Offset Bad Code, With Bad Code Offsets

An anonymous reader writes "Two weeks ago, The Daily WTF's Alex Papadimoulis announced Bad Code Offsets, a join venture between many big names in the software development community (including StackOverflow's Jeff Atwood and Jon Skeet and SourceGear's Eric Sink). The premise is that you can offset bad code by purchasing Bad Code Offsets (much in the same way a carbon-footprint is offset). The profits are donated to Free Software projects which work to eliminate bad code, such as the Apache Foundation and FreeBSD. The first cheques were sent out earlier today." Hopefully, they work better than carbon offsets, actually.

Comments

Deliberately bad?

[Geoffrey.landis]

Let me get this right-- you purchase this offset so that you can deliberately write bad code?

Why??

Re:Deliberately bad?

[mea37]

I think the intent is that you buy them as penance for bad code you've already written.

Which makes them pretty much unlike carbon offsets, but I guess someone thinks they're being amusing.

It's a clever fund-raising campaign for certain projects; I wouldn't read much more into it than that.

Re:Deliberately bad?

[DAldredge]

Why would someone feel guilty for developing closed source code?

Re:Deliberately bad?

[jimbobborg]

Do you think Microsoft doesn't have any sort of internal code and bug tracking system?

Sometimes I wonder...

Re:Deliberately bad?

[Rycross]

Assuming that the guy I'm selling it to has a real choice whether to buy the car, understands that the hood is welded shut before buying, and I don't try to use legal means to keep him from unwelding the hood or getting to the engine, why should I feel bad about selling it to him?

Re:Deliberately bad?

[MrNaz]

Wrong. The real reason someone would feel bad for writing bad code is because afterwards they'd have to put up with RMS picketing their offices every morning. I can imagine the boardroom now:
Director 1: We're making millions from this closed source software, it's the company's greatest success.
Director 2: Yea, but that scary guy with the beard and the long hair keeps turning up and making my morning miserable.
Director 1: I know, he's really annoying. All in favor of scuttling our revenue in the interests of making him go away, say "aye".
Directors 1 - 20: "AYE!"

Re:Deliberately bad?

[Rycross]

In what way? Closed source says nothing about whether you actually use some of the very-bad laws on the books to prevent people from inspecting the workings of your program. Its perfectly possibly for me to write a closed-source program and not drag people to court for reverse engineering, and even write a license to that effect.

If I do not explicitly permit someone to distribute modifications of my software, that *would* fall under copyright law, but that's not covered by the analogy. In fact, its pretty difficult to come up with a car analogy that actually makes sense. Whether you view copyright as moral or not falls to your personal belief. My belief is that, despite Stallman's protestations, it is possible to distribute software under copyright morally, even though a lot of proprietary software vendors do not do so.

Apache & FreeBSD = bad code?

[sopssa]

which work to eliminate bad code, such as the Apache Foundation and FreeBSD.

Wow, that's a quite direct attack.

Just call them by the real name, indulgences...

[nweaver]

* (carbon, code, whatever) offsets are really the Papal indulgences of the 21st century.

Re:Just call them by the real name, indulgences...

[Lord Ender]

They are an attempt to provide an economic incentive to pollute less. Without such incentive, the tragedy of the commons ensures we will wreck our collective selves while seeking individual profits.

This is not anywhere near the same thing as imaginary religious crap. It's economics, man.

Re:Just call them by the real name, indulgences...

[Obfuscant]

Carbon offsets are money to fund programs that actually help the environment (with luck, help enough to undo what harm you did in the first place, or even more).

I'm sorry, but buying credits from a company that doesn't produce as much carbon emission as the government says it can is in no way actually helping the environment. It's a ponzi scheme. You produce the same amount of carbon, THEY produce the same amount of carbon, but YOUR costs to do business go up and the middleman brokering the credits makes a fortune.

Re:Just call them by the real name, indulgences...

[Obfuscant]

Yes, everyone produces the same amount of carbon TODAY. But with an economic incentive to produce less carbon it will be cost effective to install greener technology and produce less TOMORROW.

If it was cost effective to install greener technology and produce less carbon today, companies would do it and save money.

If it becomes cost effective TOMORROW, they'll do it TOMORROW to save money.

In the meantime, the cost of carbon offsets has done nothing but cost them, and thus every one of their customers, money. Money which makes carbon brokers richer. Costs which may force that company to move their jobs overseas. That costs us all.

It's a shell game. Plain and simple. Carbon, carbon, who's got the carbon?

Not realistic

[DoofusOfDeath]

I can't really see how Microsoft can afford this...

Re:Not realistic

[Monkeedude1212]

Windows ME alone would probably throw them bankrupt.

Re:Not realistic

[gregarican]

Then Microsoft Bob would put them to the brink of becoming corporate antimatter...

Re:...and now for something entirely unrelated.

[SomeJoel]

"Hopefully, they work better than carbon offsets, actually."

Way to ensure this whole thread goes off track, by trolling on an unrelated and politically charged topic. And with an example poorly chosen as proof of anything, at that.

Don't pay any attention to the last line of the summary. If you ignore it, it will go away.

... just like global warming.

Bad code offsets?

[ozbird]

You mean like this?

JMP 0x0BAD

Lutherans

[Anonymous Coward]

As a Catholic, let me tell all you greens and bad coders that letting people buy their way out of their sins just gets stuff nailed to your door. But good luck with it anyway.

Re:cyber-indugences

[skywolf3]

You're missing the point. The point is to poke fun at carbon schemes and raise money for free software. It's not to actually offset bad code, just to support good code writing organizations.

Gave up on DailyWTF

[gauauu]

The day Alex announced this was the day I finally stopped reading the DailyWTF. It's gotten worse and worse over the past few years, with stories that were so embellished that you stop caring. The fun part about the site was laughing at real IT blunders. But Alex and his creative writing team overdid the writing to the point where the stories were often incredibly far from the real fact (the original submitters would often explain the "real" story in the comments". This might be bearable if their writing wasn't so awful. But often they interchange important character names, have horribly confusing grammatical constructs, and generally just make a mess out of the stories.

Then to top it off, Alex shows up occasionally and comes up with nonsense like this instead of posting another story.

I'm done. Yes, it was amusing for awhile, but I'm moving on.

Re:...and now for something entirely unrelated.

[Sir_Lewk]

I really hope Mozilla won't be getting money from this. If anything, they should be contributing...