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Comment You sell it as service, but it's much more.... (Score 1) 729

by jerryasher (#25865293) Attached to: Is Open Source Software a Race To Zero?

You raise an interesting point, and I think there is a bit of truth that this may incentivise bad behavior.

But done right, and your service is much more than bug fixing. It's market research as you interact with customers and find out there current problem and their future needs. It's customer maintenance since each time you interact with your customer you are selling them again on why your company is the smartest, friendliest, easiest to work with, thus keeping them from buying competing products. It's customer tutorials as you explain how to setup the normal installation, and how to use, and why and when to use advanced features the customer isn't even aware of.

All of this can be used to help your customer understand the value that your company's support provides.

(Caveat: I just pulled this response out of my butt. I think it's truthy good, but ymmv.)
Transportation

Computer Error Caused Qantas Jet Mishap 389

Posted by kdawson from the gimme-back-my-stick dept.
highways sends word that preliminary investigations into a Qantas Airbus A330 mishap where 51 passengers were injured has concluded that it was due to the Air Data Inertial Reference System feeding incorrect information into the flight control system — not interference from passenger electronics, as Qantas had initially claimed. Quoting from the ABC report: "Authorities have blamed a faulty onboard computer system for last week's mid-flight incident on a Qantas flight to Perth. The Australian Transport Safety Bureau said incorrect information from the faulty computer triggered a series of alarms and then prompted the Airbus A330's flight control computers to put the jet into a 197-meter nosedive ... The plane was cruising at 37,000 feet when a fault in the air data inertial reference system caused the autopilot to disconnect. But even with the autopilot off, the plane's flight control computers still command key controls in order to protect the jet from dangerous conditions, such as stalling, the ATSB said."
Space

Submission + - NASA confirms Russia wins control of the ISS

Submitted by jerryasher
jerryasher writes: In a leaked memo, NASA Administrator Mike Griffin discusses "the jihad" to prematurely terminate the Shuttle and what that means for the International Space Station. One implication: there may come a long interval when only our Russian Allies are aboard the Space Station. Add that bit of irony to your new cold war kit and then wonder why Griffin discusses why we wouldn't sabotage the Space Station, and how and why the memo got leaked in the first place.
Space

Submission + - Paul Krugman 1978: TheTheory of Interstellar Trade (nytimes.com)

Submitted by jerryasher
jerryasher writes: Paul Krugman, writes at his New York Times blog about his early papers: Thirty years ago I was an oppressed assistant professor, caught up in the academic rat race. To cheer myself up I wrote — well, see for yourself. Joshua Gans of the University of Melbourne scanned a copy of the thing I wrote — back then academics did their work with typewriters, abacuses, and stone axes — and was good enough to send me a copy. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you The Theory of Interstellar Trade. Abstract: This paper extends interplanetary trade theory to an interstellar setting. It is chiefly concerned with the following question: how should interest rates on goods in transit be computed when the goods travel at close to the speed of light? This is a problem because the time taken in transit will appear less to an observer traveling with the goods than to a stationary observer. A solution is derived from economic theory, and two useless but true theorems are proved.
Programming

Submission + - char *speelCheck(char *myPogrom) 1

Submitted by Jerry Asher
Jerry Asher writes: Not all of my coworkers are careful about spelling errors. Sometimes this causes real embarrassment as spelling errors creep into software interfaces. Does anyone know of spell checkers for programming languages? I don't want a text spell checker, I want a programming language aware spell checker. A spell checker that I can pass all of my code through and will flag spelling errors in function names, variable names, and comments, but will ignore language keywords, language constructs and expressions, and various programming styles (camel code, or underscores, or ...) I want a spell checker that knows that void *functionSigniture(char *myRoutine) contains one spelling error. Does anyone have such a thing for Java or C++? Are there any eclipse plugins that do this?
News

Schneier Talks to the Head of TSA 342

Posted by ScuttleMonkey from the go-to-the-source dept.
Bruce Schneier recently had the chance to sit down with Kip Hawley, head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), and discuss some of the frustrations travelers experience head-on. "In April, Kip Hawley, the head of the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), invited me to Washington for a meeting. Despite some serious trepidation, I accepted. And it was a good meeting. Most of it was off the record, but he asked me how the TSA could overcome its negative image. I told him to be more transparent, and stop ducking the hard questions. He said that he wanted to do that. He did enjoy writing a guest blog post for Aviation Daily, but having a blog himself didn't work within the bureaucracy."
Privacy

ACLU Protests Police Scanning License Plates 821

Posted by kdawson from the drift-net-fishing-expedition dept.
dustman81 writes "The ACLU is objecting to the practice of police in Springdale, Ohio using an automated license-plate scanner on patrol cars to locate stolen vehicles or those whose owners are wanted on felony warrants. The scanner can read 900 license plates an hour traveling at highway speeds. So far, the scanner has located 95 stolen cars and helped locate 111 wanted felons. The locations of the license plates scanned are tagged with GPS data. All matches are stored (with no expiration date given) and can be brought up later and cross-referenced on a map. If the plate is wanted, the times and locations of where it was scanned can be referenced. The Springdale police department hopes to begin using the system soon to locate misdemeanor suspects. This system is also in use in British Columbia."

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