> now prove that the mechanical reader is correct.
You just have to bootstrap it from a kernel small enough to be managed by a human, similar to what is commonly done when creating new programming languages.
In the case of provers, you write a small kernel that provides a minimal set of functions, prove it correct by conventional means, and then use it to prove the code for new features you want to add to it.
Nice thing is, you only have to do that once. Once a guru has proven his prover, Joe Q. Assurance only needs to know how to use it, not re-create it from scratch. We expect civil engineers to understand statics and dynamics, but we don't make them build their own calculators.
> Or maybe GTK+ is already a distinct rpoduct from GNOME, thus we have no problem...
It always has been. "GTK" was the toolkit the GNOME developers came up with for GNOME. When it was broken out to become an independent toolkit, it became "GTK+".
GTK+ is "under heavy redesign", but that has nothing to do with The GIMP. They are simply upgrading it to support bi-directional text and lots of other goodies you expect in a modern GUI tookit.
GNOME is based on GTK+, but they aren't getting blindsided by any changes to GTK+ driven by The GIMP. You fear a chain of causality where there is none.
> I think we just need to realize that 100 amateur programmers writing and reviewing code, ad-hoc, is not necessarily better than 10 professional software engineers working closely together, using some semi-formal procedure for specification, requirements, collaberation, and coding.
Agreed. But how many of the COTS products loaded onto the average workstation were developed with that degree of professionalism?
> The vast majority of software is a question of implementation, not algorithmic logic. It seems like it's a lot more complicated to prove implementation than algorithms.
Actually, it's rather straightforward for a mechanical prover to read the source code.
> There are currently a very small number of people with both the analytical skills and the severely rational temperment required to do these proofs.
Much of it can be done by machine. Also note that there once was a very small number of people who could write programs, but now millions can. Why not set out on the same path for the methodology of creating formal proofs?
> And that correctness (or, more likely, bugginess) lives in the code, and in the code alone, so that's where you have to weed it out.
Per above, you have proposed a solution to what you thought was the problem.
> It just seems like it'd be no fun.
No one said QA was "fun". The question is, do you take enough pride in your product to make sure it's right? Also, per above, mechanical provers is the way to go.
> What's the average age of a gung-ho Open Source development team? 21?... I'm not talking about old standbys like Perl and Apache and so on
Are you saying that if you filter out the projects where the average age of the developers is older, you are left with an average age of 21 on the unfiltered projects?
> And his comments about "humanity" not knowing how to make software, or even what software is, were just plain over-dramatic, hippified philosobabble. After all, why is he discussing it then? Is he not a part of humanity?
He's just trying to make sense out of something he heard a few years back.
In 1995, someone in an adjacent cubicle got a new computer, set it up, booted it, and sat down to try to get some work done. Three clicks on, they got a BSOD, and reflexively blurted out -
Oh, the humanity!
Lanier has been trying to make sense of that event ever since.
> it would... show other businesses that you can't make money developing software for Linux because someone will undercut you with a Free solution.
It's not clear why this should be specific to developing software for Linux. On some of the OSS mailing lists I subscribe to, over half the traffic is questions regarding the use of that software under Windows.
Conclusion: OSS is going to undercut the commercial market for any kind of software, so long as that software is commonly useful enough to attract the minimum necessary number of volunteer maintainers. (I call this "staple" software.) Commercial software will have to retreat into specialized niches, or, as others have pointed out, supply value-adding innovations that make it attractive to consumers in spite of the price difference. (Or, third option, rely on bogus patents and legal harassment to keep the free competition down.) And for commercial developers who decide to go the value-adding route, they need to realize in advance that it will be a perpetual struggle to stay one step ahead in the game.
I personally don't have a big problem with OSS undercutting commercial software. It's just the march of technology: programming skills, development platforms, and high-speed communications have simply reached a critical mass that forces a paradigm shift in the economics of programming. It's supply and demand applied to lines of code: there are now innumerable individuals able to supply lines of code by the heap, and once written the cost of reduplication is almost nil.
