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Why MS is Not Opening More Source Code
mario_grgic writes "Apparently inappropriate code comments is one of the reasons according to this story.
I wonder what kind of things developers put in comments that would be so bad for the rest of us to see?"
Slashdot: Failed Car Analogies. Amateur Lawyering. Anecdote Battles.
Any time that you move code from being closed to open you have to go through a long procedure reviewing the code and scrubbing it of things you don't want to or can't show. Microsoft is not alone in this. Anyone who intends to opensource code has to clean it first. You have to research all the licences to make sure you are not releasing someone elses code. And if there is code you can't release in there you have to either rewrite it or just cut that functionality. You have to scrub any comments that you might not want released, especially insults to other companies. And a big thing you need to do is to scrub all the email address and personal names out of it so that you are not exposing your current and former employees to harassment. And then you need to run a script to add a comment header to each files.
Actually, the first link there isn't from Windows source code, it's from the source of a Linux USB camera driver (as you can see when you look at the parent post to it).
Well that's a little out of context, but there is a short page about "odd" comments in UNIX which includes an explaination of the abovehere.
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
Not every programmer out there works alone. When your code has to be viewed and worked on by other people, you better have comments explaining the things that aren't self-explanatory. (sorry if I didn't make that clear).
Your code can be really clear using proper variables like iNumber, proper syntax and the works! But when you programming, you're putting in what you have in mind or on your plan. You don't want other programmers to "guess" what you were trying to do in "x-y" lines.
When it's not self explanatory, you should have proper comments. The best way to test this is show your friends or fellow programming teammates and see see if they can guess right and I'm not talking about a "Hello World" kind of program.
phpBB didn't shut down. The site was just compromised due to a hole in awstats. I'll take your post as a troll then.
The w2k source wasn't littered with explitives. There were a few, but much less than I'd expected (fewer than in the Linux kernel, which contains fewer LOC).
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
I think you are forgetting that MSFT stole some Quicktime code to create WMP.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
Actually, if you strings ftp.exe, it's
"Copyright (c) 1983 The Regents of the University of California.
All rights reserved."
I mentioned this the other day, but it also applies here.
In Microsoft's WinCE IrDA driver it explicitly mentions why they aren't following the IrDA spec, to hack a fix for, "those stupid HP printers". Ironically, enough, I was testing an HP printer at the time, and wondering why CE wasn't following the spec, when the printer was. I think that is one of the only comments I have seen in the WinCE source. Presumably, they have been filtered out, unless they really just never comment anywhere.
From that guys blog:
that line is used to compute a "fast inverse square root" -- google for 0x5f3759df and you'll learn a little math. [you see that number once and you remember it forever] the result is a rough hack of what the exponent should be.
-b
When in doubt, parenthesize. At the very least it will let some poor schmuck bounce on the % key in vi. (Larry Wall)
For those missing the joke, the hme ethernet
interface gets its name from the `Happy Meal'
ethernet/SCSI combo card, so named because
you get both interfaces as a discount deal.
The same chipset went onboard some machines, too.
The PCI version (Happy Meal was SBus) I think
was named Fresh Choice (two trips to the ASIC
salad bar) after the valley eateries, but I
might be misremembering.
ian
...this is more than just a simple troll.
Page contains a Java trojan. My AV reported:
"Trojan horse TR/ClassLder.c.Java"
"Trojan horse TR/Forten.Java.2.B"
For large sets, this will be our guide even unto death, for the LORD will work for each type of data it is applied to...
Interesting.
"When the atomic bomb goes off there's devastation...but when the atomic bong goes off there's celebraaaaation!"
There was also a predecessor chip to the HME called the Big Mac.. so it's not coincidence that they were using mcdonalds names for their products, i'm just surprised they didnt get sued.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
>UNIX comments are way funnier.
:
>/* You are not expected to understand this. */
Oh, but there are things like that at MS too. see the FATFS Spec.
Do not spend too much time trying to figure out why this math works. The basis for the computation
is complicated; the important point is that this is how Microsoft operating systems do it, and it works.
Note, however, that this math does not work perfectly. [...] Because it is OK to have a FATSz that is too
large, at the expense of wasting a few sectors, the fact that this computation is surprisingly simple
more than makes up for it being off in a safe way in some cases.
well, it's a legacy bug...
Ahh, the joys of grepping for "fuck".
arch/mips/pci/pci-ip27.c:arch/sparc/kernel/ptrace.c:net/core/netfilter.c:And of course which occurs several times in the Linux kernel. I wonder who it was.i ate crayons when i was a kid and now i have two braincells and the blue ones taste nicer