit to most customers (minus the claim, albeit dubious, that OSS has a lower average defect rate compared to closed source). Of course, the same thing isn't necessarily true for corporate customers (or power users, OSS zealots, etc. ;)
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 12:56 · Score: 0

I guess Linux users must not care much about user interfaces, because the ones they've made are complete shit.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by HiThere · 2003-02-20 13:43 · Score: 1

Ok. But again you are concentrating on the economic reasons. There are multiple non-economic reasons to prefer either Open or Closed source. I, personally, find it easier to justify Open source, but I am aware that there are legitimate reasons for a customer to prefer closed source. Actually, I prefer GPL. But ...

Sometimes, however, the reasoning is ... incomprehensible. For example switching to Oracle rather than PostGreSQL (which we already had installed). Well, at least it's getting us away from MSAccess.

N.B.: Yes, sometimes Oracle is the needed solution. That doesn't describe our shop. All I can figure is that they didn't want to trust anything that wasn't expensive. (I should have pointed them to the Red Hat Enterprise solution.)

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I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by AxelBoldt · 2003-02-20 14:07 · Score: 1

In fact, as a customer, it's your job to find a product which costs you the least amount of money while giving you the most bang for your buck.
And that product, increasingly, is going to be open source. No need for keeping track of licenses, no fear of software audits, no fear that the product is discontinued, fewer bugs, full control.
Governments are already jumping ship and starting to require open source all over the world. Businesses will follow soon.
Open source may not be a viable business model for software companies; I don't know nor do I care. But I do know that the closed source model is not far from dying.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Bodrius · 2003-02-20 22:09 · Score: 1

I'll quote from the comment you replied to, since you seem to have missed it:

For example, for a Windows user it's more important that the Media Player works perfectly than having an efficient TCP/IP stack. Even on the server side it's not a big issue on their market. It's under so many layers of software, appearances and priorities that their clients would never notice if they made it better anyway.

Now, I don't know what makes you happy as a user, but I do know that having a better TCP/IP stack wouldn't make any Windows users I know much happier, while having a better instant messenger, for example, would.

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Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by TaranRampersad · 2003-02-21 06:45 · Score: 1

"I develop commercial closed-source software. I'd absolutely love it if some sugar daddy came up to me and said, keep doing what you're doing and I'll keep paying you what you're getting paid, except we're making the code open source. " I think you may be afraid of not getting paid what you are getting paid, and that is reasonable. However, you may not be getting paid what you were getting paid a few years ago. ;) Economics play a role, I agree, but I think economics transcends one person's bank account.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Cato · 2003-02-21 17:58 · Score: 1

That's like saying 'having a faster, more reliable car won't make a driver happy', while having an extra cup-holder will. There are plenty of people who would benefit from the less obvious advantages of a stable TCP/IP stack in quite visible ways - fewer dropped connections and broken web pages, faster downloads, etc.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Bodrius · 2003-02-21 22:44 · Score: 1

That's like saying 'having a faster, more reliable car won't make a driver happy', while having an extra cup-holder will.

Exactly.

Which is why more people are willing to pay extra for that fancy stereo system than for fuel efficiency, safety, speed or reliability.

Heck, more people are happier with the theoretical ability to drive accross arctic tundra in their unsafe, oversized, incredibly expensive and inefficient urban SUVs.

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Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Cato · 2003-02-22 23:18 · Score: 1

There are also people who buy cars on their reliability pr safety - that's why Toyota and Volvo do well. Not everyone buys cars based on cup holders. So, by analogy, there is a segment of the Windows-user market who would really like more reliable TCP/IP as well as the general reliability of Linux. Probably TCP/IP is not enough to make anyone switch, but crash-reduction would be - there are still about 25% Win98 users out there, according to Google Zeitgeist.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by anothy · 2003-02-23 04:25 · Score: 1

i think you're having chronology issues. the BSD code was in Windows by the middle of 1993 (i'm not sure of when it got it, but i can find references from June '93 that talk about it). for example:

/* WINSOCK.H--definitions to be used with the WINSOCK.DLL * Copyright (c) 1993-1996, Microsoft Corp. All rights reserved. * * This header file corresponds to version 1.1 of the Windows Sockets specification. * * This file includes parts which are Copyright (c) 1982-1986 Regents * of the University of California. All rights reserved. The * Berkeley Software License Agreement specifies the terms and * conditions for redistribution.

the internet was hardly the driving force in '93 it is today. had using IP cost Microsoft much money, or caused them to open their source, i'm pretty confident they would've done somethign propriatary (as they've done several times since). Microsoft really likes propriatary stuff, and the internet wasn't a money-making enterprise for them until about 1996.
your point on the entrenchment of IPv4 is true, but i'm confused as to how it's related.

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i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
Re:Yes, but the code has diverged. by Bodrius · 2003-02-23 16:31 · Score: 1

No.

By analogy there is a segment of the market that really has a competent TCP/IP stack among its top priorities. But that segment of the market is mostly going for other OSes. That's why Linuxes do well.

People buy different cars for different reasons. If SUV owners really start demanding safety (and switching to Volvos), then perhaps we'll have safe SUVs. But they don't show any interest on that.

When the TCP/IP stack is a user-issue MS will do something about it, although not before they lose users directly because of that.

That's what they did with stability (although it took them some time). Win98 users that want crash-reduction have already switched to Win2K or will soon.

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Freedom is the freedom to say 2+2=4, everything else follows...

Which is the cause and which is the effect? by Skapare · 2003-02-20 02:59 · Score: 5, Funny

What I am wondering is which is the cause and which is the effect:

Microsoft source code is defective because it is closed.

Microsoft source code is closed because it is defective.

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now we need to go OSS in diesel cars

Re:Which is the cause and which is the effect? by jo42 · 2003-02-20 03:05 · Score: 2, Funny

All of the above.
Re:Which is the cause and which is the effect? by kfg · 2003-02-20 03:46 · Score: 1

Microsoft is a chicken.

KFG
Re:Which is the cause and which is the effect? by Tyreth · 2003-02-20 13:10 · Score: 1

A recent email poll shows that 100% of people (plus or minus a 5% margin of error) don't consider spam to be a problem.
That could be a good way to harvest e-mails. Send out a bulk e-mail poll saying "We are looking to find out whether you really do hate spam as much as we hear. Please fill out this survey to give us your opinion."
Then sit back and watch all the accounts you harvest!

