71–80 of 81 posts
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Say hello to no updates ever.
If it means there's less temptation to change shit for the sake of change then I'm all for it.
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"This is a rant about a non-problem." Every time I buy a 'smart' version of a product, whether its a light or coffee machine, it becomes 10x less reliable. When your coffee machine is mining bitcoins because it's software is written in javascript and someone paid the author of left pad, that funny. When half the city comes to a hault becauae the same thing happened to traffic lights..
For consumer products like coffee machines and light bulbs there are consumer protection laws, electronic device safety certifications, product review sites, brand reputation and word of mouth recommendations. It’s hard to imagine what kind of regulations would further improve things. (Consider also that many of these products are designed and produced in other countries, so we need to figure out how to force all tho…
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252496560/Fujitsu-bosses...
"It’s hard to imagine what kind of regulations would further improve things"
1 simple law: for every product, place all firmware source-code in escrow, inspectable by police, MI6 and Courts in case of major hacks, breakdowns, and lawsuits.
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For consumer products like coffee machines and light bulbs there are consumer protection laws, electronic device safety certifications, product review sites, brand reputation and word of mouth recommendations. It’s hard to imagine what kind of regulations would further improve things. (Consider also that many of these products are designed and produced in other countries, so we need to figure out how to force all tho…
I am sorry but the arguments about brand betray terrible naivity, hundreds on innocent people have gone to jail because of software failure that was kept secret. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252496560/Fujitsu-bosses... "It’s hard to imagine what kind of regulations would further improve things" 1 simple law: for every product, place all firmware source-code in escrow, inspectable by police, MI6 and Courts in c…
You were complaining about coffee machines and lights. Not vast custom-built corporate/government IT platforms. Completely different products and a completely different discussion. And besides, the staff at Fujitsu working on such a system would likely be university qualified and certainly subject to liability insurance and contractual requirements specified by the client – which is exactly what the original article is calling for.
> 1 simple law
It's not simple at all, to completely rewrite every IP law and technology business convention in every country in the world :) And that's not what the article is calling for. It's just saying software developers should be qualified and insured.
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I am sorry but the arguments about brand betray terrible naivity, hundreds on innocent people have gone to jail because of software failure that was kept secret. https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252496560/Fujitsu-bosses... "It’s hard to imagine what kind of regulations would further improve things" 1 simple law: for every product, place all firmware source-code in escrow, inspectable by police, MI6 and Courts in c…
> I am sorry but the arguments about brand betray terrible naivity You were complaining about coffee machines and lights. Not vast custom-built corporate/government IT platforms. Completely different products and a completely different discussion. And besides, the staff at Fujitsu working on such a system would likely be university qualified and certainly subject to liability insurance and contractual requirements sp…
'vast custom-built corporate/government IT platforms' are actually worse than most consumer products I had to deal with. The entire industry being infantile and irresponsible in every area it touches, from coffee machines to ATMs running windows XP and vulnerable oil pipelines.
"staff at Fujitsu working on such a system would likely be university qualified"
Traders were qualified in 2008, the crash still happened. You are missing the point.
The system encourages risk and staggering incompetence from leadership, untill the firms are held accountable and subject to real scrutiny, nothing will change. I know, first hand, a payment company which decided to switch from Perl to JS, and fired all Perl developers. Then they realised it's broken and they have no-one to fix it before JS system is ready.
"It's not simple at all, to completely rewrite every IP law"
You don't need to change IP law or anything else, you just need to equip justice system to inspect software and hold irresponsible gamblers accountable. If a Car company is accused of gross negligence, you can take a car apart and check what's going on, this is accomplishing the same for software, and to make sure it's not suddenly lost, deleted, etc. What is the "technology business convention" that we have to change? We already use version control.
We do the same for plans of buildings and aircraft, they don't suddenly belong to the government.
Licensing computer engineer and scientist - I was wondering when this idea would surface. I mean, that is a great way to strengthen monopolies and consolidate existing players. I didn't expect such a suggestion would come from a Freebsd core developer. Licensing is about compliance. It helps better control who has access to a certain set of skills, and who can make a living off such skills. License could require you…
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You having your car stolen, and software used across a company having a vulnerability are different in terms of scale though. If a whole shipment of cars was stolen due to a lock flaw (which is admittedly contrived), then I'd imagine whoever owned the cars would have a problem with the maker of the cars.
But almost a million cars gets stolen a year in US, totalling billions of value. How is that not the same scale?
For example, let's say I'm a murderer and kill ever resident of a single street, one household a day. That's way too much of a coincidence to ignore. But if I did the same number across a larger area, maybe you get different police forces that haven't thought to talk to each other and no one spots the connection until much later.
The same applies here. If you personally have faulty software, it's not great, but you probably move on. If your employer buys the same software for all of its employees, then the scale of the problem is much more obvious and the actual cost of the problem is a lot larger to a single entity.
Other engineering sectors do have this kind of liability. What do these sectors have as well? Standards. If a house needs to be built, there are _loads_ of safety regulations to follow. Standards to adhere to. Inspections to be had. Only then is someone allowed to move in. Software? Decisions are often made without either knowledge or a plan. Agile is a thing. Deadlines are shorter than ever. Also: ideally it needs t…
Yes, and those engineers have their standards because of liability. The article meanders somewhere in the vicinity of that point. I lost track because I was paying too much attention to not stepping on his lawn.
Other engineering sectors do have this kind of liability. What do these sectors have as well? Standards. If a house needs to be built, there are _loads_ of safety regulations to follow. Standards to adhere to. Inspections to be had. Only then is someone allowed to move in. Software? Decisions are often made without either knowledge or a plan. Agile is a thing. Deadlines are shorter than ever. Also: ideally it needs t…
(Let this not be read as if I am a zealot for static strong languages -- when you have to prototype stuff, the dynamic languages are a god send!)
Truth is, a lot of us the software devs are divas -- and I've been guilty of that in the far past as well, and I am very ashamed remembering every minute of it.
But you can't just pass wisdom and tell the younger devs: "STFU and listen to experience and follow established good practices". We all walk our own road to wisdom and sadly that takes a while and in the meantime we can ruin some businesses. :( And/or the job of the next person after us.
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> I am sorry but the arguments about brand betray terrible naivity You were complaining about coffee machines and lights. Not vast custom-built corporate/government IT platforms. Completely different products and a completely different discussion. And besides, the staff at Fujitsu working on such a system would likely be university qualified and certainly subject to liability insurance and contractual requirements sp…
"You were complaining about coffee machines and lights. " 'vast custom-built corporate/government IT platforms' are actually worse than most consumer products I had to deal with. The entire industry being infantile and irresponsible in every area it touches, from coffee machines to ATMs running windows XP and vulnerable oil pipelines. "staff at Fujitsu working on such a system would likely be university qualified" Tr…
You seem to be arguing for things much more far-reaching than that, which you’re welcome to do, but I’m here to discuss the contents of the article, thanks.
I view software as a form of literacy as opposed to engineering. Silicon chips - that's engineering. Codifying the process used by a large corporation to tell all its other systems a new joiner has arrived called "bob smith". That's writing something that other humans can read and can be executed by these engineered robots we have. While my heart is socialist, my head is market-driven. And I think a market solution i…
Keep in mind books/writing have been around for a long time, and language (which writing is arguably a written form of) has been around even longer and vital to both everyday life, and the human psyche.
It's going to be hard to compete there. I'd say simpler things might be achieved first: e.g. use of word-processors and spreadsheets.