4. the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work
``[T]he copyrighted work'' specified is the original post on/.. I'm afraid the potential market for (or monetary value of) any one post is so close to nil as to be indistinguishable therefrom.
Yes, Mr. Katz's work is built of those posts, but it hasn't affected their market potential one iota. Factor 4 falls squarely on the side of fair use.
BTW: Thanks for this book, all concerned. It gives us a chance to present the situation to those who have no access to their online form, or those (unfortunately many) who disdain anything that hasn't been transferred to dead, bound trees.
In the early '70s, the U. of Maryland had a timesharing Univac 1106 for most of its compute power. The story I heard was this:
When Univac build the 1108, they priced it to recover their engineering costs with relatively low sales levels (read: high cost).
It turned out to be much more successful than their forecasts predicted, so the fixed costs were amortized quickly, and they could drop the price and sell lots more at a still-tidy profit. However, they didn't want to rile those who'd paid the big bucks. So, they introduced the 1106---same machine, but slower clock speed. Lots of folks bought it, thought it was neat, and Univac was happy.
Of course, the time came (sooner rather than later) when someone poked around enough to notice that the only difference was a resistor and a crystal. So, after a trip to Radio Shack with a few bucks, your low-budget machine would run just as well as the high-prices spread---double the speed. Lots of those got used at schools and anywhere else hackers congregated, until Univac cheapened enough components to make the 1106 a truly slow machine.
See note 6 to this document for some corroborative detail, but a quick search reveals nothing else on the web, durnit.
Wellll, bandwidth is limited, and if certain persons are making it a problem, then attack the problem, not the symptom. Insist limited resources be shared responsibly.
Set bandwidth limits on usage, just as timeshared systems have disk-, CPU-, and other resource-usage limits. Banning DeCSS, Napster, etc. is treading too close to (if not over) the censorship line; obscene for an educational institution. They shouldn't even need traffic-shaping capability---just publish an acceptable-use policy, monitor usage, and every {day, week, month} let folks know if they're not playing nicely. When necessary, drop their connection until they figure out how to stay within the limits.
Then, students can use anything they want, publish (i.e., run servers) as they like, and the (alleged) real problem is taken care of.
Of course, if requests for reasonable policies are rejected, we'll have a clue to underlying motivations:-(.
I keep my checking in a credit union, my ATM account in a local bank with convenient locations, my credit cards with folks with good rates, etc., etc.
I have no interest in having the credit-card bank decide I'm overlimit, say, and take the cash to make it up from my co-located savings account. Nor do I want some (admittedly secure [probably]) institution to have all that info in one place so it can decide to sell that accurate info to some spamming entity. I don't even want to have the remote possibility of the bank going under and all my funds awaiting the pleasure of the FDIC.
Diversification is good---why do you think networks try to have multiple independent routes to other nodes?
I've been looking for the results from Holland's voting (I presume this was combined with the Michigan primaries, returns from which are plastered all over the media this morning), and finding nada.
I surf at +2, cause otherwise I'd never get anything done.
However, I spotted delmoi's comment and went to -1 to check it out. I'm surprised the original's garnered only two ``Troll'' moderations---if I'd read it, I would have given it a ``Funny''.
The article spent a couple of paragraphs on generalities. Does there exist a good, non-judgmental (I should be so lucky) article about what really happened, focussing on the operational differences between emacs & Xemacs? If so, could some kind person post a pointer?
The human eye normally moves from the upper left hand corner to the lower [right] hand corner.
Erm, make that the Western-European eye. I strongly suspect the Israeli (and Arabic?) eye normally moves from the upper right-hand corner to the lower left-hand corner, and while I'm not competent to hypothesize about the Japanese/Chinese/Korean eye, I wouldn't be surprised if they have their own modi operandi.
(One reason to make everything user-selectable. It's just tough to do well.)
The trouble with prior art is we only knock out patents one at a time---we have to find prior art for each one, and then we still have to deal with the next, and the next, and....
