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The computer programming language known as "open source code"
- russellallen 16y agoI love it when outsiders to a community (like journalists) get things like this wrong, because it makes me rethink my mental categories. We have absorbed a culturally agreed set of differences between a computer language, a platform, a framework, a library, an OS... and we're comfortable with licencing being coextensive with these units without getting confused, for example.
- asnyder 16y agoI'm not so sure about the library vs framework agreement. Many packages that would historically be labeled libaries, now call themselves a framework, making it even harder for the real frameworks to stand out among the clutter.
- bodhi 16y agoIsn't the difference generally that a library is used by client code, whereas client code sits 'inside' (for varying levels of inside) a framework? That's my rule-of-thumb anyway.
- jedbrown 16y agoThere's certainly a continuum, almost any decent library can be extended by user code.
- waterside81 16y agoThat's how I used to remember things. You call a library, a framework calls you (is how I kept things straight when I started out in CS)
- iwr 16y agoWhy would this guy bother copying stuff off the Goldman servers when it was open source, and presumably freely available?
- SpikeGronim 16y agoI think that he claimed that the code was open source, but in fact it was proprietary.
- frisco 16y agoI think it was mostly oss (maybe with local changes, re: why not download a fresh copy?), but there was some proprietary code in there (which may or may not have been intentional), which is what tripped him up.
- 32ftpersecond 16y agoRight, but aren't we sort of underestimating GS's ability to tag oss with just about anything proprietary-ish, then, when one of your top programmers quits to join (or co-found) a firm in a competing industry (H-FT), maybe hold it over their shoulders. Considering the scope of this and the dollars to be made, Mr Aleynikov should have been aware of his former firm's contractual small print and should not have copied anything without an IP lawyer present.
- slashclee 16y agoOr maybe Goldman Sachs built a bunch of stuff internally on top of open-source code.
- iwr 16y agoIn which case, they could have been in violation if it was GPL code.
- wizardishungry 16y agoGenerally, you're only required to provide changes if you are distributing your modified program. This may have been partially addressed in GPLv3 in the form of an "application service provider" clause, but I don't recall
- lenni 16y agoTo be fair when I talk about, say, legal issues I tend to blurt out dangerous half-truths that I deduct from supposed 'first principles'. On the other hand I would never write an article on the law like this person has done.
- madd_o 16y agoThis phrase, spoken by someone who doesn't know anything about the subject, contains an unrelated grain of truth. Today's projects are cobbled together by giants sections of open source code, customized for specific purposes. A project may span languages, and usually includes more than one. His ignorance made me appreciate the meta-programming language one could call "open source code."
- w1ntermute 16y agoThis makes me wonder whether all the articles out there on other stuff contains errors like this too.
- dflock 16y agoThey do. If you've ever had anything of yours reported in the press, you will discover that almost all articles are like this one.
- taylorbuley 16y agoIt doesn't have to be that way
- dflock 16y agoWell, I'm sure it doesn't, but it mostly is. Suggestions?
- InclinedPlane 16y agoReinvent journalism from the ground up?
- krakensden 16y agoArsTechnica seems to be getting it right, and the other day I heard NPR call up one of their editors as an expert, so the mainstream news is noticing something. I think the real problem is, most consumers don't know what they're missing.
- gte910h 16y agoIt's all the editor. If the editor accepts stuff like this, then it happens. Sometimes you luck out and get a writer who really understands, usually you do not.
- GHFigs 16y agoMichael Crichton gave a name to the absence of such wondering: Briefly stated, the Gell-Mann Amnesia effect works as follows. You open the newspaper to an article on some subject you know well. In Murray's case, physics. In mine, show business. You read the article and see the journalist has absolutely no understanding of either the facts or the issues. Often, the article is so wrong it actually presents the story backward-reversing cause and effect. I call these the "wet streets cause rain" stories. Paper's full of them. In any case, you read with exasperation or amusement the multiple errors in a story-and then turn the page to national or international affairs, and read with renewed interest as if the rest of the newspaper was somehow more accurate about far-off Palestine than it was about the story you just read. You turn the page, and forget what you know. http://web.archive.org/web/20070629011206/www.michaelcrichton.com/speech-whyspeculate.html http://web.archive.org/web/20070629011206/www.michaelcrichto...
- lukejduncan 16y agoMany journalist have invented their own language known as "the newspaper" to be sold public streets at low cost, but profitability issues are murky.