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If what one is publishing is an algorithm or formula or what-have-you, it's only required that the algorithm itself be fully exposed. It particular implementati
by thinkpad20 13y ago
If what one is publishing is an algorithm or formula or what-have-you, it's only required that the algorithm itself be fully exposed. It particular implementation, much less so the implementation of the particular software that implementation is written in, is only incidental. When you're giving a driving test, you don't need to know how a fuel-injection system works.
- lutusp 13y ago> It particular implementation, much less so the implementation of the particular software that implementation is written in, is only incidental. Not at all. In computer programming, examples abound in which the gap between the formal algorithm and its practical embodiment led to catastrophe. One can scarcely count the number of times in which the specific manner by which a simply stated algorithm was implemented needed to be examined more closely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariane_5 "Ariane 5's first test flight (Ariane 5 Flight 501) on 4 June 1996 failed, with the rocket self-destructing 37 seconds after launch because of a malfunction in the control software.[20] A data conversion from 64-bit floating point value to 16-bit signed integer value to be stored in a variable representing horizontal bias caused a processor trap (operand error) ..." > When you're giving a driving test, you don't need to know how a fuel-injection system works. No, but someone does. If the software is inaccessible, then no one can check it except its owners, who have an incentive not to check it thoroughly, or to conceal what they have discovered.