A patent portfolio, on the other hand, allows us to pull the teeth of many patents at once, because our portfolio allows us to threaten large companies with stupid patents, just as they're doing to us. We offer to cross-license, they allow free software use of their patents, and we've neutralized their whole portfolio in one go.
At least one problem, though, is Inter-Mega-Ware may well be willing to spend the cash to invalidate our patents, while we don't have the wherewithal to do the same to theirs. Still, it's an idea that needs following up.
Thanks for a stellar (if not astrophysical:-) interview!
Dr. Lederman's belief in education should be a beacon to all readers. If we continue down the (U.S., anyway) path of deteriorating education, democracy will die. The first job must be to raise children who will be able to discern fact from fiction, evidence from opinion, and tell when the evidence is insufficient for decision, and more evidence must be gathered.
To do those things, it is mandatory that they understand the nature of data-gathering. If I run a (well-designed) experiment five times, and get one result twice and another thrice, what does that tell me about the phenomenon? When their friends all say ``I know a friend who says his buddy saw.... and therefore the world always works that way.'', they must know the importance of separating anecdote from experiment.
To that end, we need to design a series of courses for, I suspect, 9--16-year-olds to demonstrate how often coincidence occurs, how much it costs to accurately sample a population of a given size, what ``5% margin of error'' means, and why ``95% level of confidence'' means one in twenty of those science reports is wrong.
They must be designed so the kids don't just learn it well enough to pass a multiple-choice exam at the end of the year, but so they feel it in their guts.
If we can manage to get such education in place so high-school students know how sampling, chance, and uncertainty affect their knowledge of the world, then we'll be headed on the right track.
To a first approximation, `Debian-free' means you can
Use the software distributed in any way you please,
Stamp out copies and give/sell them to whomever you please, and
Modify the source any way you please, and distribute the modifications. (Not, however, ``distribute the modifications any way you please''---that choice is left up to the program's author.)
Note that Debian is not terribly restrictive. Anything that meets the DFSG can be packaged and go into the main distribution. They'll happily take GPL, BSD, X, Artistic, and other licenses.
Even then, if the software is at least free enough to let a non-profit organization distribute it, it can go into the `non-free' collection, which, while not Official Debian, is nonetheless kept up by Debian maintainers and available on the Debian site. (If you're a CD purveyor, though, you'd better go through the licenses in `non-free' pretty carefully to make sure you're not stepping on anyone's toes.)
As for ``doctrinaire insistance", they're merely insisting that they stay on the right side of the copyright law. If a program, or its constituents, are licensed in such a way as to make re-distribution illegal, they won't do it. Period. If the licensing changes, it gets re-evaluated. It makes for some interesting discussions, to say the least, but under the current conditions (no court decision defining how copyright's concept of `derivative work' interacts with program linking, static or dynamic) I certain can't argue with taking the conservative course: it's their necks on the block, not mine.
Since Debian is a hard-core volunteer organization, Debian GNU/FreeBSD will be worked on only by those who want to see it happen. Therefore, to them, it's worth the effort. If you want to redirect that effort, the way to do it is to come up with and advance a more attractive project. Telling others to stop it because it's worthless just won't cut it---your valuation is not mandatory for everyone.
That's one of the things that's impressed me most about Debian over my years of using their software and observing their efforts. If enough people want it, it gets done. Otherwise, it peters out with no harm to anyone.
Of course, the discussions about whether it's worthwhile can get a bit tedious....:-)
One reason for the virus/worm/cracking fears existing today is that over 80% of systems run an OS from one manufacturer. If we can get the world used to the idea that multiple different systems, capable of easily exchanging data and using similar administration methods, are a Good Thing, network security will go up significantly.
I use Debian GNU/Linux happily now, but a Debian GNU/BSD, and Debian GNU/Hurd, and Debian GNU/EROS would be welcome additions to my arsenal.
In their paper, they refer to @Home's ``acceptable-use'' policy, which you would do well to read carefully before you decide that ATT+M1 will sell you ``an IP Address. That's it.'' They call out numerous things you can't do over their connection (set up a Web server, sell access to 3rd parties, etc. Hell, they even tell you you've got to authenticate anyone who connects to you:
For example, you must take appropriate precautions to prevent minors from receiving inappropriate content.