Great news! by indecision · 2003-02-20 03:06 · Score: 3, Interesting

Now if they could please point out the filenames and line numbers in question, perhaps we could eliminate the bugs altogether...

Re:Great news! by ganns.com · 2003-02-20 03:32 · Score: 1

That was my thinking also.

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GANNS.com

Comment removed by account_deleted · 2003-02-20 03:07 · Score: 4, Insightful

Comment removed based on user account deletion

ex-post facto by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:07 · Score: 0

like most police-trolls, your mind is so regimented with procedure, you fail to see the subtle wit of the populace you protect. Given the horrendeous copious amount of poor /. spelling and poor grammer, you, Captain, cannot prove that I simply omitted a crucial word to my post: the word "You're". sorry, that's a conjuction, not a single word. Granted, as part two (2) of my rant, 78% of all /. users do not know the proper difference between "your", "you're", or "Yore". So to omit the conjuction altogether might be the most brilliant move at all, to facilitate maximum hygenic communication. You cannot prove that my post was simply directed to the pathetic 2nd-poster who was aiming for first, with the omission of the word "You're not even close . . . to getting first post."

have mercy, police-troll. you're a funny guy.

Re:Pure FUD by jez_f · 2003-02-20 03:13 · Score: 1

>pure FUD it is nice of you to moderate your own post for us. >personally have not had a single Red Hat >distribution in 10 years that was better than >the at the time Windows version Which makes me wonder if you have ever even HAD a version of red hat. I am on RH8 and it works great. >The command line guys may find stability, but it >takes them 2 days to do a 10 minute task. I allways thought command line was more efficent for most things. Just not as pretty or easy to use. Anyway I recon you are trolling and if I wasn't so bored then I wouln't have botherd rising to it.

Fewer Errors in TCP/IP Stack? by zimmermantech.com · 2003-02-20 03:15 · Score: 4, Insightful

"Reasoning examined the TCP/IP stack and found fewer errors in Linux" The TCP/IP stack in Linux (and for that matter, most operating systems) was borrowed from BSD. Shouldn't this comparison be a testament to quality BSD instead of Linux? Paul Zimmerman http://zimmermantech.com/webcam.htm "Comments should be like skirts - Short enough to keep your attention, but long enough to cover the subject"

--

Listen to Live FM Radio

Re:Fewer Errors in TCP/IP Stack? by (startx) · 2003-02-20 04:06 · Score: 2, Informative

(-1) Misinformed

The linux TCP/IP stack was not pulled from BSD, it was written from scratch, or at least most of it was anyway. That's why when you see bug fixes for the BSD stack you don't see them in Linux, and vise-versa.
Re:Fewer Errors in TCP/IP Stack? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:14 · Score: 0

it's not like the EXACT code was used from BSD. thus, the number of errors can be different.
Re:Fewer Errors in TCP/IP Stack? by zimmermantech.com · 2003-02-20 13:26 · Score: 1

I suggest you read this:

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,555451, 00.asp

--

Listen to Live FM Radio

Is age the key factor? by realnowhereman · 2003-02-20 03:23 · Score: 5, Interesting

This is still an argument for the open source method, but I think that the code quality should be attributed to a different source. Perhaps it is not about an inherently good or inherently bad method. What if age is the key factor?

The Linux networking code has been in for a long time. Not in it's present form, obviously, but each change builds on the last; as it must in open source - it would be foolish to start afresh when you have something that works. So a cylcle develops and at each stage the code gets better. Compare this with proprietary; can they look at a competitors code? No. They must start afresh and so their code is effectively younger.

Further, if we measure software age not in units of time but in units of updates, open source has the advantage that there are many updates, there is always someone new to look at the code. No company can compete with the sheer quantity of viewings and therefore updates that occur in open source developments.

--
Carpe Daemon

Now let's choose something besides TCPIP stacks.. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:41 · Score: 0

Choose something--anything other than benchmark TCPIP stacks and see if the same heuristic holds. I don't know--visio vs xfig? open source word processors capabilities vs bugs?

&, there's the coin standing on edge. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:42 · Score: 0

equal.

I'm sure Bill will be pleased to hear by kfg · 2003-02-20 03:43 · Score: 2, Funny

that MS code is just as good as code written by an ignorant or uneducated dork in his basement.

He'll probably have his mom sticth it into a sampler he can hang on his office wall.

(Of course, personally, I don't think it's true. Bill has the resources to throw at code to make it much worse than any single dork can, but that's just my opinion)

KFG

What the hell? by Krokus · 2003-02-20 03:45 · Score: 1

If they inspected the code and found bugs, I have two questions:

1) Have these bugs been fixed now?

2) Why didn't they do this years ago?

Already Analyzed by Euphonious+Coward · 2003-02-20 03:49 · Score: 4, Informative

The Linux Weekly News already has an analysis of this report up at http://lwn.net/Articles/22623/

Two key points are that (1) most of the bugs Reasoning found are false alarms (which is an occupational hazard for this kind of analysis), and (2) one reason Linux does so well is that those lunatics at Stanford have been doing just this kind of analysis for quite some time, so most of the easily-found bugs were found long ago.

This doesn't invalidate any of their conclusions, of course: the Stanford lunatics haven't been analyzing NT, they've been analyzing Linux, and for sound academic reasons.

But is Open Source the way to go by MhzJnky · 2003-02-20 03:51 · Score: 2, Insightful

begin troll

This may be another feather in the Open Source cap, but I wonder if Open Sources is a good thing in the first place. Think about it for a second. Linux replaces Unix in the server world (which is happening). Companies that make closed source Unix OS's lose money, then they fire people. Company's get used to not paying for software so they start using Open Sources more. More closed source companies lose money, more fire people. Just something to think about when your hacking away at your latest kernal patch. You are writing software so companies can spend less money, executives can give them selves big bonuses for saving money, and vendors can fire people. I'm a consultant for big companies, I've seen it, it happens.

