Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Demon-Haunted World

locusmag.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

181–190 of 289 posts

Re: Demon-Haunted World

#181

Post by raghava »

jordigh wrote: post #145

There is so much "Stallman was right" in all of these examples... non-free software always manages to eventually sneak in malicious anti-user features, where the user has no recourse. At least with free software there's always the fundamental freedom to fork. You think systemd is a Red Hat plot to destroy Linux, then go use Devuan. You don't trust what Google could be doing with Chrome, take your pick of alternatives…

> think systemd is a Red Hat plot to destroy Linux, then go use Devuan

This was the first thing that came to my mind as well, after reading the post!

> people tend to act more morally when they think they might be watched, > Whenever someone refuses to show source code I always think, "what are you hiding in there?" There's usually something.

This goes further to all the bias perpetuation engines that the players (size immaterial!) from our software industry are peddling around as a silver bullet. No one know how the blackboxes are built, what biases were built in (unknowingly, or worse, knowingly!), what tests are done and data used etc.

This thread on twitter https://twitter.com/random_walker/status/901851127624458240 , when read with Cory Doctorow's post in context highlights the dangers that are looming just ahead which might go totally unnoticed due to the noise in the system, shrouded by short-term gains but the bad effects which would be visible only in long term.

Re: Demon-Haunted World

#182

Post by ianai »

daurnimator wrote: post #179
computator wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Whenever someone refuses to show source code I always think, "what are you hiding in there?" There's usually something. There's a dilemma that developers face when deciding to release source code that's bigger than fear of software theft or the desire to hide something evil in the code. It's a fear of being scrutinized, ridiculed, or humiliated over the quality of their code. Imagine 2 programs that do something us…

The way out is to assume the worst: if no source is available, then assume they're hiding it due to it being "bloated, ugly, poorly organized, and with many potential bugs or defects".

As someone whose deployed and supported lots of enterprise software and hardware, that's got to be absolutely correct.

Re: Demon-Haunted World

#183

Post by executesorder66 »

computator wrote: post #168
jordigh wrote: post #145

There is so much "Stallman was right" in all of these examples... non-free software always manages to eventually sneak in malicious anti-user features, where the user has no recourse. At least with free software there's always the fundamental freedom to fork. You think systemd is a Red Hat plot to destroy Linux, then go use Devuan. You don't trust what Google could be doing with Chrome, take your pick of alternatives…

> Whenever someone refuses to show source code I always think, "what are you hiding in there?" There's usually something. There's a dilemma that developers face when deciding to release source code that's bigger than fear of software theft or the desire to hide something evil in the code. It's a fear of being scrutinized, ridiculed, or humiliated over the quality of their code. Imagine 2 programs that do something us…

The project with open source code can be improved by anyone.

The project with closed source code can remain terrible forever even if there are programmers willing to improve it.

Here's an example: Looking for a WebExtention alternative to greasemonkey on Firefox. (I know a port is being worked on, but let's ignore that for now)

Your options are tampermonkey (closed source), and violentmonkey (open source)

Tampermonkey has been around longer, and probably has more features. Which do I choose?

I choose violentmonkey, because for all I know tampermonkey's code is garbage, and full of spyware. If violentmonkey doesn't meet my requirements, I can make it meet my requirements by coding the feature myself, or paying someone to add the feature.

Re: Demon-Haunted World

#184

Post by jcbrand »

computator wrote: post #168
jordigh wrote: post #145

There is so much "Stallman was right" in all of these examples... non-free software always manages to eventually sneak in malicious anti-user features, where the user has no recourse. At least with free software there's always the fundamental freedom to fork. You think systemd is a Red Hat plot to destroy Linux, then go use Devuan. You don't trust what Google could be doing with Chrome, take your pick of alternatives…

> Whenever someone refuses to show source code I always think, "what are you hiding in there?" There's usually something. There's a dilemma that developers face when deciding to release source code that's bigger than fear of software theft or the desire to hide something evil in the code. It's a fear of being scrutinized, ridiculed, or humiliated over the quality of their code. Imagine 2 programs that do something us…

I'm skeptical that this is actually as big a reason people don't want to open-source their code as you assume.

In any case, there are good solutions for it.

Firstly, if you know from the start that you're going to open source the code, then you'll make more of an effort than (perhaps) usual to ensure that the code is well-organised, well-tested and elegant. At least within your current level of competence, but that's all anyone can hope to do in any case.

Some humility is also required in my opinion. I know many people subscribe to a fake-it-until-you-make-it philosophy, and there's some value in that, but when it comes to open sourcing your code, it's good to check your ego and to be open to suggestions and criticism. There will always be people who are more knowledgeable and better than you at certain things. Best IMO is to accept this (and their criticism if you're lucky enough to receive it) and to see you how can learn from them and improve.

BTW, I speak from some experience. I have had some nominally embarrassing experiences with OSS where other people highlighted relatively obvious security issues with code that I wrote and which I thought was of high quality. However, in turn I got free QA from knowledgeable people and in the process the code improved further as I fixed the problems.

Also, as some people have mentioned already. OSS that is popular gets improved all the time. I.e. if you're lucky, and your code doesn't languish in obscurity, then you'll get patches and pull requests to improve your code.

So the way out of the dilemma... if you're really just being held back because you fear criticism and ridicule, is to ignore the fear, be humble, and to still open-source (perhaps after doing some cleanup, but not to the extent that you use it as a crutch to avoid open-sourcing).