)
But the beauty part is that, with ATT+M1's proposal, you get no choice. ``Connect to the internet over our cable---sure, but you go through our ISP. Don't like it? Then keep dialing.''
In fact, IIRC, ATT+M1 said a few months ago that if they couldn't bundle, they wouldn't even try to merge. I wonder why? Could it be that they forsee money in forcing an ISP down peoples throats? Nahhh, couldn't be....
I believe the answer is no, but IANAL. If anyone does know, please post.
When I took a course on intellectual-property law (a looong time ago---software wasn't patentable then) one of the points made was that copyright and patent law were mutually-exclusive; anything you could copyright couldn't be patented, and vice versa. I'm pretty sure that's still true---you patent your algorithm:-( [the idea], and copyright your code [the expression].
After reading this review I went to The Bookpool (where Refactoring is available for $28; sorry, Amazon) and ordered it. I've now had it a few days, sampled a number of sections, and started seriously on reading from cover to cover.
Maybe SEGV's seen something I haven't, but I'm tempted to give it at least 9.5/10, and thinking about more.
Yes, as many posters above note, I too have been refactoring for much of my career, to save my sanity if for no other reason. But I called it ``cleaning up the code'', and often couldn't articulate to my peers or bosses why it was the right thing to do. I was abstracting the form of the code, changing it to make it easier to understand. Fowler has abstracted the form of the changes, to make them easier to recognize and execute correctly. This higher level of abstraction is what makes the book worthwhile.
In addition, he's labelled and codified abstractions I haven't thought of, but which will be useful now that they've been brought to my attention.
It's also nice that he's given ``guest authors'' chapters to themselves, so we get different views of the subject. Fowler's upfront about what he owes to others in developing the concepts; he says they should have written the book, but since he's the one to get around to it, he's at least roped them in for their expertise.
All in all, if you ever have to touch sub-standard code, get and apply this book. I would have killed for this at my last job.
Sure, so long as the code's only copyrighted...you can copyright `expressions'---specific ways of presenting ideas, but you can't copyright an idea.
Thus, if I wrote a book about a crazed whaling captain wanting to take vengeance on the beast who'd munched his leg, Herman Melville would have no kick so long as I told it my way, not copying his words or (I presume) too much of his organization.
If the code was patented, on the other hand, it's a whole 'nother kettle of cetacea...
One of the reasons for paper's popularity is that you can put is somewhere other than at your monitor and leave it there.
Just last night I got a list of events around our state from the web, printed it, and posted it on our kitchen bulletin board. Why? So it would be a reminder whenever we're thinking of things to do. Likewise, class notes can go in my briefcase, spreadsheets can go in my financial files, etc., etc.
It's much faster to have what I want where I want than to have to go to the computer for it.
In the wider view (taking in books, magazines, advertising flyers, etc.), there are fewer places to look if they're in the real world. My programming texts go near the computer, but mysteries are in the bookshelves in the spare bedroom, impressive tomes are in the bookshelves in the living room, cookbooks are in the kitchen, and I know where to find them. There are just too many places to hide them on a hard drive.
Finally, I can move them so they're near each other but not overlapping, so I have instant access. (Don't kid yourself, two-keystroke access is not instant.)
Some of these problems can be solved by faster CPUs and graphics systems, some by better organizing methods, some by lighter computers. But, it's going to take a long time for all those to come to fruition, and in the meantime computing has made it easier to find information we would like to keep handy---thus, more printing for the forseeable future.
If you're interested, get Alan Turing: The Enigma, by Andrew Hodges. Unfortunately, you'll have to work a bit---Amazon sez it's out of print, which sounds right; I remember being shocked that it could to go out of print when I heard the news years ago.