--

"Failure is not an option, it's part of the standard package"

Re:But is Open Source the way to go by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 05:07 · Score: 1, Insightful

Your fear is somewhat misdirected. People wouldn't lose jobs if everybody went to Linux, because it requires a fairly high level of skill to manage all those linux machines. Also, if the system has to work, you'd still have to keep those same kinds of people around to fix up the software to work with your hardware or specific application. And if we do go to linux, you'd probably have to hire TONS more people to patch security holes found every 15 minutes since exploits will be written within 20 minutes of finding the hole (thanks to open source) and used by script kiddies in 25 minutes. You've got 10 minutes to patch before they start pounding your ass!

But in other news, Linux dominance is just another example of higher technology de-skilling the population. Your average sysadmin wouldn't know where to look to patch a fully detailed security bulletin himself in source. Maybe 15 years ago, most sys admins could do that, but thanks to binary distributions and Red Hat certification, that's not the case anymore by a long shot.

Not saying passing out source code is a bad thing for everything, but you'll have to re-evaluate what you're trying to accomplish in today's cyber battlefield where 40k of code can bring down the internet in a mere hour.
Re:But is Open Source the way to go by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 05:40 · Score: 2

Sorry for the rambling but:

If you go the Open Source way, you end up like Richard Stallman, who has never had a wife, no kids, no car, and no house (as far as I can tell). He's now trying to get a date on his Web page at www.stallman.org.

The guy is so obnoxious that, when he approached Minix creator Andrew Tanenbaum about using Minix as the kernel of the GNU OS (rather than the Hurd), Tanenbaum realized he couldn't stand Stallman and decided not to participate. Stallman stubbornly chose to go it alone, and the result is an unfinished kernel that most people have forgotten about. (Read the book "Rebel Code"). Meanwhile, Minix begat Linux, and Linux begat so much publicity for Linus Torvalds that Stallman started getting jealous and began railing at everybody to call it "GNU/Linux" to give it "proper credit." Ironically, Stallman had written a paper against this kind of crediting; his target was the BSD license, which you can read at "http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/bsd.html".

He hasn't programmed now for many years -- his excuse is carpel tunnel syndrome. It's either that, or maybe he just ran out of good ideas. Not many Web shops use Emacs to layout their Web pages.

I have respect for his programming intellect, but his economics sucks and is actually condescending to other programmers. It's funny how nobody talks about The Software Tax of the GNU manifesto http://www.gnu.org/gnu/manifesto.html. Of course, Richard Stallman graduated from Harvard and has a MacArthur Foundation Genius grant of about a quarter of a million dollars, but that isn't exactly a sustainable business model for everybody else.

As far as the "study" from this company is concerned:

1) They don't release the names of the other closed source OS's. Kind of ironic -- they're being "close" mouthed in their praise of Open Source.
2) If you look at the Web site, and at their service, it seems that all they do is check for array bounds checking, use of unitialized variables, and so forth. Just get a copy of BoundsChecker or Purify, fer cryin' out loud.
3) This company doesn't seem to produce software, so they have a good reason not to support closed software -- doesn't hurt their bottom line, and gives them more business.

Man, whatever happened to ShareWare?
Re:But is Open Source the way to go by cookiepus · 2003-02-20 07:13 · Score: 1

Companies that make closed source Unix OS's lose money, then they fire people.... More closed source companies lose money, more fire people. ... I bet the more such people get fired, the more of them will have nothing better to do than to contribute to open source software.

It's kinda cool if you think about it.

--
Ecce Europa - Web Design for Business

Presumably... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 03:51 · Score: 0

...they found bugs in all of the things they looked at. What I want to know is whether they entered the damn things as bugs in the proper bug tracking databases.

and... by b17bmbr · 2003-02-20 03:52 · Score: 1, Redundant

this is news to /. readers?

--
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.

Open Source has no deadlines ... by fygment · 2003-02-20 04:01 · Score: 2, Interesting

... so with the luxury of time, it _should_ be less buggy.

I don't think releasing the source is necessarily a good thing for a commericial app. How would you control updates and mods? Where would the configuration control come from? I just had my first encounter with CVS at Sourceforge. _NOT_ straightforward. I don't think you could scale that up to a million purhcasers.

--
"Consensus" in science is _always_ a political construct.

Apples/Oranges by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:04 · Score: 0

It's great to compare the TCP/IP stack, but how about weird UI behaviors? I've seen plenty of those...

Re:not even close . . . by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:10 · Score: 0

reminds me of this fool

I disagree. by FallLine · 2003-02-20 04:13 · Score: 1

While I would tend to agree that, all things being equal, having millions of people reviewing the same lines of code and having a large number of people actively partaking in the authorship will contribute to quality, it is disingenious to assert that participation (and hence quality) naturally and necessarily flows out of open source code. Just because code participation can happen does not mean that it does. Linux is exceptional. It is #1 out of a very small group of open source code bases (e.g., Apache, Bind,...what else) that really enjoys that substantial levels of participation. Not only is most open source code currently not popularly participated in, even essential and important packages (e.g., Open Office), but I do not believe that this such popular attention can scale in the future to support other kinds of code or a much larger quantity of code. Linux enjoys being the most prominent open source code package and it enjoys a relatively narrow scope, i.e., it's just a kernel. [The open source community loves to use the varying definitions of Linux interchangably, they talk about Linux as if it is Windows, i.e., a complete OS, but then when, say, security bugs come out for one of the numerous utilities, they assert that Linux is just a kernel (the correct definition)] Under the smaller kernel definition, Linux enjoys a couple key advantages over most of the areas that the open source community presumes to conquer:

A) Linux is percieved as being a worthy task of a "hacker" (e.g., elite, low level, etc)--as opposed to, say, a word processing suite or one of the many mundane but important features that may save users millions of hours.