Demand, large; supply, infinite. At least for "staple" software.
Yes, to some extent I feel sorry for people who want to make a living selling code. But I also feel sorry for people who wanted to make a living as blacksmiths or stonemasons, and for people who invested in companies building steam engines.
For better or worse, technology often obsoletes trades and other lucrative economic ventures. The best strategy is to face up to it and adapt to the times, because the clock is rarely turned back on this kind of thing.
> Linux is better than M$ because it is released when the code is mature, not when it is marketable. The best part about Linux is that if you don't think development is moving fast enough, all you have to do is stop trolling on/., pop up an Xterm, cd to/usr/src/linux, and speed up the development process yourself.
Or, if you perfer of MS's "ready or not, here it comes" strategy, you can stop trolling on/., FTP over to kernel.org, download a not-quite-ready 2.4 kernel, install it, use it, and pretend the truly ready 2.4 release is a service pack to be applied whenever it comes out.
> This has got to be one of the coolest networking tools I've seen - it generates sound events based on network traffic. Really neat stuff like a bird chirping when mail comes in, or an owl hooting when your web server dishes up a page (you can actually use any sound for any event).
Aren't you a bit young to be starting your second childhood, Taco?
> I worked for MS for sometime last year, writing code in several groups. What I dont get is why everyone thinks Linux poses a threat to MS.
Well, MS seems to think so. You did hear about the Halloween documents, didn't you? You did see the silly anti-Linux ad in the German magazine, didn't you? MS isn't behaving like a company that has nothing to fear.
> First off, a little over half of the software MS sells goes towards the consumer end, and small business end desktops. Linux isnt a threat here people.
Visit download.com and look at the number of Linuces downloaded last week. Add in the fact that download.com isn't the only, or even the most obvious place to download Linux.
Look at how many stores are carrying Linux boxes. (Recently, even bastions of the status quo such as Office Max have caved in.) Add in the fact that a brick & mortar store isn't the only, or even the most obvious place to buy Linux.
With the PC market almost saturated, and MS having to resort to squeeze tactics to keep their cash flow up to the levels expected by their share holders, any competition, even at the 5% level, is dangerous competition.
> If they can hire 5-7 MSCE types for 50k a year, as opposed to 3 or 4 UNIX gurus who make six figures, they will.
I'm not so sure about this. What scares companies about payroll is headcount, not wages. More headcount means people to manage. More benefits packages. More shellouts for perks to keep the geeks from migrating. More years of retirement pay for employees no longer contributing to the bottom line. More building space. More workstations. More staff to maintain those workstations. More liability insurance. More lawsuits. More paperwork to maintain.
Companies don't like headcount.
> But dont underestimate MS. They can trhow a lot of money at problems, and a lot of very, very, very good engineers. Don't fool yourselves into thinking that MS will just stop improving products.
MS isn't improving products now, and haven't been for a long time. Almost all their "improvements" are driven by marketing decisions. The changes are usually gratuitous, and sometimes positively harmful.
The best engineers in the world aren't any good when they're yoked together to drag along billg's delusions of grandeur.
> Win2k is a very good product.... Its the first Microsoft product that is fundamentally able to made stable
Yeah, sure. We know people who use it. Most of them still reboot it every night. And even if it ever does become stable, all that means is that MS has finally met the entry-level requirement for an operating system product. What's to recommend about an expensive product that merely meets the entry-level requirements?
> (belive me, i have a copy of internal report from MS that would make you crap your pants - results of kernel stress tests and analysis)
If you'll send it to me, I'll send you the postcard Elvis sent me last week.
Even is such a report existed, and was more honest than most MS fare, and showed W2K to be stable, why should we crap our pants over it? I've had a stable box for years. MS will still have lots of other areas to play catch-up in. Such as price.
ps - Certain keywords in your post make me think you were trolling, but you still provided a nice context for saying some things that some lurkers might need to know. Thanks.
> Microsoft is stronger recently than it ever has been before, both in terms of stock price and liquidity.
Stock: Hovering around 70 most of the year, as low as 55 a couple of months ago... vs what a year ago? "Stronger than ever before" ?