The play was called (surprise!) The Enigma. I saw it in NYC with my wife more than a decade ago, and it was an outstanding condensation of the book. My wife's not at all into computers, codes, or anything related, and was as entranced as I was by the performance. The writer and director did a great job of showing the man and his work for a non-technical audience, while keeping it accurate enough to keep the nerds from wincing.
IIRC from the book, Turing died by eating an apple which had arsenic on it. Hodges speculates that it may have been suicide thinly disguised by Turing so his mother (still living) could tell herself it was an accident. He'd been doing some experiments involving arsenic, and maybe he just forgot and put the apple down in the wrong place before he ate it.... I can believe he'd want to commit suicide after reading of his treatment (in both senses of the word) at the hands of the authorities. It was an obscene wastes of human creativity at the hands of intolerance.
The few I've ditched (a Morrow Z80 box, a monochrome Mac left by a lodger, etc.), I've put out on the sidewalk on Saturday or Sunday (for our Monday trash pickup). Not one of 'em has made it to sunset of the day it went outside.
Hell, someone was kind enough to give a new home to the 2400-baud external modem I put out last month.
On the other hand, the 386DX-25 my sister returned (now that she's got a Pentium laptop) is gonna be the firewall for my home network. It'll have more than enough bandwidth until we get fiber hereabouts.
I bet a lot of the companies it applies to more are those valuing economy of scale over reliablity. ``We can save 0.3% by buying 10k Grace L. Furgeson routers? Great!... They don't interoperate with any others? That's OK, we'll buy 20k and use them exclusively.''
So now when the GLF equipment shows a bug under certain wildly-unlikely circumstances, you're sincerely screwed. Much better to insist on at least two (and if you're serious, three or four) vendor's equipment, interoperating to an open standard, throughout your network. That way, as with genetic diversity in crops, livestock, and humans, you're much better able to withstand climate variation and new diseases. Half your network may be down with the bug, but you still have significant bandwidth running.
(Of course, this doesn't innoculate you against errors in the protocol, but that's better debugged than the equipment implementing it.)
Slashdot Mirror
Erm, look at factor 4 again:
``[T]he copyrighted work'' specified is the original post on /.. I'm afraid the potential market for (or monetary value of) any one post is so close to nil as to be indistinguishable therefrom.
Yes, Mr. Katz's work is built of those posts, but it hasn't affected their market potential one iota. Factor 4 falls squarely on the side of fair use.
BTW: Thanks for this book, all concerned. It gives us a chance to present the situation to those who have no access to their online form, or those (unfortunately many) who disdain anything that hasn't been transferred to dead, bound trees.
Check out SEUL/edu, where `SEUL' is ``Simple End-User Linux''. They offer a page to search Freshmeat for educational SW.
Then there's Linux for Kids, which is collecting both educational software and just plain games.
If you want a wider perspective, K--12 Linux is working to coordinate educational use of Linux in all primary and secondary schools.
Go for it! And don't forget to pass it on, and to return the favor to these sites.
In the early '70s, the U. of Maryland had a timesharing Univac 1106 for most of its compute power. The story I heard was this:
When Univac build the 1108, they priced it to recover their engineering costs with relatively low sales levels (read: high cost).
It turned out to be much more successful than their forecasts predicted, so the fixed costs were amortized quickly, and they could drop the price and sell lots more at a still-tidy profit. However, they didn't want to rile those who'd paid the big bucks. So, they introduced the 1106---same machine, but slower clock speed. Lots of folks bought it, thought it was neat, and Univac was happy.
Of course, the time came (sooner rather than later) when someone poked around enough to notice that the only difference was a resistor and a crystal. So, after a trip to Radio Shack with a few bucks, your low-budget machine would run just as well as the high-prices spread---double the speed. Lots of those got used at schools and anywhere else hackers congregated, until Univac cheapened enough components to make the 1106 a truly slow machine.
See note 6 to this document for some corroborative detail, but a quick search reveals nothing else on the web, durnit.
Wellll, bandwidth is limited, and if certain persons are making it a problem, then attack the problem, not the symptom. Insist limited resources be shared responsibly.
