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How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

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Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#31

Post by perpetualcrayon »

jacalata wrote: post #21
perpetualcrayon wrote: post #3

What if they created the 57 line project, and spent $86 million to improve OpenALPR?

Then it would be useless to the people who spent the money, because they wouldn't have the cars and cameras and ongoing support and research that they wanted to spend that money on.

Sounds like you're arguing a different point. My assumption was that 'x' == "86 million" AND 'x' == "the amount it costs to develop the software". So, I would just replace "86 million" with "actual cost of developing the software".

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#32

Post by gcb0 »

can't tell if incompetence or malicious.

everyone knows dashcam, even on 1080p, simple can't be used fir license plates! humans can't read most of them. specially after youtube compression! this is such a known fact that the more serious youtube reviews show a warning about all that before dashcam reviews.

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#33

Post by nradov »

lgas wrote: post #29
enraged_camel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full disclosure: I'm one such contractor. We work with small and local government. Cities and counties mostly. I personally don't have a problem with open source software and use it extensively outside of work. However, the big problem with it is technical support. If you are a government organization and the OSS you are using has a bug, who do you contact to get it hotfixed ASAP or find you workarounds? That's one o…

> Full disclosure: I'm one such contractor. We work with small and local government. Cities and counties mostly. ... >If you are a government organization and the OSS you are using has a bug, who do you contact to get it hotfixed ASAP or find you workarounds? You, or someone like you, presumably?

That's a nice theory about OSS but it seldom works in practice. It can take a very long time for even experienced and skilled government contractors to learn enough about a code base to fix major defects. And even then there's no guarantee that the project maintainers will accept that patch into the mainline, so if they don't that puts you into configuration management hell. Governments need a "single neck to choke" along with some reliable assurances of support levels and time to resolution.

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#34

Post by jonathankoren »

I don't understand the hate that's being directed at this article. This author isn't the person basically said, "LOL. I'll string together some python in an afternoon and do it." This author tried to replicate the "How I replicated an $86 million project in 57 lines of code" article, and unsurprisingly came to the conclusion, "No, he didn't."

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#35

Post by dikaiosune »

nradov wrote: post #33
lgas wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Full disclosure: I'm one such contractor. We work with small and local government. Cities and counties mostly. ... >If you are a government organization and the OSS you are using has a bug, who do you contact to get it hotfixed ASAP or find you workarounds? You, or someone like you, presumably?

That's a nice theory about OSS but it seldom works in practice. It can take a very long time for even experienced and skilled government contractors to learn enough about a code base to fix major defects. And even then there's no guarantee that the project maintainers will accept that patch into the mainline, so if they don't that puts you into configuration management hell. Governments need a "single neck to choke"…

It seems to me that govt agencies could still pay contractors to build these things, just with the requirement to make them openly available as part of the contract.

If others step in to offer support contracts as well, great! Competitive environments for that would probably be good.

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#36

Post by paulddraper »

itsdrewmiller wrote: post #13
new299 wrote: post #6

The post starts with a false premise that: "[a medium post has been] doing the rounds the last few days, describing how an automated license plate recognition (ALPR) system being developed for the Australian Victoria Police could just use the open-source ALPR system OpenALPR instead" The original post was pretty much a tech demo, and noted a bunch of issues. I think the point was that an ALPR project shouldn't really…

That medium post is entitled "How I replicated an $86 million project in 57 lines of code". While it does contain some caveats, it's not like some copy editor misrepresented the authors intent when coming up with the headline.

Indeed.

How I replicated an $86 million project in 57 lines of code

The thesis is that the author created the equivalent of the multi-million dollar project.

"Replicated", not "imitated", "prototyped", "created a POC", etc.

Titles bring clicks; titles bring scrutiny. Live by the sword, and die by the sword.

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#37

Post by chii »

true_religion wrote: post #28
enraged_camel wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Full disclosure: I'm one such contractor. We work with small and local government. Cities and counties mostly. I personally don't have a problem with open source software and use it extensively outside of work. However, the big problem with it is technical support. If you are a government organization and the OSS you are using has a bug, who do you contact to get it hotfixed ASAP or find you workarounds? That's one o…

I think the key here is open sourcing your software that you are selling, so to a vendor, it's little different from supporting your own proprietary tech.

yea, good point. There's some misunderstanding about the issue - OSS in gov't could mean both adopting pre-existing OSS rather than contracting for bespoke software, and also to open source new/existing bespoke software as OSS (which makes sense, since it was public money that developed it).

Both are worthwhile goals.

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#38

Post by taitems »

Original author of the original article this person is responding to. Saw this response earlier today which made me a bit sad, but mostly excited that people are having a crack at it themselves.

It's currently Father's Day here in Australia so I don't have a chance to respond right now. On the road all day.

I'll have to do a follow up next weekend, I'm absolutely flat chat both in and out of work at the moment.

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#39

Post by new299 »

jacalata wrote: post #10
new299 wrote: post #6

The post starts with a false premise that: "[a medium post has been] doing the rounds the last few days, describing how an automated license plate recognition (ALPR) system being developed for the Australian Victoria Police could just use the open-source ALPR system OpenALPR instead" The original post was pretty much a tech demo, and noted a bunch of issues. I think the point was that an ALPR project shouldn't really…

The Victorian police system was first running in cars on public roads in 2012. No doubt there are plenty of solutions available today that have been developed since then, but they probably weren't considered at the time. That $86m has covered development of the software and hardware and at least six years of running costs for the program. So yea, I'm sure $86m sounds like a lot when you compare it to some random piec…

The first ALPR systems were deployed in the late 1970s.

Fixed camera systems were rolled out in Australia in 2005...

So.. ALPR is not new. In 2012 there were multiple systems available. 86MUSD seems like a lot to adapt existing research or existing systems. Even if that includes acquiring/maintaining several vehicles.

Maybe the whole project is being mischaracterized. Perhaps it included requirements completely unrelated the ALPR (face recognition, driver identification? don't know...).

But with the information available, 86MUSD seems like a lot.

Re: How I failed to replicate an $86M project in 1 line of code

#40

Post by jacalata »

perpetualcrayon wrote: post #31
jacalata wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Then it would be useless to the people who spent the money, because they wouldn't have the cars and cameras and ongoing support and research that they wanted to spend that money on.

Sounds like you're arguing a different point. My assumption was that 'x' == "86 million" AND 'x' == "the amount it costs to develop the software". So, I would just replace "86 million" with "actual cost of developing the software".

Yes, I was arguing that your assumption was wrong.
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