You'll probably realize that the fear was totally unfounded or in the least exaggerated.

Re: Demon-Haunted World

#185

Post by msh »

tftjfjtft wrote: post #135
wyager wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not remotely how waterproofing works. Getting any meaningful degree of ingress protection is hard . It requires entirely different assembly techniques and is generally contrary to user serviceability. Proprietary batteries are the reason thin electronics exist. You can't use 18650s to make a MacBook. I think the problem here is that you vastly underestimate how hard manufacturing is. The things you're proposin…

No one thinks its free of any effort. But $10 wrist watches claim 100m waterproof (whatever 100m means in watch land). All I want is my phone's screen not to mess up when if my buddy pushes me into the pool. 2 ft of water for 10 seconds. That's it.

You can get several phones that offer that.

Re: Demon-Haunted World

#186

Post by kilotaras »

RachelF wrote: post #112
donatj wrote: post #101

> Dieselgate killed people What? Is he being metaphorical or does he mean via the environmental impact? That's a stretch IMHO. Or alternately am I simply missing something?

Environmental impact. However, thus far only the programmer at VW has been prosecuted and sentenced to jail. His "following orders" defense did not work. All the high-level executives will probably walk away with VW paying a fine.

If you're referring to this story[1] person sentenced was engineering executive.

[1] http://www.reuters.com/article/us-volkswagen-emissions-sente...

Re: Demon-Haunted World

#187

Post by TeMPOraL »

computator wrote: post #168
jordigh wrote: post #145

There is so much "Stallman was right" in all of these examples... non-free software always manages to eventually sneak in malicious anti-user features, where the user has no recourse. At least with free software there's always the fundamental freedom to fork. You think systemd is a Red Hat plot to destroy Linux, then go use Devuan. You don't trust what Google could be doing with Chrome, take your pick of alternatives…

> Whenever someone refuses to show source code I always think, "what are you hiding in there?" There's usually something. There's a dilemma that developers face when deciding to release source code that's bigger than fear of software theft or the desire to hide something evil in the code. It's a fear of being scrutinized, ridiculed, or humiliated over the quality of their code. Imagine 2 programs that do something us…

I'm not sure if it is a major reason, but it definitely is a consideration. N=1 - I feel those thoughts about my work myself, occasionally.

However, my experience with released software is as follows:

- Open sourced code I've seen is pretty shitty. So is closed source code I've seen.

- Programmers working in open source don't care that much if otherwise good projects have shitty source code.

- Bloggers and reviewers writing for general audience don't mention source quality at all. Hell, half of them probably don't understand what source code is in the first place. And it's OK, because general audience doesn't care about internals either.

- Reviews of application source code are very rare.

Re: Demon-Haunted World

#188

Post by Fomite »

rb666 wrote: post #132
SubiculumCode wrote: post #10

This is what I think about at the pump. More and more I see gas pumps ask if you want a receipt BEFORE the gas is dispensed. This seems risky. If you decline the receipt and then dispense gas, the pump could cheat on the amount of gas dispensed with less risk, as a papered record of the purchase amount and price is not produced. If on the other hand, the pump waits to ask if you desire a receipt until after the gasol…

What sort of weird gas station requires you to specify the amount of gas before actually refueling your car? Is that a USA-only thing? Never seen that in Europe.

Having just done this particular drive, it's all over Iceland.

Re: Demon-Haunted World

#189

Post by yAnonymous »

computator wrote: post #168
jordigh wrote: post #145

There is so much "Stallman was right" in all of these examples... non-free software always manages to eventually sneak in malicious anti-user features, where the user has no recourse. At least with free software there's always the fundamental freedom to fork. You think systemd is a Red Hat plot to destroy Linux, then go use Devuan. You don't trust what Google could be doing with Chrome, take your pick of alternatives…

> Whenever someone refuses to show source code I always think, "what are you hiding in there?" There's usually something. There's a dilemma that developers face when deciding to release source code that's bigger than fear of software theft or the desire to hide something evil in the code. It's a fear of being scrutinized, ridiculed, or humiliated over the quality of their code. Imagine 2 programs that do something us…

This is a non-issue and you are projecting your own fears on others.

I work on very large projects and frankly, some of the code is utter crap. Still, if someone came along and criticized it without offering patches, they'd be the one looking stupid.

Re: Demon-Haunted World

#190

Post by jstanley »

russdill wrote: post #77
captaincrowbar wrote: post #14

Doctorow mentions the cases where a printer company has made their software lie about how much ink was left in a cartridge to make consumers replace them more often. I always wondered why a manufacturer would want to do that. I mean, I understand the motive of making consumers buy ink more often, but from the manufacturer's point of view, why would they want to throw perfectly good ink away? Colour ink isn't as expen…

From an engineering point of view, it's much cheaper to calculate to when 0.01% of cartridges will have run out of ink based on print history vs accurately measuring ink inside the cartridge. Of course that means that 99.99% of cartridges will be discarded with remaining ink, some of them with a rather significant quantity of ink. And it gives the opportunity to tune this number so cartridges are bought earlier. Alth…

> Having the printer stop and let you put in a new cartridge when ink is low is a helpful feature.

Only if it also comes with a "I know it might be streaky, but print it anyway because I own this machine and I'm in charge here" feature.

Post reply on HN