Set bandwidth limits on usage, just as timeshared systems have disk-, CPU-, and other resource-usage limits. Banning DeCSS, Napster, etc. is treading too close to (if not over) the censorship line; obscene for an educational institution. They shouldn't even need traffic-shaping capability---just publish an acceptable-use policy, monitor usage, and every {day, week, month} let folks know if they're not playing nicely. When necessary, drop their connection until they figure out how to stay within the limits.
Then, students can use anything they want, publish (i.e., run servers) as they like, and the (alleged) real problem is taken care of.
Of course, if requests for reasonable policies are rejected, we'll have a clue to underlying motivations :-(.
I keep my checking in a credit union, my ATM account in a local bank with convenient locations, my credit cards with folks with good rates, etc., etc.
I have no interest in having the credit-card bank decide I'm overlimit, say, and take the cash to make it up from my co-located savings account. Nor do I want some (admittedly secure [probably]) institution to have all that info in one place so it can decide to sell that accurate info to some spamming entity. I don't even want to have the remote possibility of the bank going under and all my funds awaiting the pleasure of the FDIC.
Diversification is good---why do you think networks try to have multiple independent routes to other nodes?
Now that's service :-). Four minutes after I posted my request, the answer was put up on the main page. Thanks, folks!
I've been looking for the results from Holland's voting (I presume this was combined with the Michigan primaries, returns from which are plastered all over the media this morning), and finding nada.
Come on, /.---give us an update, pleeease?
I surf at +2, cause otherwise I'd never get anything done.
However, I spotted delmoi's comment and went to -1 to check it out. I'm surprised the original's garnered only two ``Troll'' moderations---if I'd read it, I would have given it a ``Funny''.
The article spent a couple of paragraphs on generalities. Does there exist a good, non-judgmental (I should be so lucky) article about what really happened, focussing on the operational differences between emacs & Xemacs? If so, could some kind person post a pointer?
TIA
Erm, make that the Western-European eye. I strongly suspect the Israeli (and Arabic?) eye normally moves from the upper right-hand corner to the lower left-hand corner, and while I'm not competent to hypothesize about the Japanese/Chinese/Korean eye, I wouldn't be surprised if they have their own modi operandi.
(One reason to make everything user-selectable. It's just tough to do well.)
The trouble with prior art is we only knock out patents one at a time---we have to find prior art for each one, and then we still have to deal with the next, and the next, and....
A patent portfolio, on the other hand, allows us to pull the teeth of many patents at once, because our portfolio allows us to threaten large companies with stupid patents, just as they're doing to us. We offer to cross-license, they allow free software use of their patents, and we've neutralized their whole portfolio in one go.
At least one problem, though, is Inter-Mega-Ware may well be willing to spend the cash to invalidate our patents, while we don't have the wherewithal to do the same to theirs. Still, it's an idea that needs following up.
Thanks for a stellar (if not astrophysical :-) interview!
Dr. Lederman's belief in education should be a beacon to all readers. If we continue down the (U.S., anyway) path of deteriorating education, democracy will die. The first job must be to raise children who will be able to discern fact from fiction, evidence from opinion, and tell when the evidence is insufficient for decision, and more evidence must be gathered.
To do those things, it is mandatory that they understand the nature of data-gathering. If I run a (well-designed) experiment five times, and get one result twice and another thrice, what does that tell me about the phenomenon? When their friends all say ``I know a friend who says his buddy saw .... and therefore the world always works that way.'', they must know the importance of separating anecdote from experiment.
To that end, we need to design a series of courses for, I suspect, 9--16-year-olds to demonstrate how often coincidence occurs, how much it costs to accurately sample a population of a given size, what ``5% margin of error'' means, and why ``95% level of confidence'' means one in twenty of those science reports is wrong.
They must be designed so the kids don't just learn it well enough to pass a multiple-choice exam at the end of the year, but so they feel it in their guts.
If we can manage to get such education in place so high-school students know how sampling, chance, and uncertainty affect their knowledge of the world, then we'll be headed on the right track.