Liquidity: Strong rumors going around that they would have reported losses several times over the last couple of years if not for a (probably illegal) "cookie jar" scheme. Additional rumors going around that in the most recent quarter they made more money off selling subsidiaries than off selling software.
Failure papered over with cash in the bank is not a substitute for success.
Every quarter they go through a ritual of announcing, loudly and repeatedly, that times have been tough and people shouldn't expect too much of their stocks. They keep it up until the stock analysts lower their predictions to a point just below what MS can actually report. Then MS does report, pats itself on the back for meeting the manufactured expectations, and tells everyone what a glorious quarter they're looking for next time. Repeat until failure.
Then there's the myth that MS succeeds everywhere it throws its money. Did MSN kill AOL and the internet? Did NT kill Unix? Is W2K taking over the server market? (The high end server market? The low end server market?)
>.NET may or may not be a technological failure, but as long as the 900-lb gorilla pushes it, it will acheieve something... even if it is only the same level of functionality we have today.
That's a pretty low standard for "success", especially for a project that you throw billions of dollars at.
MS really only has two product successes that it can brag about: Win9x and Office. And the continued success of those appears to depend on having monopolies in both markets, and exploiting the two monopolies for mutual support.
They have repeatedly tried to exploit those monopolies to establish monopolies in other, slightly less inbred, arenas. It has resulted in expanded markets (e.g., server space), but no additional monopolies. And it is questionable whether they could have even expanded those markets without leveraging the existing monopolies.
No, I don't think you can portray MS as a company destined to succeed at everything it does. Billg got lucky once, and has milked a trillion dollars out of it, but he doesn't seem to be the sort of genius that can generate noteworthy success in circumstances where he doesn't have either luck or a stacked deck working in his favor.
Indeed, his myth may be working against him by keeping him and his advisors from evaluating his ideas critically. "Unbeatable" only works so long as you actually win; ask Napoleon about that one.
Frankly, I suspect MS is getting out of the software market, or at least sidelining it away from their core business.
They've saturated the market. They're resorting to various types of coercion to squeeze more money out of a market that isn't growing very fast anymore; but surely they realize that that won't work as a long-term solution (even without Linux around -- let alone with "help" from Linux).
Actually, the server market is growing at breakneck pace, but it looks like Linux' untimely appearence has elbowed MS out of any chance of 0wning that particular market the way it 0wns the desktop. So sure, MS is raking in a lot of cash from bundling W2K on x86-grade server hardware, but they seem to be losing market share instead of gaining it, and a small slice of the pie isn't going to solve their bigger economic challenge.
For years they've been boasting their software business by also selling computer hardware and buying up media companies. Linux won't offer much salvation there, either.
Rumor going around says that they turned more "profit" in recent quarters by selling off assets (e.g., as ersatz investment bankers) than from selling software. Linux won't offer much salvation there, either.
I suspect the X-box is seen by BG as his entry into the next world to conquer. Conquerers are never content; neither Napoleon nor Alexander were content to sit on the throne and enjoy their vast holdings. Better to gamble it all on yet another venture, than to fall into stagnation or -- worse -- decay.
Stagnation may not even be an option, since MS is actually more about stocks than about software. And stocks, as you know, are variety of pyramid scheme, where stagnation is unsellable.
BTW, that's just my armchair assessement; I never met Gates, Napoleon, nor Alexander in person. They might be nice people, for all I know.
> Thus it could be the case that lute-playing is independent of profession, and one would still find that 2/3 of one's lute-playing acquaintances were computer geeks.
Yeah, I thought about that after posting, but in this case it didn't work that way. None of the multiclass "geek/lutenists" are co-workers, or friends of co-workers, etc. I simply met two who were playing at a concert, and then met the rest through those two. So the social connection was purely musical. Also, none of the listed parties work together, nor AFAIK have they ever in the past. I think they just met through the regional early music scene. The geek correlation is motivated by something else.
> Dungeons & Dragons is a wholly evil, demonic, and dangerous game that corrupts the minds of our nation's youth.