B) It is so popular for users and such an exclusive focus, you can be sure that a significant contribution will be seen by many geeks, again, unlike a word processing suite

C) Because it is relatively small, especially if you throw out all the drivers and the experimental stuff, and leave it to things like the very popular TCP/IP stack (which was reviewed in this article)

Linux and some of its associated code are very good in some respects as a result of their incremental improvements and bug fixes. The trouble with this is that when you significantly expand the scope of Open Source efforts things start to fall apart. In such a relatively unstructured environment as the popular open source method, i.e., little to no centralized development/testing/etc, there is every reason to believe that the overlap is key. In other words, since there is really no official QA or group of individuals that can be told or expected to methodically test, evaluate, or fix areas, the open source community essentially depends on random overlap. When you have a sparse group of competent developers or testers, you will run into trouble, as in the case of word processors. Likewise, when you depart from the relatively well established world of the kernel, when you start having to develop everything, not just the code, but the framework, the UI, the API, etc, from scratch the dependence on overlap becomes more and more of an issue. It's one thing to accept the a small patch for a well established tcp/ip stack, it's another thing entirely to have to coordinate the changing of a whole API, to make multiple pieces fit together seamlessly, without a more concrete organization (which can just barely happen in the manner popular open source development method).

Code review is a good thing, in and of itself, if nothing else, for its ability to make those many incremental enhancements and bug fixes. From a strictly technical perspective "open source" code can work as addititive, i.e., you develop, say, your Word processor with a more traditional software group, and then you allow the public to contribute. THe trouble with that is that for most code there simply isn't a viable business model that can support that sort of development effort, or at least, I don't see one and none of the current methods really compute, and as a result open source fails to deliver. I think that there are areas where open source code can thrive. For instance, I'd love to see IBM and a coalition of other software and hardware companies band together to make Linux (or some other kernel) into a complete OS that is every bit as easy to run as Windows and more stable, flexible, etc. It'd be good for everyone involved (except for MS of course) and it's quite doable. However, except for cases like that, where you have a very definite common good, i.e., a reasonably priced OS/API that allows strong and equal footing for 3rd party developers and manufacturers, there simply isn't a formula to actually pay for development. Consequently, open source will not produce better code by and large.

Bah yourself by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:14 · Score: 1, Interesting

How lame. For all we know, they could have tested the Amiga OS, Mac OS 9, Windows 3.1, A/UX, and NeXTStep! Other than this, the article is pretty vague and does not seem to give me much meat on the subject, nor a link to the study (you have to go through some forms and give up personal info to get it at www.reasoning.com).

Reasoning is not a research entity, they are commercial code analysis contractor. They make their money by having large companies pay large dollars to run lint against their code and perform some additional analysis.

The reason they don't reveal to what they compared Linux is that they are under heavy NDAs from their customers. They couldn't very well say that "Linux stack has fewer bugs than Solaris'" and expect Sun to keep paying them. (I don't know that Sun is a customer, it's a hypothetical.)

The likelihood is that stacks used in comparison are current versions from large corporations and not obsolete code. Large corporations are the only entities with both the means and motivation to hire Reasoning and that's how Reasoning gets the source in the first place.

Finally, Reasoning doesn't have any interest in free software or Linux so this isn't blind advocacy. It's likely a straight comparison of numbers running their standard suite against Linux and comparing to their records of current customers.

I want the bugs! by tonyhill · 2003-02-20 04:20 · Score: 1

If Reasoning found bugs in the Linux TCP/IP stack, then they should contribute to the community and send bug reports (or fix the code).

Tony

So was Ariane V's by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:27 · Score: 0

As far as I know ariane V's software was closed source too and look what happened to it (well... I suppose we could say that the self destruct code worked well, and the whole code worked well for what it was designed to do i.e. fly Ariane IV).

My point is, you can pick a random example of code and draw conclusions about that code from it. But you can't make sweeping generalisations about all code from that. Hence the fact that this article only looked at TCP/IP stack code is flawed. You can't draw generalisations out of this just by siting an example.

Bob

Re:"commercial" by tshak · 2003-02-20 04:45 · Score: 1

as if there's nothing "commercial" about Linux

Well, when was the last time YOU (or someone you know) got paid for submitting a Kernal patch that you developed on your own time? The ownly thing commercial about Linux is the Red Hat's and IBM's making money off of YOUR backs.

--

There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips

Only part of the battle by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 04:46 · Score: 0

Yes, it's good, even if not suprising, news that OSS tends to be lessy buggy than closed software.

But this is only part of the big picture. Other key components are security (where OSS also does quite well) and usability and compatibility, where Linux still has a long way to go before it can make serious inroads into the mainstream market.

Or... by intermodal · 2003-02-20 04:49 · Score: 5, Interesting

People coding something because they want to (and because they need it for something for themself) leads to better code. I know when I do something for myself, I don't half-ass it.

Coding for the end result = quality

Coding for a living = paycheck

Any questions?

--
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!

Re:Or... by Anonvmous+Coward · 2003-02-20 05:23 · Score: 2, Insightful

"Coding for the end result = quality"

Too bad that quality doesn't always bubble itself up to the UI. That's probably my biggest complaint about open source software is that few ppl actually put serious thought into the UI design. It starts off as a utility written to solve their own problem and eventually it becomes useful enough to share with ppl. VirtualDub comes to mind. Kick ass prog, hardly intuitive in terms of UI.
Re:Or... by GlassHeart · 2003-02-20 05:40 · Score: 1

I know when I do something for myself, I don't half-ass it.
Why do you half-ass it when somebody is paying you?
Point is, if it's a matter of company policies forcing you to do a poor job, then the difference between commercial software and free software is that policy (which probably comes from market pressure), not you. (If you are the factor, then you're just being unprofessional at work, which I doubt is the case.)
Re:Or... by intermodal · 2003-02-20 06:33 · Score: 2, Interesting

This is true, though I am sure it suits the guy who made it just fine...that's one of the great things about having the source. You can do it yourself if you are so inclined. While not everyone has to pay to use it, somebody has to donate their time to create it, usually to their own ends. Then they choose to share that improvement or creation with others. Not trying to use something overly noted here on /., but thats what Linus did with Linux...

--
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
Re:Or... by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 11:03 · Score: 0

C'mon, you're being way too general. People half-ass all the time when coding for themselves, e.g., no code comments, no flexibility, etc. The magic transformation between good and bad coding happens when you become accountable. That's when people are on their best (coding) behavior. People pay more attention when they know that people are gonna see their name in the credits. However, with open source, there's a balance. You get credit for what you do, but if you screw up, you have the competency many of others to fall back on. Plus you don't lose your job over it.

