Silahkan simak wawancara dengan penulis buku 'software conspiracy ini'
http://www.usatoday.com/life/cyber/tech/review/crg653.htm
Perhatikan yang saya beri tanda.. bukankah ini praktek yang sudah biasa di
kalangan Open Source..???
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Software makers and buyers should chat
By M.J. Zuckerman, USA TODAY
It's all a huge misunderstanding, a massive failure to communicate, says
author Mark Minasi.
Having published his 16th book about coping with computers, Minasi says he
is convinced that if software makers would only sit down with consumers,
they could resolve their differences.
How the conversation might go:
Big Software Vendor: "Why are you griping? Haven't
we given you new features, more power, better
graphics? All the time, faster, bigger, cooler?"
Consumer: "Sure, but we'd give up all those features if
the thing would stop crashing."
BSV: "You want quality? Heck, we can do that. Might
be a little costly, but we can do that."
Americans spend more than 65 million minutes a year waiting on
tech-support phone lines, Minasi says, and software makers have overtaken
used-car dealers in the rankings of the most distrusted industries,
according to the Better Business Bureau.
Yet, despite his new book's ominous title, The Software Conspiracy: Why
Software Companies Put Out Faulty Products, How They Can Hurt You, and
What You Can Do About It (McGraw-Hill, $22.95), Minasi sees an era of hope
and reconciliation .
"It's one of those funny things about human history," he says. "Once
someone realizes a problem exists, one way or another, it goes away." He
draws comparisons to how Upton Sinclair's The Jungle cleaned up the
meatpacking industry.
Minasi, 43, says software makers receive a level of public forgiveness
unheard of with any other consumer product. He says The Software
Conspiracy is meant to foster public action and greater dialogue with the
industry.
"If you bought a microwave oven, brought it home and found you were
burning everything you put in it, you wouldn't say, 'Oh, I guess I'm doing
something wrong.' You'd bring it to the store and demand your money back."
Q: Where's the "conspiracy"?
A: It's not a conspiracy in the sense of people getting together and
fixing prices or making covert decisions. It's more a conspiracy of
silence. The industry doesn't say, "Hey, I have a product here that's
going to dramatically alter your life -- but, oh, it's unreliable."
Q: So you're saying Microsoft is ripping off consumers?
A: I don't think Microsoft or Bill Gates made the rules; he just figured
out how to make money doing it. IBM came to terms with this a long time
ago, realizing that disappointing customers was not the way to continue,
so they worked at making the mainframe (reliable). Today, you only need to
reboot a mainframe about once a year.
Q: When cars crash , people die. Bad software doesn't kill people, does
it?
A: In general, no. But there are heinous examples: 28 Americans died in
one instant in the Gulf War when a Patriot missile failed to knock out an
incoming Scud. Why? Because the Patriot's guidance computer needed to be
rebooted every 14 hours, and that one hadn't been rebooted in 100 hours.
Microcomputers in cars and medical equipment have failed, causing deaths.
Q: Is high-quality software even possible?
A: Absolutely. Software is built almost entirely differently than anything
else in this country. Technology, like other industries in their early
days, is so amazed by what they can do that (the makers) don't always take
the time to do it right. Autos were like that for a long while.
Q: Isn't it impossible to remove all bugs from software?
A: Not at all. If you go to a big sneaker manufacturer and ask how many
pairs can you manufacture in a day, they can tell you. Now you say, "How
about doing it without any quality control, without worrying about
defects?" Well, that's going to be a much larger number. It's just a
matter of making quality a priority.
Q: What standard are you suggesting for vendors?
A: There are many possibilities. Why not have legislation requiring
(software makers) reporting known defects and bringing in an outside
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
auditor, perhaps accredited by the government, to certify that they are
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
telling the truth? In return, the maker gets a safe haven, protection
against any liability if that software fails or causes losses.
Q: What would you like to see happen?
A: I would like to see the "feature wars" end and the "bug wars" begin. I
can foresee a world where two companies would compete on the basis of ads
touting, "An independent lab found our product had 41% fewer bugs than our
competitor." That would be the best possible outcome.
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Rechnernetze und Verteilte Systeme http://nakula.rvs.uni-bielefeld.de/made
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