Au contraire, I think D&D is a nice, safe way for young children to learn to handle magical weapons and dangerous spells before they grow up and get their hands on the real things.
Responsible behavior is the result of a socialization process.
> I think if you were to do an indepth study of "nerds", you'd find a very large proportion who not only appreciate Sci-Fi and Fantasy works, but are also musically inclined...
FWIW, I know exactly 9 people who play the lute:
2 are full-time professional musicians.
1 is a combination English teacher / music teacher ("multiclass", in D&D terms).
6 are computer geeks.
Also FWIW, at least 4 of the 6 geeks work in Unix environments. (I don't know the other two well enough to know the details of what they do.)
> Yes, they can sue. But, pointing that finger won't make the problem go away.
You got that right.
I've worked for a place that used commercial (non-MS) software, and there was very much a resigned "maybe it will get fixed in the next release" attitude. And my employer was a Fortune 100 company that you might expect to have some clout with a vendor.
In once case I had to debug an application myself -- without the source code -- and then browbeat the vendor's engineer with my evidence in a conference call until he agreed to look at the code and verify it. (I did it by tweaking paramaters and plotting the result, and got a "sawblade" pattern where I should have got a 45 degree line, telling me a certain parameter was being held in too few bits, with consequent wraparound as it grew.)
The "who do you point at" myth is marketing, not reality. As others have already pointed out, with OSS you at least have a chance of fixing it yourself.
Slashdot Mirror
> now prove that the mechanical reader is correct.
You just have to bootstrap it from a kernel small enough to be managed by a human, similar to what is commonly done when creating new programming languages.
In the case of provers, you write a small kernel that provides a minimal set of functions, prove it correct by conventional means, and then use it to prove the code for new features you want to add to it.
Nice thing is, you only have to do that once. Once a guru has proven his prover, Joe Q. Assurance only needs to know how to use it, not re-create it from scratch. We expect civil engineers to understand statics and dynamics, but we don't make them build their own calculators.
--
> Does anyone know when The GIMP will support CYMK?
When it pries the relevant patents from Photoshop's cold, dead fingers.
--
> Or maybe GTK+ is already a distinct rpoduct from GNOME, thus we have no problem...
It always has been. "GTK" was the toolkit the GNOME developers came up with for GNOME. When it was broken out to become an independent toolkit, it became "GTK+".
GTK+ is "under heavy redesign", but that has nothing to do with The GIMP. They are simply upgrading it to support bi-directional text and lots of other goodies you expect in a modern GUI tookit.
GNOME is based on GTK+, but they aren't getting blindsided by any changes to GTK+ driven by The GIMP. You fear a chain of causality where there is none.
--
> I think we just need to realize that 100 amateur programmers writing and reviewing code, ad-hoc, is not necessarily better than 10 professional software engineers working closely together, using some semi-formal procedure for specification, requirements, collaberation, and coding.
Agreed. But how many of the COTS products loaded onto the average workstation were developed with that degree of professionalism?
--
> The vast majority of software is a question of implementation, not algorithmic logic. It seems like it's a lot more complicated to prove implementation than algorithms.
Actually, it's rather straightforward for a mechanical prover to read the source code.
> There are currently a very small number of people with both the analytical skills and the severely rational temperment required to do these proofs.
Much of it can be done by machine. Also note that there once was a very small number of people who could write programs, but now millions can. Why not set out on the same path for the methodology of creating formal proofs?
> And that correctness (or, more likely, bugginess) lives in the code, and in the code alone, so that's where you have to weed it out.
Per above, you have proposed a solution to what you thought was the problem.
> It just seems like it'd be no fun.
No one said QA was "fun". The question is, do you take enough pride in your product to make sure it's right? Also, per above, mechanical provers is the way to go.
--
> What's the average age of a gung-ho Open Source development team? 21? ... I'm not talking about old standbys like Perl and Apache and so on
Are you saying that if you filter out the projects where the average age of the developers is older, you are left with an average age of 21 on the unfiltered projects?