Any more questions?
Re:Or... by deaddrunk · 2003-02-20 11:05 · Score: 1

Although I would much rather pay for an off the shelf package than spend a year learning C just so I could make the UI a bit nicer. Each to their own of course.

--
Does a Christian soccer team even need a goalkeeper?
Re:Or... by intermodal · 2003-02-20 11:10 · Score: 1

I didn't say it was a perfect system, just that it is viable. Hopefully, someday someone will do it for whatever app you want it for.

--
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!

A bug... by fireboy1919 · 2003-02-20 04:51 · Score: 1

I'm afraid there's a bug in your logic: implication is not the same as equivalence.

"Bugs are cool" does not mean that things that are without bugs are not cool.

Don't feel bad.

At least you can know that you're cool.

--
Mod me down and I will become more powerful than you can possibly imagine!

Makes sense... by Junta · 2003-02-20 04:52 · Score: 2

Open Source is still largely deveolped as a hobby of enthusiasts. Some companies have their hands in the pie too, but even the resultant effort seems to be more in the style of the hobbiest than of the typical company effort.

Two factors. When I develop closed source apps for work, especially if it is something I have no real passion about, I tend to have messier code. No one is going to see it anyway. If I ever change jobs, a potential employer isn't going to ever see that code to review my style. If no user or the community in general will not see it, I'm more likely to take riskier shortcuts and settle for inelegant hacks. As long as no obvious runtime problems occur, then it is enough. When I submit patches for open source applications, I take more pride in the work. I want it to be clean, easy to read and follow, and free from amateurish looking code.

Secondly, even when I would like to re-evaluate approaches I use in a commercial environment, the business end of things will push deadlines. Time that I would have normally taken to go back, clean up, and rework the bits that work, but are too inelegant is denied. There is a significant amount of care with respect to market trends, customer demands, and marketing promises that interfere with quality code. With open source, you do it as you feel like it. Take as much time as you want. Sure, there are frequently deadlines in large projects (feature freeze, etc), but the penalty for not being able to meet those deadlines just means your work will be delayed to the next release cycle. There is no danger of losing your job, and even if consistantly missing feature freezes means you lose cvs write access, or are not taken as seriously, it really is no skin off your back, and you can almost always get back in through picking up the pace again...

--
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.

Try this by mnmn · 2003-02-20 04:59 · Score: 1

The Linux defect rate was 0.1 defects per 1,000 lines of code, Reasoning found.
</i>

So they DID find errors. Did they submit bugreports??

<i>
The rate for the general-purpose operating systems--two of them versions of Unix--was between 0.6 and 0.7 per 1,000 lines of code.
</i>

Linux is a general-purpose operating system. You cant really be more general-purpose than Linux. From desktop and gaming platforms to PDAs and serverfarms and vector-processor crays. Windows is comparatively a narrow-market OS.

Nice article. I just dont quite understand what they mean by quality of code beside statistically taking performance and stability. And I do mean statistically. For a one-day test, any OS will run fine and fast. Try a 6-month marathon with at least a 50% load average and 100 processes, both with heavy paging and without it. Stress-testing brings out real qualitities.

--
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky

Score : -1, Self-Contradictory Conspiracy Theory by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 05:06 · Score: 0

Yeah, like when government offices ship things with FedEx. Is it a "secret" show of solidarity with the USPS?

solutions for a slow connection by fiiz · 2003-02-20 05:12 · Score: 1

Well ok, I forgot about that possibility sorry.

How the hell can you live with 0.98? It's unbearable to use...so slow...

You can:
a.) buy any linux* magazine, whichever country you're in, which will have the latest moz. That's valid for most european countries, and possibly the US
b.) get a patch from the company that makes your linux distro, that sometimes works
c.) download it in an internet cafe, then burn it
d.) download phoenix, it's less than half the size

But yes it's considered good practice to wait at least 1-2 weeks before upgrading stuff that's a pain to update, and a few months for server software.

--

yours ever, fz.

Relatively. by caluml · 2003-02-20 05:13 · Score: 1

...the comparatively understandable source code.

Lol :) I imagine they too have seen some almost incomprehensible source code.

--
Get your own free personal location tracker

Linux IP stack a complete rewrite by maynard · 2003-02-20 05:16 · Score: 4, Informative

The Linux IP stack is a complete rewrite and doesn't derive from the traditional BSD sockets code at all. In particular IP packet formation between Linux and BSD is completely different. The header and tail portion of an IP packet is handled in a single pass through called an "sk_buff". In BSD header and tail formation of the packet is handled in two passes, one for the header the next for the tail, in an "nbuf". The BSD protocol implementation is traditional and the one described in TCP/IP Illustrated, while the Linux implementation is completely new. I believe that one positive feature of the Linux implementation is that it has allowed for zero copy networking, though that's a limited benefit which is only of use to a very small subset of servers connected to very fast network links. A big positive of the BSD stack is that it's old, rigorously tested, and very well documented. Note that the System V Streams implementation is completely different as well, so Solaris and other SysV derived kernels follow their own method for packet formation. I make no claims that any of these protocol implementations are better than the others, only that the code base and history are completely different.

I've attended a few USENIX kernel internals courses but that's the extent of my competence (have poked through the source out of curiosity though). Please feel free to post additional information or correct any mistakes I may have made.

Cheers,
--Maynard

Re:Linux IP stack a complete rewrite by questionlp · 2003-02-20 05:22 · Score: 1

I believe that zero copy networking is being developed into NetBSD and FreeBSD's stacks as well. I'm not sure if it's happening with the OpenBSD stack nor the one used in Mac OS X/Darwin.
Re:Linux IP stack a complete rewrite by dmelomed · 2003-02-20 06:43 · Score: 1

Has already happened in NetBSD CURRENT. Their implementation obviates the need for sendfile() for zero copy if the program is structured to allow the kernel to do it through page loaning.
Re:Linux IP stack a complete rewrite by questionlp · 2003-02-20 09:14 · Score: 1

I guess I need to get caught up on the NetBSD side of things :) Last I heard it was being written and tested, but didn't know if it was considered "stable" or not.