Hoping this isn't too far out of context:
I suggest you read the Debian Free Software Guidelines (DFSG), or their discussion of `freeness'.
To a first approximation, `Debian-free' means you can
Note that Debian is not terribly restrictive. Anything that meets the DFSG can be packaged and go into the main distribution. They'll happily take GPL, BSD, X, Artistic, and other licenses.
Even then, if the software is at least free enough to let a non-profit organization distribute it, it can go into the `non-free' collection, which, while not Official Debian, is nonetheless kept up by Debian maintainers and available on the Debian site. (If you're a CD purveyor, though, you'd better go through the licenses in `non-free' pretty carefully to make sure you're not stepping on anyone's toes.)
As for ``doctrinaire insistance", they're merely insisting that they stay on the right side of the copyright law. If a program, or its constituents, are licensed in such a way as to make re-distribution illegal, they won't do it. Period. If the licensing changes, it gets re-evaluated. It makes for some interesting discussions, to say the least, but under the current conditions (no court decision defining how copyright's concept of `derivative work' interacts with program linking, static or dynamic) I certain can't argue with taking the conservative course: it's their necks on the block, not mine.
Since Debian is a hard-core volunteer organization, Debian GNU/FreeBSD will be worked on only by those who want to see it happen. Therefore, to them, it's worth the effort. If you want to redirect that effort, the way to do it is to come up with and advance a more attractive project. Telling others to stop it because it's worthless just won't cut it---your valuation is not mandatory for everyone.
That's one of the things that's impressed me most about Debian over my years of using their software and observing their efforts. If enough people want it, it gets done. Otherwise, it peters out with no harm to anyone.
Of course, the discussions about whether it's worthwhile can get a bit tedious.... :-)
I use Debian GNU/Linux happily now, but a Debian GNU/BSD, and Debian GNU/Hurd, and Debian GNU/EROS would be welcome additions to my arsenal.
In their paper, they refer to @Home's ``acceptable-use'' policy, which you would do well to read carefully before you decide that ATT+M1 will sell you ``an IP Address. That's it.'' They call out numerous things you can't do over their connection (set up a Web server, sell access to 3rd parties, etc. Hell, they even tell you you've got to authenticate anyone who connects to you:
)But the beauty part is that, with ATT+M1's proposal, you get no choice. ``Connect to the internet over our cable---sure, but you go through our ISP. Don't like it? Then keep dialing.''
In fact, IIRC, ATT+M1 said a few months ago that if they couldn't bundle, they wouldn't even try to merge. I wonder why? Could it be that they forsee money in forcing an ISP down peoples throats? Nahhh, couldn't be....
I believe the answer is no, but IANAL. If anyone does know, please post.
When I took a course on intellectual-property law (a looong time ago---software wasn't patentable then) one of the points made was that copyright and patent law were mutually-exclusive; anything you could copyright couldn't be patented, and vice versa. I'm pretty sure that's still true---you patent your algorithm :-( [the idea], and copyright your code [the expression].
After reading this review I went to The Bookpool (where Refactoring is available for $28; sorry, Amazon) and ordered it. I've now had it a few days, sampled a number of sections, and started seriously on reading from cover to cover.
Maybe SEGV's seen something I haven't, but I'm tempted to give it at least 9.5/10, and thinking about more.
Yes, as many posters above note, I too have been refactoring for much of my career, to save my sanity if for no other reason. But I called it ``cleaning up the code'', and often couldn't articulate to my peers or bosses why it was the right thing to do. I was abstracting the form of the code, changing it to make it easier to understand. Fowler has abstracted the form of the changes, to make them easier to recognize and execute correctly. This higher level of abstraction is what makes the book worthwhile.
In addition, he's labelled and codified abstractions I haven't thought of, but which will be useful now that they've been brought to my attention.
It's also nice that he's given ``guest authors'' chapters to themselves, so we get different views of the subject. Fowler's upfront about what he owes to others in developing the concepts; he says they should have written the book, but since he's the one to get around to it, he's at least roped them in for their expertise.