--
He's just trying to make sense out of something he heard a few years back.
In 1995, someone in an adjacent cubicle got a new computer, set it up, booted it, and sat down to try to get some work done. Three clicks on, they got a BSOD, and reflexively blurted out -Lanier has been trying to make sense of that event ever since.
--
...has now become creditcards.rus
--
> it would ... show other businesses that you can't make money developing software for Linux because someone will undercut you with a Free solution.
It's not clear why this should be specific to developing software for Linux. On some of the OSS mailing lists I subscribe to, over half the traffic is questions regarding the use of that software under Windows.
Conclusion: OSS is going to undercut the commercial market for any kind of software, so long as that software is commonly useful enough to attract the minimum necessary number of volunteer maintainers. (I call this "staple" software.) Commercial software will have to retreat into specialized niches, or, as others have pointed out, supply value-adding innovations that make it attractive to consumers in spite of the price difference. (Or, third option, rely on bogus patents and legal harassment to keep the free competition down.) And for commercial developers who decide to go the value-adding route, they need to realize in advance that it will be a perpetual struggle to stay one step ahead in the game.
I personally don't have a big problem with OSS undercutting commercial software. It's just the march of technology: programming skills, development platforms, and high-speed communications have simply reached a critical mass that forces a paradigm shift in the economics of programming. It's supply and demand applied to lines of code: there are now innumerable individuals able to supply lines of code by the heap, and once written the cost of reduplication is almost nil.
Demand, large; supply, infinite. At least for "staple" software.
Yes, to some extent I feel sorry for people who want to make a living selling code. But I also feel sorry for people who wanted to make a living as blacksmiths or stonemasons, and for people who invested in companies building steam engines.
For better or worse, technology often obsoletes trades and other lucrative economic ventures. The best strategy is to face up to it and adapt to the times, because the clock is rarely turned back on this kind of thing.
--
> The correct term to describe the OSS model is SANTAISM
LMAO.
--
Possibly my favorite episode. I particularly like the scenes about Bart's accelerated rites of passage to manhood.
--
> Linux is better than M$ because it is released when the code is mature, not when it is marketable. The best part about Linux is that if you don't think development is moving fast enough, all you have to do is stop trolling on /., pop up an Xterm, cd to /usr/src/linux, and speed up the development process yourself.
/., FTP over to kernel.org, download a not-quite-ready 2.4 kernel, install it, use it, and pretend the truly ready 2.4 release is a service pack to be applied whenever it comes out.
Or, if you perfer of MS's "ready or not, here it comes" strategy, you can stop trolling on
--
> Somebody finally explained the word warez to me! I always thought they were some kind of tupperware!
I always thought it was a kiddie's way of spelling Juarez.
--
> If it is just a way to avoid bois restart, that is less cool, but definately beats running lilo to remotely restart with a new kernel.
Even if it doesn't doe Everything You Could Possibly Hope For (tm), it might be a starting point for evolution in that direction.
--
> This has got to be one of the coolest networking tools I've seen - it generates sound events based on network traffic. Really neat stuff like a bird chirping when mail comes in, or an owl hooting when your web server dishes up a page (you can actually use any sound for any event).
Aren't you a bit young to be starting your second childhood, Taco?
--
> I worked for MS for sometime last year, writing code in several groups. What I dont get is why everyone thinks Linux poses a threat to MS.
... Its the first Microsoft product that is fundamentally able to made stable
Well, MS seems to think so. You did hear about the Halloween documents, didn't you? You did see the silly anti-Linux ad in the German magazine, didn't you? MS isn't behaving like a company that has nothing to fear.
> First off, a little over half of the software MS sells goes towards the consumer end, and small business end desktops. Linux isnt a threat here people.
Visit download.com and look at the number of Linuces downloaded last week. Add in the fact that download.com isn't the only, or even the most obvious place to download Linux.
Look at how many stores are carrying Linux boxes. (Recently, even bastions of the status quo such as Office Max have caved in.) Add in the fact that a brick & mortar store isn't the only, or even the most obvious place to buy Linux.