I truly wonder about this. by rebelcool · 2003-02-20 05:24 · Score: 1

How such a flaw - and it was a very obvious one, that testing would've uncovered - ever made it out of the lab is beyond me.

Avionics code is bug free because its proven mathematically for correctness and undergoes tens of thousands of hours of rigorous lab testing. At least that's how its supposed to work.

For example, the code flying the Boeing 777 flew literally millions of flights in every possible variable and condition before a single prototype of the plane ever left the ground. This was to catch any possible faults that the rigorous mathematical analysis didn't involve.

How or why ariane failed to do apparently either of these is shameful and shocking. But perhaps it is incidents like the ariane that led honeywell - and all modern avonics designers - to go the lengths they do now to validate the code.

--

-

Re:I truly wonder about this. by uhrbid · 2003-02-20 06:27 · Score: 1

I can't imagine how their bug-search would work though....

I've had bug repors sent to me that weren't bugs, just odd ways the code worked... How in the world could their program find all these bugs.

<sarcasm>
Now that it found all these bugs, there won't be any more bugs... ever... right?
</sarcasm>

--
What if the Hokey-Pokey really is what it's all about?
Re:I truly wonder about this. by jafac · 2003-02-20 13:45 · Score: 1

yeah, now tell us about the Airbus avionics code. You know, the stuff that brought down an A320 into the woods 300ft past the end of the runway as the Pilots sat staring at a screen that said "Please Wait".

--

These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.

Re:Already Analyzed-Copy of the PDF. by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 05:24 · Score: 0

Well I have a copy of the PDF in question, such as it is.

What a nice Technical Article! by iramkumar · 2003-02-20 05:29 · Score: 1

In addition to being a shameless plug from
some commercial program, the CNET article
her insults our collective intelligence by
sayin
Source code is the collection of instructions written by people and later translated
into "binaries" that computers can understand

Iam not trolling. But I bet there are
companies out there who just want to exploit
the websites reach by cheaply disguising
marketing gimmicks as news-bytes. Now if the
same thing was opensource, we could benefit.
Btw, does having a low bug count prove that
some OS is more usable?

87.5193217562% of all statistics... by BattleWolf · 2003-02-20 05:31 · Score: 1

...are made up on the spot.

This article is SOOO shady by sethamin · 2003-02-20 05:36 · Score: 1

This article has shadiness written all over it:

How can they even know the rate of bugs in the code? It mentions automated defect detection software. If this is their benchmark, I am extraordinarily skeptical.

Windows is not explicitly included in their list of OSs. Gee, one would think that in order to laud the relative merits of open-source, it would be prudent to compare it to the most popular closed source one around. Just maybe?

They used the TCP/IP stack as the testing grounds. As most everyone knows, the TCP/IP stack in Linux is descended directly from the BSD stack, probably one of the oldest, most stable implementations around. It would be a lot more meaningful to do this comparison on some part of the OS that has a lot of churn, rather than one that is relatively fixed for a long period of time.

I smell ridiculous claims and baseless conclusions.

Well, I'll be... by maynard · 2003-02-20 05:47 · Score: 1

Yup, you're right. Thanks! Looks like Drew Gallatin and Ken Merry have put together a zero copy solution along with a Tiger TG3 Gb driver for FreeBSD. They have an interesting FAQ on the project and development status here. Most cool...

--Maynard

Did they report on specific errors? by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 05:50 · Score: 0

I wish they would report on specific errors so developers could actually use the information for something other than just brag about it...

This way, Linux will look even better the next time they run this comparison.

Re:Obfuscation by doorbot.com · 2003-02-20 05:58 · Score: 1

Regarding the "incomprehensible binaries" and the Obfuscated C contest, those who are .NET developers may be interested in the following product, which I read about in a Microsoft brochure.

Demeanor .NET

From the site:

Key features at a glance
* Obfuscate all .NET assemblies - C#, VB, MC++, even the Framework itself!
* Removes unnecessary symbols producing maximal obfuscation and compression
* Removes unnecessary metadata preventing decompilation to the original source
* Encrypts string literals
* Obfuscates multi-module assemblies
* Obfuscates satellite resource assemblies automatically
* Supports incremental obfuscation of one or more assemblies
* Multiple obfuscation vectors designed to confuse both human and automated reverse engineering
* Uses XML configuration and reporting files allowing easy integration with other tools
* Visual Studio .NET integration allowing product building and obfuscation directly from the IDE
* Command line tool for us in your batch build environment

Outdated change rate by OpenSourced · 2003-02-20 06:01 · Score: 1

Just my .024 euros.

Please adjust your change rate. .0185 is more like it now.

--
Rome taught me patience and assiduous application to detail. Virtues which temper the boldness of great, general views.

Thank God!! by Idou · 2003-02-20 06:09 · Score: 1

'Cause if my Space Shuttle's code ever had ANY bugs, you just know I would be in DEEP . . .

Of course, bugless space shuttle code is probably very expense per line . . . maybe $10k per line to write and maintain (total BS number, but you get my point). I doubt Open Source development can beat software development with an infinite supply of funds and extremely narrow purpose (not many developers would need it enough to code for it).

You know, just because space shuttles get the best gas mileage (1 tank of fuel/ many orbits around earth), doesn't mean you want to compare them to the car industry . . .

--
Sdelat' Ameriku velikoy Snova!

Circumstantial half-assing by intermodal · 2003-02-20 06:20 · Score: 2, Insightful

The answer is simple. They often do force you to half ass, cut corners, or even write to a horrible design created by someone with no idea what he is doing. So often I have seen commercial software that I myself have worked on go out in deplorable states due to deadlines, budget reasons, or just plain bad managerial decisions, forcing the coding to be horrible, sleep deprived, and poorly debugged. Last time I checked, I don't have a deadline on my personal projects, therefore I can spend all the time I wish to obsessive-compulsively making sure everything works exactly how it should. It's not a matter of willful half-assing, it's a matter of circumstantial half-assing. Excuse or not, the fact is that quality comes from having both the time and the freedom to do it right.

--
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!

Re:Circumstantial half-assing by GlassHeart · 2003-02-20 11:11 · Score: 1

Excuse or not, the fact is that quality comes from having both the time and the freedom to do it right.
Exactly, which is why I was pointing out even when paid, many or most programmers also want to do a good job. It's not the programmer, but the development process, which is in turn influenced by market pressures.