All in all, if you ever have to touch sub-standard code, get and apply this book. I would have killed for this at my last job.
Sure, so long as the code's only copyrighted...you can copyright `expressions'---specific ways of presenting ideas, but you can't copyright an idea.
Thus, if I wrote a book about a crazed whaling captain wanting to take vengeance on the beast who'd munched his leg, Herman Melville would have no kick so long as I told it my way, not copying his words or (I presume) too much of his organization.
If the code was patented, on the other hand, it's a whole 'nother kettle of cetacea...
Maybe he just wants to open up more opportunities for first-posters?
One of the reasons for paper's popularity is that you can put is somewhere other than at your monitor and leave it there.
Just last night I got a list of events around our state from the web, printed it, and posted it on our kitchen bulletin board. Why? So it would be a reminder whenever we're thinking of things to do. Likewise, class notes can go in my briefcase, spreadsheets can go in my financial files, etc., etc.
It's much faster to have what I want where I want than to have to go to the computer for it.
In the wider view (taking in books, magazines, advertising flyers, etc.), there are fewer places to look if they're in the real world. My programming texts go near the computer, but mysteries are in the bookshelves in the spare bedroom, impressive tomes are in the bookshelves in the living room, cookbooks are in the kitchen, and I know where to find them. There are just too many places to hide them on a hard drive.
Finally, I can move them so they're near each other but not overlapping, so I have instant access. (Don't kid yourself, two-keystroke access is not instant.)
Some of these problems can be solved by faster CPUs and graphics systems, some by better organizing methods, some by lighter computers. But, it's going to take a long time for all those to come to fruition, and in the meantime computing has made it easier to find information we would like to keep handy---thus, more printing for the forseeable future.
That's the play's title: Breaking the Code. As I said, it's been over a decade....
If you're interested, get Alan Turing: The Enigma, by Andrew Hodges. Unfortunately, you'll have to work a bit---Amazon sez it's out of print, which sounds right; I remember being shocked that it could to go out of print when I heard the news years ago.
The play was called (surprise!) The Enigma. I saw it in NYC with my wife more than a decade ago, and it was an outstanding condensation of the book. My wife's not at all into computers, codes, or anything related, and was as entranced as I was by the performance. The writer and director did a great job of showing the man and his work for a non-technical audience, while keeping it accurate enough to keep the nerds from wincing.
IIRC from the book, Turing died by eating an apple which had arsenic on it. Hodges speculates that it may have been suicide thinly disguised by Turing so his mother (still living) could tell herself it was an accident. He'd been doing some experiments involving arsenic, and maybe he just forgot and put the apple down in the wrong place before he ate it.... I can believe he'd want to commit suicide after reading of his treatment (in both senses of the word) at the hands of the authorities. It was an obscene wastes of human creativity at the hands of intolerance.
The few I've ditched (a Morrow Z80 box, a monochrome Mac left by a lodger, etc.), I've put out on the sidewalk on Saturday or Sunday (for our Monday trash pickup). Not one of 'em has made it to sunset of the day it went outside.
Hell, someone was kind enough to give a new home to the 2400-baud external modem I put out last month.
On the other hand, the 386DX-25 my sister returned (now that she's got a Pentium laptop) is gonna be the firewall for my home network. It'll have more than enough bandwidth until we get fiber hereabouts.
I bet a lot of the companies it applies to more are those valuing economy of scale over reliablity. ``We can save 0.3% by buying 10k Grace L. Furgeson routers? Great! ... They don't interoperate with any others? That's OK, we'll buy 20k and use them exclusively.''
So now when the GLF equipment shows a bug under certain wildly-unlikely circumstances, you're sincerely screwed. Much better to insist on at least two (and if you're serious, three or four) vendor's equipment, interoperating to an open standard, throughout your network. That way, as with genetic diversity in crops, livestock, and humans, you're much better able to withstand climate variation and new diseases. Half your network may be down with the bug, but you still have significant bandwidth running.
(Of course, this doesn't innoculate you against errors in the protocol, but that's better debugged than the equipment implementing it.)