With the PC market almost saturated, and MS having to resort to squeeze tactics to keep their cash flow up to the levels expected by their share holders, any competition, even at the 5% level, is dangerous competition.
> If they can hire 5-7 MSCE types for 50k a year, as opposed to 3 or 4 UNIX gurus who make six figures, they will.
I'm not so sure about this. What scares companies about payroll is headcount, not wages. More headcount means people to manage. More benefits packages. More shellouts for perks to keep the geeks from migrating. More years of retirement pay for employees no longer contributing to the bottom line. More building space. More workstations. More staff to maintain those workstations. More liability insurance. More lawsuits. More paperwork to maintain.
Companies don't like headcount.
> But dont underestimate MS. They can trhow a lot of money at problems, and a lot of very, very, very good engineers. Don't fool yourselves into thinking that MS will just stop improving products.
MS isn't improving products now, and haven't been for a long time. Almost all their "improvements" are driven by marketing decisions. The changes are usually gratuitous, and sometimes positively harmful.
The best engineers in the world aren't any good when they're yoked together to drag along billg's delusions of grandeur.
> Win2k is a very good product.
Yeah, sure. We know people who use it. Most of them still reboot it every night. And even if it ever does become stable, all that means is that MS has finally met the entry-level requirement for an operating system product. What's to recommend about an expensive product that merely meets the entry-level requirements?
> (belive me, i have a copy of internal report from MS that would make you crap your pants - results of kernel stress tests and analysis)
If you'll send it to me, I'll send you the postcard Elvis sent me last week.
Even is such a report existed, and was more honest than most MS fare, and showed W2K to be stable, why should we crap our pants over it? I've had a stable box for years. MS will still have lots of other areas to play catch-up in. Such as price.
ps - Certain keywords in your post make me think you were trolling, but you still provided a nice context for saying some things that some lurkers might need to know. Thanks.
--
> Microsoft is stronger recently than it ever has been before, both in terms of stock price and liquidity.
.NET may or may not be a technological failure, but as long as the 900-lb gorilla pushes it, it will acheieve something... even if it is only the same level of functionality we have today.
Stock: Hovering around 70 most of the year, as low as 55 a couple of months ago... vs what a year ago? "Stronger than ever before" ?
Liquidity: Strong rumors going around that they would have reported losses several times over the last couple of years if not for a (probably illegal) "cookie jar" scheme. Additional rumors going around that in the most recent quarter they made more money off selling subsidiaries than off selling software.
Failure papered over with cash in the bank is not a substitute for success.
Every quarter they go through a ritual of announcing, loudly and repeatedly, that times have been tough and people shouldn't expect too much of their stocks. They keep it up until the stock analysts lower their predictions to a point just below what MS can actually report. Then MS does report, pats itself on the back for meeting the manufactured expectations, and tells everyone what a glorious quarter they're looking for next time. Repeat until failure.
Then there's the myth that MS succeeds everywhere it throws its money. Did MSN kill AOL and the internet? Did NT kill Unix? Is W2K taking over the server market? (The high end server market? The low end server market?)
>
That's a pretty low standard for "success", especially for a project that you throw billions of dollars at.
MS really only has two product successes that it can brag about: Win9x and Office. And the continued success of those appears to depend on having monopolies in both markets, and exploiting the two monopolies for mutual support.
They have repeatedly tried to exploit those monopolies to establish monopolies in other, slightly less inbred, arenas. It has resulted in expanded markets (e.g., server space), but no additional monopolies. And it is questionable whether they could have even expanded those markets without leveraging the existing monopolies.
No, I don't think you can portray MS as a company destined to succeed at everything it does. Billg got lucky once, and has milked a trillion dollars out of it, but he doesn't seem to be the sort of genius that can generate noteworthy success in circumstances where he doesn't have either luck or a stacked deck working in his favor.
Indeed, his myth may be working against him by keeping him and his advisors from evaluating his ideas critically. "Unbeatable" only works so long as you actually win; ask Napoleon about that one.