Where's FreeBSD ? by Billly+Gates · 2003-02-20 06:21 · Score: 1

I find FreeBSD one of the most stable and bugfree operating systems ever made. Its opensource as well as Linux but the development model is more conservative. They heavily frown upon and sometimes even ban people's cvs access if they feel they make to many changes to the kernel source. Also they are rigerous with testing before they release a product. For example how long was FreeBSD 5.0 current? It took years before they released it as stable. Most commercial vendors would of released it months or years ago and would focus on bugs later.

Or certian commercial vendors force a bug into an os for punishment for not showing up for a meeting.

--
http://saveie6.com/

How to measure how good a program is? by snipercat · 2003-02-20 07:13 · Score: 2, Interesting

This post reminded me of a question I was pondering last week. What makes one software program better than another software program? Is there a way to quantitatively measure how good a piece of software is? Would we measure the "goodness" of software by, the number of bugs it has (or rather the lack there of), the number of lines it took to write it, how long it took to develop, the type of license (open vs proprietary), the efficiency (how long to takes to run), the language it was written in, ease of use, etc, etc, etc? My guess is we would have to come up with a convoluted mathematical formula to measure the goodness of a program. Anyone care to take a stab at it?

No, bah yourself by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2003-02-20 07:16 · Score: 1

I found this whole thing a bit suspicious from the start, and my initial reaction was much th same as KefkaFloyd's.

For the RTFA-impaired, here are some choice quotes from the article, and my take on them.

"Reasoning declined to disclose which operating systems it compared with Linux, but said two of the three general-purpose operating systems were versions of Unix."

IE: This is not in any way a verifiable scientific study, it's a means to attract people to our web site.

"For the comparison products, the company had access to the source code that for proprietary software is usually a closely guarded secret."

IE: More of the same.

"Reasoning looked for programming problems such as memory that was marked as free when it was in fact still in use, memory that was being used without being properly initialized and attempts to store data that exceeded the space reserved for it."

IE: They tested for basic mechanical errors. It's sad that production code should have these, but anyone could run tools (probably just like the one these guys sell) to fix them. If your process includes automated runs with Lint, Purify, etc. then you should never suffer from these at all. It's actually a pretty damning indictment of all concerned, including Linux, that any such bugs featured in a piece of code as small as the TCP/IP stuff for an OS.

And best of all...

"Trappe said his company didn't measure the comparative performance of the different versions TCP/IP, something that would have been difficult because of hardware differences such as network acceleration hardware on the network-specific products."

IE: The playing field was not level. For all we know, they compared state-of-the-art yet-to-be-widely-seen algorithms from next generation OSes to tried and tested from Linux.

Hell, for all we know, one of the big Linux distributors commissioned the survey in the first place.

And yeah, I gave up at the point when they wanted all my contact details with no statement about how they'd be used, too.

--
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.

Re:No, bah yourself by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 07:25 · Score: 0

IE: This is not in any way a verifiable scientific study, it's a means to attract people to our web site.

A verifiable scientific study is =impossible= because closed source is, by definition, closed. This is the best we're going to get.

IE: They tested for basic mechanical errors. It's sad that production code should have these, but anyone could run tools (probably just like the one these guys sell) to fix them. If your process includes automated runs with Lint, Purify, etc. then you should never suffer from these at all.

No tool picks up all errors and all kinds of errors. Linux has been run through Stanford's tools many times, which is probably why it is as clean as it is.

It's actually a pretty damning indictment of all concerned, including Linux, that any such bugs featured in a piece of code as small as the TCP/IP stuff for an OS.

Small? You've never worked on a stack, have you?
Re:No, bah yourself by Anonymous+Brave+Guy · 2003-02-20 07:40 · Score: 1

A verifiable scientific study is =impossible= because closed source is, by definition, closed. This is the best we're going to get.

Not to everyone. If they at least published details of the alternatives in question, those working on them could dispute the claims if they wished to do so, or others could attempt to reproduce the claimed problems (which doesn't require the source, of course) to validate the findings.

No tool picks up all errors and all kinds of errors.

Of course not. But pretty much any good automated tool of the kind in question picks up all of the types mentioned. The fact that major OS vendors and those responsible for the Linux distributions don't run such things as a matter of course is pretty sad.

Small? You've never worked on a stack, have you?

Actually, yes, I've spent months working on code with a similar purpose and complexity, though admittedly never specifically a TCP/IP stack. You don't know how big a large software project is, though, do you? :-)

--
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.

Here's the link by m_pll · 2003-02-20 07:42 · Score: 1

http://www.kuro5hin.org/story/2001/6/19/05641/7357

Dereferencing NULL variables by Error27 · 2003-02-20 08:16 · Score: 1

One type of check they did was for null dereferences. Here is a list of possible NULL dereferences for the 2.5.60 kernel.

This is from the Smatch project.

It is natural . . . by Eric+Damron · 2003-02-20 08:19 · Score: 3, Insightful

It is natural for open source projects that survive to become very high quality. Look at it this way: If you buy proprietary software from a corporation, you can be sure that they are motivated by the bottom line.

Corporations are there for one reason only: profit. This in itself does not mean that the products that they put out will be inferior. However, being motivated by profit means that:

1. They will push their employees to put out a product quickly.
2. If a product has flaws, it is the bottom line that dictates the priority given to fixing that flaw.

Open source on the other hand is completely different. Although it can be motivated by profit usually it is not as much. A lot of people do it because they just want to do it. This in itself does not make open source less buggy. I would say that most young projects have as many or more bugs in them than proprietary projects.

However, if the projects live for a long time it is because dedicated coders have decided to spend their time improving the product. This dedication over a period of time without the pressure by management to quickly push the product to market is the reason that open source becomes better than proprietary software.

--
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!

Debian trojan horse? by cpeterso · 2003-02-20 09:15 · Score: 1

Why has Slashdot not mentioned the recent Debian trojan horse? Open Source is not impervious to bugs or trojan horses.

