Are developers held responsible for the quality of their products?
Yes, Microsoft developers are held responsible for the quality of their products, can't you tell.
No, in this case concrete does not equate to a complex IT system audit, this is comparing apples and oranges.
Concrete has certain specifications and requirements and should be checked by the company that sells it before it is sold for quality. If it is found that the concrete was not mixed right, then they can be found liable.
An audit is usually a spot check of a system. They pick certain areas and randomly check certain things. If they pass those things, lets say it is 10 items out of possibly a hundred, then they get certified. In this case, it may mean that the company didn't look at the fine print, and the auditors will only have to show there audit reports, which should show a good faith effort to check compliance of the standard.
What the company is probably trying to do is obfuscate the fact that they were not making a good faith effort to meet the standards. Like maybe they laid off there most experienced coders, network admins,.... and generally anybody who knew anything about keeping a system secure.
All and all, from a computer technologist standpoint it's a win-win situation. If the auditors are found to be at fault- then audit companies will have to hire more experienced people and do more thorough examinations and they will just charge companies more money and the companies will also have to hire better staff with better training to meet the more rigorous examination. If the company loses, then they will be held accountable for the security breach and be liable to for any damages to their customers, which will tell companies that they need to better train their staff and pay to keep more talented people.
But what will probably happen is that both sides will get more insurance and better lawyers, because it's just those damn courts and judges, and couldn't possibly be due to their HR or business practices.
I have seen cases where both sides could be held liable. In one case auditors were shown a dummy site which wasn't actually being used, but was set up to meet the requirements of the audit and in another case I have seen where auditors didn't write up a major infraction, my guess is because they thought they might lose the companies business.
It's understandable that they want to keep secrets secret, but isn't covering it up going to draw more attention than fudging the paperwork?
It's more of a government tradition to do it this way.
remember that Linux came along as a free alternative to challenge the established OS, with mixed success. now, we have a non-free alternative coming along to challenge Latex (e.g. TexShop). Somehow it seems the odds of success are marginal.
Here's what Tex/Latex have going for them, as viewed by a grad student currently writing his thesis, like myself:
* Knuth designed Tex to be more than just words on paper, he designed formulas to help make your documents beautiful. I think he's getting it right, which is why his version numbers are converging to pi.
* Part of the reason is that Latex is not just about formulas. It's also about styles, lists, bibliography, cross referencing within your doc, etc, which WYSIWYG has not been able to get right so far, and for the needs of power-users, I suspect it never will. I use both, and I still struggle to get Word lists to do what I want.
* User experience. Now that I've spent time on the Tex learning curve, and I can typically get it to do what I want, why would I want to get on another learning curve?
This is where it will fall apart. Most users will fall into a trap of, I am already using Word so why should I look at using something else when Word can do the same thing.
They won't acknowledge a learning curve in Word, but will immediately see a learning curve in Tex
That's how Tex will lose out
* Free. With software like TexShop, I already have all I want, in a great package.
I'm sure he will in the next revision along with adding and changing some of fonts and colors.
I think part of the background should be magenta and get rid of those bold faced type sets.
Jeez, how desperately off topic could you be.
I mean talking about the latest and greatest fad with dependence on bandwidth availability.
You just don't get it.
Yeah, I'm going to start looking up there in a month.
If my vote doesn't count here, Might as well move up North where they at least have a semblance of national healthcare. If they would ban CNN and Fox up there, I may not even bother packing or finding a job, I'll just go.
It's all about progress. We wouldn't be doing ourselves a favor by just rejecting it. We should embrace it and fix whatever issues show up in the way.
So your answer is that we should do something else, just because it is different. Even though it has no real advantage to the end user.
Cryptography I can see as a becoming a solution to most privacy issues. Legislation forget it, just forget it. They can't even keep classified state secrets secret from foreign governments. You think that they are going to be able to keep your health records, CC accounts and other information private.
Yeah, that's all well and good on your computer at home.
But almost a year back we switched to google mail from in house mail server. Based upon the recommendation of a company VP to the CEO.