--
Frankly, I suspect MS is getting out of the software market, or at least sidelining it away from their core business.
They've saturated the market. They're resorting to various types of coercion to squeeze more money out of a market that isn't growing very fast anymore; but surely they realize that that won't work as a long-term solution (even without Linux around -- let alone with "help" from Linux).
Actually, the server market is growing at breakneck pace, but it looks like Linux' untimely appearence has elbowed MS out of any chance of 0wning that particular market the way it 0wns the desktop. So sure, MS is raking in a lot of cash from bundling W2K on x86-grade server hardware, but they seem to be losing market share instead of gaining it, and a small slice of the pie isn't going to solve their bigger economic challenge.
For years they've been boasting their software business by also selling computer hardware and buying up media companies. Linux won't offer much salvation there, either.
Rumor going around says that they turned more "profit" in recent quarters by selling off assets (e.g., as ersatz investment bankers) than from selling software. Linux won't offer much salvation there, either.
I suspect the X-box is seen by BG as his entry into the next world to conquer. Conquerers are never content; neither Napoleon nor Alexander were content to sit on the throne and enjoy their vast holdings. Better to gamble it all on yet another venture, than to fall into stagnation or -- worse -- decay.
Stagnation may not even be an option, since MS is actually more about stocks than about software. And stocks, as you know, are variety of pyramid scheme, where stagnation is unsellable.
BTW, that's just my armchair assessement; I never met Gates, Napoleon, nor Alexander in person. They might be nice people, for all I know.
--
> Thus it could be the case that lute-playing is independent of profession, and one would still find that 2/3 of one's lute-playing acquaintances were computer geeks.
Yeah, I thought about that after posting, but in this case it didn't work that way. None of the multiclass "geek/lutenists" are co-workers, or friends of co-workers, etc. I simply met two who were playing at a concert, and then met the rest through those two. So the social connection was purely musical. Also, none of the listed parties work together, nor AFAIK have they ever in the past. I think they just met through the regional early music scene. The geek correlation is motivated by something else.
--
> Dungeons & Dragons is a wholly evil, demonic, and dangerous game that corrupts the minds of our nation's youth.
Au contraire, I think D&D is a nice, safe way for young children to learn to handle magical weapons and dangerous spells before they grow up and get their hands on the real things.
Responsible behavior is the result of a socialization process.
--
> What is a troll?
Look it up in The Monster Manual, silly.
--
FWIW, I know exactly 9 people who play the lute:
- 2 are full-time professional musicians.
- 1 is a combination English teacher / music teacher ("multiclass", in D&D terms).
- 6 are computer geeks.
Also FWIW, at least 4 of the 6 geeks work in Unix environments. (I don't know the other two well enough to know the details of what they do.)--
The whole point of D&D is (was?) to create a fantasy adventure. That could also be a sensible goal for a movie, to create a fantasy adventure.
But why would a director need D&D to do that? This is kind of like simulating a simulator.
As usual, marketing concerns win out over substance.
ps - Thanks for the review; now I can add it to my list of things not to do this weekend.
--
> Yes, they can sue. But, pointing that finger won't make the problem go away.
You got that right.
I've worked for a place that used commercial (non-MS) software, and there was very much a resigned "maybe it will get fixed in the next release" attitude. And my employer was a Fortune 100 company that you might expect to have some clout with a vendor.
In once case I had to debug an application myself -- without the source code -- and then browbeat the vendor's engineer with my evidence in a conference call until he agreed to look at the code and verify it. (I did it by tweaking paramaters and plotting the result, and got a "sawblade" pattern where I should have got a 45 degree line, telling me a certain parameter was being held in too few bits, with consequent wraparound as it grew.)
The "who do you point at" myth is marketing, not reality. As others have already pointed out, with OSS you at least have a chance of fixing it yourself.
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> The DoD has reason to be paranoid. but i think some times they may over react to a post scan.. not everyone is targeting them..
Yeah, they're just kinda stuck there innocently right between the DoC and the DoE.
Tsk. That's what comes of hanging with the wrong crowd.
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