Software Archaeology

Plug1 writes "Salon (day pass needed) has an article about preserving software for historical purposes. It discusses source code archiving, and the effect the DMCA is having on attempts to catalog and analyze legacy code. It will be a shame if in the future a wealth of information is locked away because knoweldge of the underlying technology is lost."

Comments

Hello

[SpanishInquisition]

Bush is a liar.
Thank you.

Re:Hello

[Anonymous Coward]

Considering the furor that Clinton lying abou his blowjob produced, you Yanks should be going apeshit over Baby Bush inventing reasons to kill thousands in an illegal war, unless real issues that affect more than just a First Lady and a White House intern somehow take a back seat!

Re:Hello

[Anonymous Coward]

oh, but it's immoral to cheat on your wife.

on the other hand, killing people, well.....all i can say is, YEEEEEHA!

Re:Hello

[Anonymous Coward]

"The coalition action against Saddam Hussein is not a violation of the United Nations Charter and is not a violation of international law. To understand this you will need to stop beating your gums and sit down to read. More specifically, read United Nation's Security Council resolutions 678, 687 and 1441. Resolution 678 was passed shortly after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990. This resolution orders Saddam to withdraw his troops from Kuwait and to recognize the pre-established international border between Iraq and Kuwait. Resolution 678 also says that any member state can use military force to enforce the requirements of this resolution or any subsequent resolution dealing with Saddam. Now .. go on and read Resolutions 687 and 1441, both dealing with demands for Saddam's disarmament. Both of these resolutions make specific reference to and reaffirm Resolution 678. Those of you who did not attend government schools can understand, then, that the United States and Great Britain, both being member states of the United Nations, are completely within their legal rights to use military force against Iraq and Saddam Hussein to enforce the provisions of Resolution 1441. "

Got it, asshole?

Re:Hello

[Anonymous Coward]

As we all know, no other country has ever started a war. George W. Bush invented war, didn't he?

Idiots like you should shut the fuck up and mind your own damn business.

My first program

[danormsby]

10 print "Hello World" 20 goto 10 Those were the days....

day pass needed

[bfischer]

day pass needed? It is nighttime here you insensitive clod! ;)

Re:day pass needed

[Anonymous Coward]

Your day pass expired. To read the rest of my comment you can pay me $30 or watch that stupid commercial once again.

bush is a liar

[Anonymous Coward]

W. stands for let the poor die to make us rich.

THE WAR WAS FOR OIL. ADMIT IT AND YOU STILL WONT GET RE-ELECTED YOU LYING SACK OF SHIT.

Why do people still support this tard. It's NOT supporting your country OR being patriotic to support corporate-driven empires based on greed. (progress != greed, btw)

Vote anti-Bush. Thank You.

Re:bush is a liar

[Anonymous Coward]

Absolutely. This is way OT abut it's important. Don't vote Green or Libertarian this time. The goal needs to be to eject Bush and his cronies from office, not to help them out by supporting fringe parties with no chance of winning.

Re:bush is a liar

[Anonymous Coward]

I dont mind having more oil. Whats wrong with that?

Re:bush is a liar

[Anonymous Coward]

If Bush and Cheney waged war on Iraq for the oil, how come they talked the United Nations into a resolution that requires all revenues from Iraqi oil be put into a Development Fund with the Iraq Central Bank? Hmmmmmmm?

Just a thought you guys....

[zapp]

Unless I am mistaken Salon, like most websites trying to make some money, is having financial problems.

They changed to a registration/fee based model, but allowed 1 day passes for whatever reason.

Nothing can hurt them more than being slashdotted by a bunch of people using a day pass.

someone has already copied the contents of the article into a comment which is good because it saves them bandwidth, but ... without their permission isn't that plagiarism?

This is why things like the DMCA and DRM come about - people thoughtlessly violating other people's copyrights/etc, and/or taking their services for granted.

I'm no better than anyone else, I do the same thing.

I guess my point is: either support the people who provide services you enjoy (music, video, news, web content, porn, whatever), or quit complaining when they finally start defending themselves.

Re:CVS

[Anonymous Coward]

That was SO not a troll/offtopic.

Dear Wendy's

[Letter]

Dear Wendy's,

Did someone say Dave Thomas?

I'd like a Big Bacon Classic, please.

Thanks and keep the change,
Consumer

Re:Nestalgia

[Anonymous Coward]

The first rule of Slashdot is:
Noone talks about stupid moderation.

The second rule of Slashdot is:
Noone talks about stupid moderation.

I know, it sucks. A bunch of newbie mods stretching their wings by jumping onto the "let's stamp out the trolls! Ooh, there's one conveniently labeled for me!" is beyond annoying, but that's life here.

Read my journal entry for more thoughts on the subject. --

Posted AC to screw the lamer-mods!

Re:full article text, no pass required

[daviddennis]

I tried it on both Mozilla on a Linux system and Internet Explorer under Windows, and in neither case did it work.

Perhaps you need to restrict ads to Flash instead of Real?

D

Doesn't matter if no one looks at it

[Junks Jerzey]

I'm routinely surprised at how poorly rounded, even in the programming field, many coders are. So many don't know any languages other than C++, Perl, and Python. So many don't know what continuations or closures are. So many don't know what a threaded interpreter is. So many understand garbage collection on more than a polarized, superficial level. So many don't understand how a 60fps video game could be made to work on a 1 MHz home computer. So many think that a compiler is a magical thing that's impossible to implement. So many don't understand how to write software that isn't heavily object-oriented, even when it doesn't need to be. All of this information is out there, but you have to be willing to learn and have an open mind.

Re:I'm doing my part

[Qacker]

Mod parent up to Funny.