The trojaning of mICQ :

The story, it seems, is this: Rüdiger Kuhlmann, the maintainer of mICQ, had a disagreement with Martin Loschwitz, the maintainer of the Debian mICQ package, on how that package should be built. Mr. Kuhlmann complained that an old version of mICQ was shipped, that it contained bugs which had been fixed upstream, and that his name had been removed from the copyright file. The disagreement had apparently been going on for a while.

Mr. Kuhlmann decided that enough was enough, and he was going to take some action. As of mICQ 0.4.10.1, the code will, when built for the Debian distribution, print out a message which says some unflattering things about Mr. Loschwitz and encourages use of a different version; the program then exits. In other words, when built for Debian, mICQ thumbs its nose at the user and refuses to run. To help ensure that this code got into the official Debian version, it was written in an obfuscated manner, set to trigger only after February 11, and only if it was not being run by Mr. Loschwitz.

--
cpeterso

Re:Pure FUD by Spiked_Three · 2003-02-20 09:44 · Score: 1

Yep, I've had every red hat distribution since it came out. I can lock up 15 programs in Red Hat 8 in less than 30 seconds. It works great for you because you don't do anything with it but type ls at a command prompt. Anyone who thinks command line is more effecient is a non-opinion - you just simply don't know enough about computers to even count.
This whole fucking 'if you're not against Microsoft you're a troll' attitude on Slashdot is why it too has become a non-opinion. But thanks for your well documented and factual comeback to my post, it is so much more full of facts and not opinions. It makes me want to run out and delete all my Linux partitions right away.

--
slashdot troll = you make a compelling argument I do not like the implications of.

It's BS by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 10:34 · Score: 0

Well most of the TCP/IP stacks out there ARE BASED on Open Code (as in BSD). this just shows vendors are slow to patch their code.

Collective Ownership vs Individual Ownership by Ardias · 2003-02-20 10:42 · Score: 2, Insightful

The old saying about "many eyes makes all bugs shallow" is true even for propeietary code. I have been working on proprietary software for most of my career. My own opinion is that software made by companies with collective ownership policies is of better quality than software made by companies which allow for individual ownership.

At some places where I worked, some people just "owned" some of the source code and for whatever reason, nobody else was allowed to touch it (or sometimes even see it if the boss owned the code). Anybody else who wrote anything dependent upon that often found a lot of bugs in that code, and just had to wait until so-and-so got around to fixing it. Some of eventually wrote a replacement for that whole component, and obsoleted the original.

At some places where I worked, and at where I am now, the rule is that we all own the code collectively. Sure, there are some people that better understand some parts of the code than others, but nobody tells anybody that some code is off limits. It is easy to just go in to some section of code, fix the bug, and move on.

This is rigged by design by RhettLivingston · 2003-02-20 13:51 · Score: 1

A fair comparison would have to include a full suite or at least a representative suite of everything in common that is provided by Mac, Windows, and GNU/Linux without picking things that are "mature". It would also have to properly define usability problems, installation difficulties, hardware compatibility problems (which of course the Apple solutions fail by design) and other design flaws as bugs.

Linux would fall behind the others as you get away from the absolutely core critical components. Heck, in a lot of cases, you'd be comparing beta code to production code just because there's no maintainer for critical pieces.

It would be hard to pick a more critical component with a longer history than the TCP/IP stack.

Run the test again with the main components of a modern OS including media players, browsers, complex file systems, etc. and the picture would change.

The conclusion is not warranted by the data by wealthychef · 2003-02-20 13:55 · Score: 1

Just because the network stack in Linux is high quality, does this mean that "open code has fewer bugs?" I don't think so.

--
Currently hooked on AMP

Re: Score : -1, Self-Contradictory Conspiracy Theo by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 15:35 · Score: 0

Do you talk out of your ass often?

Small reminder by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-20 22:41 · Score: 0

"the General Public License (GPL) that governs Linux and many other open-source projects"

Just need to remind people that the GNU GPL is not an open-source license and never has been.

It is a Free Software license.

If anyone dissagrees, try reading the GNU GPL and tell me where is says "This software is open source software" instead of "this software is Free Software".

And no, I'm not refering to free as in price! I could sell as much Free Software as I want, for as much as I want. True, I may find it hard to make a lot of money, allthough RMS did make quite a good living off selling Emacs.

FIxed? by MoogMan · 2003-02-21 00:33 · Score: 1

"The Linux defect rate was 0.1 defects per 1,000 lines of code, Reasoning found" (From the article).

So, ideally now that one bug in that 10,000 lines has been fixed? Ahh, the beauty of open-source...

No, but Bill said that first! by Anonymous Coward · 2003-02-21 06:53 · Score: 0

you plageriser you! Bill said bugs are cool first

SatanicPuppy tosses out functional, ugly code by Brave+Ulysses · 2003-02-21 10:19 · Score: 1

"high production commercial code is sloppy"

I think that many commercial, closed-source writers work in this way. I think here specifically of Gaming Industries, where profit drives much of it forward. I can't believe just how many tonnes of games go into commercial release & production with a huge amount of bugs, despite "extensive" beta-testing. SimCity4 springs immediately to mind.

To me it feels as though once developers complete writing their code - and only levels, designs, etc. remain - they feel too reluctant to make any indepth changes and figure they can simply sort it out "with a patch if enough people complain".

Well I don't consider that good enough, hence my recent n00bie conversion to Linux and open-source in general. =;-D>

--

---------
"I can DoS people's cars from my GBA."

White Paper download URL by stefanb · 2003-02-24 21:37 · Score: 1

The want you to request the actual paper by filling in a form. This is the URL they sent me http://www.reasoning.com/downloads/Open_Source_Whi te_Paper_v1.1.pdf.

Last Post! by alpg · 2003-03-06 18:33 · Score: 0

To those accustomed to the precise, structured methods of conventional
system development, exploratory development techniques may seem messy,
inelegant, and unsatisfying. But it's a question of congruence:
precision and flexibility may be just as disfunctional in novel,
uncertain situations as sloppiness and vacillation are in familiar,
well-defined ones. Those who admire the massive, rigid bone structures
of dinosaurs should remember that jellyfish still enjoy their very
secure ecological niche.
-- Beau Sheil, "Power Tools for Programmers"

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