Four months later the internet went down, we were without mail for 7 hours. The company VP went to Starbucks, so he could get some work done. The CEO was out of town and everybody else was SOL.
I'd say we lost about $20,000 alone in that one day in productivity cost.
But that's okay we had about a third of the work force stay late over the course of the week to cover the lost time. No skin off the shin of the CEO or VP, so their idea was still brilliant.
Well I use it to heat my room during winter. And we use our server room to heat a couple of the offices next to it.
We also use excess liquid nitrogen used in our manufacturing process to cool the air during summer. It goes through an exchanger and we monitor it for leaks and mix it with uncooled air.
This was illustrated by a Saturn V rocket test. After the test the space below the rocket was flush with Nitrogen to remove/dilute the harmful gasses, which could still explode in oxygen. Unfortunately they didn't flush the area with Air(79% N2 21% O2) before allowing 12 - 18 technicians walk into the area. They died before they even knew what was wrong.
I'm amazed at how many people work around the stuff and don't realize how dangerous it is. See parent for discussion of CO2.
Glad you brought up cost. Because the only reason I drive now to a number of places, is because of the added cost of a rental car.
To a number of destinations in Texas (Dallas, Austin, Waco, San Antonio, Corpus Christ) flying is almost as cheap as driving (especially when gas is 3.50 a gallon). The time savings is negligible in a number of these flight ( In fact Dallas to Waco takes longer by plane). About an hour each way. So it comes down to cost and the tipping factor is whether you need a rental car or not.
Slashdot Mirror
This probably had more to do with the doctors not being able to get on WebMD.
Are developers held responsible for the quality of their products? Yes, Microsoft developers are held responsible for the quality of their products, can't you tell.
No, in this case concrete does not equate to a complex IT system audit, this is comparing apples and oranges.
Concrete has certain specifications and requirements and should be checked by the company that sells it before it is sold for quality. If it is found that the concrete was not mixed right, then they can be found liable.
An audit is usually a spot check of a system. They pick certain areas and randomly check certain things. If they pass those things, lets say it is 10 items out of possibly a hundred, then they get certified. In this case, it may mean that the company didn't look at the fine print, and the auditors will only have to show there audit reports, which should show a good faith effort to check compliance of the standard.
What the company is probably trying to do is obfuscate the fact that they were not making a good faith effort to meet the standards. Like maybe they laid off there most experienced coders, network admins,.... and generally anybody who knew anything about keeping a system secure.
All and all, from a computer technologist standpoint it's a win-win situation. If the auditors are found to be at fault- then audit companies will have to hire more experienced people and do more thorough examinations and they will just charge companies more money and the companies will also have to hire better staff with better training to meet the more rigorous examination. If the company loses, then they will be held accountable for the security breach and be liable to for any damages to their customers, which will tell companies that they need to better train their staff and pay to keep more talented people.
But what will probably happen is that both sides will get more insurance and better lawyers, because it's just those damn courts and judges, and couldn't possibly be due to their HR or business practices.
I have seen cases where both sides could be held liable. In one case auditors were shown a dummy site which wasn't actually being used, but was set up to meet the requirements of the audit and in another case I have seen where auditors didn't write up a major infraction, my guess is because they thought they might lose the companies business.
It's understandable that they want to keep secrets secret, but isn't covering it up going to draw more attention than fudging the paperwork?
It's more of a government tradition to do it this way.
You do realize that you and IgnoramusMaximus have offered a prime example of why we need lawyers?
Something usually free is already widely used.
remember that Linux came along as a free alternative to challenge the established OS, with mixed success. now, we have a non-free alternative coming along to challenge Latex (e.g. TexShop). Somehow it seems the odds of success are marginal.
Here's what Tex/Latex have going for them, as viewed by a grad student currently writing his thesis, like myself: * Knuth designed Tex to be more than just words on paper, he designed formulas to help make your documents beautiful. I think he's getting it right, which is why his version numbers are converging to pi.
* Part of the reason is that Latex is not just about formulas. It's also about styles, lists, bibliography, cross referencing within your doc, etc, which WYSIWYG has not been able to get right so far, and for the needs of power-users, I suspect it never will. I use both, and I still struggle to get Word lists to do what I want.
* User experience. Now that I've spent time on the Tex learning curve, and I can typically get it to do what I want, why would I want to get on another learning curve?
This is where it will fall apart. Most users will fall into a trap of, I am already using Word so why should I look at using something else when Word can do the same thing.
They won't acknowledge a learning curve in Word, but will immediately see a learning curve in Tex
That's how Tex will lose out
* Free. With software like TexShop, I already have all I want, in a great package.
Absolutely, saw it on CNBC.
Are you sure their is going to be a revision to this website?
I'm sure he will in the next revision along with adding and changing some of fonts and colors.
I think part of the background should be magenta and get rid of those bold faced type sets.
To bad the author didn't number the steps, so we could say which step we're at.
How many points do I get for trolling myself?
Jeez, how desperately off topic could you be.
I mean talking about the latest and greatest fad with dependence on bandwidth availability.
You just don't get it.
I didn't see this.
I didn't see this.
There just is no good reason not to start moving everything over to cloud computing and SaS.
Internal email is very important also.
Yeah, I'm going to start looking up there in a month.
If my vote doesn't count here, Might as well move up North where they at least have a semblance of national healthcare. If they would ban CNN and Fox up there, I may not even bother packing or finding a job, I'll just go.
It's all about progress. We wouldn't be doing ourselves a favor by just rejecting it. We should embrace it and fix whatever issues show up in the way.
So your answer is that we should do something else, just because it is different. Even though it has no real advantage to the end user.
Cryptography I can see as a becoming a solution to most privacy issues. Legislation forget it, just forget it. They can't even keep classified state secrets secret from foreign governments. You think that they are going to be able to keep your health records, CC accounts and other information private.
Our phone lines can be down for hours and no one will notice.
If the internet goes down, I'll have someone in my office in less than 5 minutes.
Phone lines are easily replaced with cell phones.
Yeah, that's all well and good on your computer at home.
But almost a year back we switched to google mail from in house mail server. Based upon the recommendation of a company VP to the CEO.
Four months later the internet went down, we were without mail for 7 hours. The company VP went to Starbucks, so he could get some work done. The CEO was out of town and everybody else was SOL.
I'd say we lost about $20,000 alone in that one day in productivity cost.
But that's okay we had about a third of the work force stay late over the course of the week to cover the lost time. No skin off the shin of the CEO or VP, so their idea was still brilliant.
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2009/03/dayintech_0319 Here is one that happened during the shuttle program. Maybe I was wrong about the Saturn rocket test, but I believe that something similar happened then.
Well I use it to heat my room during winter. And we use our server room to heat a couple of the offices next to it.
We also use excess liquid nitrogen used in our manufacturing process to cool the air during summer. It goes through an exchanger and we monitor it for leaks and mix it with uncooled air.
This was illustrated by a Saturn V rocket test. After the test the space below the rocket was flush with Nitrogen to remove/dilute the harmful gasses, which could still explode in oxygen. Unfortunately they didn't flush the area with Air(79% N2 21% O2) before allowing 12 - 18 technicians walk into the area. They died before they even knew what was wrong.
I'm amazed at how many people work around the stuff and don't realize how dangerous it is. See parent for discussion of CO2.
That 21% Oxygen is really important.
That's okay I find that using N2O works best for me. Of course I don't achieve the same speeds.
But, I really really don't give a shit.
We were left with the only users that would try and opt-out of spam.
Don't worry you're in good company. We have 3 or 4 PhD's/Managers around here that tried it.
Glad you brought up cost. Because the only reason I drive now to a number of places, is because of the added cost of a rental car.
To a number of destinations in Texas (Dallas, Austin, Waco, San Antonio, Corpus Christ) flying is almost as cheap as driving (especially when gas is 3.50 a gallon). The time savings is negligible in a number of these flight ( In fact Dallas to Waco takes longer by plane). About an hour each way. So it comes down to cost and the tipping factor is whether you need a rental car or not.
I think that it has, if it wasn't for the viruses our company would probably have illegal copies of everything.