Offset Bad Code, With Bad Code Offsets 279
An anonymous reader writes "Two weeks ago, The Daily WTF's Alex Papadimoulis announced Bad Code Offsets, a join venture between many big names in the software development community (including StackOverflow's Jeff Atwood and Jon Skeet and SourceGear's Eric Sink). The premise is that you can offset bad code by purchasing Bad Code Offsets (much in the same way a carbon-footprint is offset). The profits are donated to Free Software projects which work to eliminate bad code, such as the Apache Foundation and FreeBSD. The first cheques were sent out earlier today." Hopefully, they work better than carbon offsets, actually.
Just call them by the real name, indulgences... (Score:5, Insightful)
* (carbon, code, whatever) offsets are really the Papal indulgences of the 21st century.
Re:Deliberately bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
I think the intent is that you buy them as penance for bad code you've already written.
Which makes them pretty much unlike carbon offsets, but I guess someone thinks they're being amusing.
It's a clever fund-raising campaign for certain projects; I wouldn't read much more into it than that.
...and now for something entirely unrelated. (Score:4, Insightful)
"Hopefully, they work better than carbon offsets, actually."
Way to ensure this whole thread goes off track, by trolling on an unrelated and politically charged topic. And with an example poorly chosen as proof of anything, at that.
Re-apply faulty offset concept.... (Score:2, Insightful)
...to yet another place it will not work.
A single incorrect critical line of code has the potential to bring down a system just like a single loose coupling on a remote control aircraft will bring turn it into a pile of broken wood. In some things any less than 100% just won't do the job. You can't offset that.
I'm selling carbon offsets! (Score:3, Insightful)
Reply with your email address and I will send you my PayPal info! Thanks for saving Christmas^H^H^H^H^Hthe environment.
Re:Just call them by the real name, indulgences... (Score:2, Insightful)
Yup. Environmentalism is the religion of the 21st century... and just like any religion, it can be used to control the populace and ensure that those in power remain in power.
Re:cyber-indugences (Score:5, Insightful)
You're missing the point. The point is to poke fun at carbon schemes and raise money for free software. It's not to actually offset bad code, just to support good code writing organizations.
Re:...and now for something entirely unrelated. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Just call them by the real name, indulgences... (Score:5, Insightful)
They are an attempt to provide an economic incentive to pollute less. Without such incentive, the tragedy of the commons ensures we will wreck our collective selves while seeking individual profits.
This is not anywhere near the same thing as imaginary religious crap. It's economics, man.
Re:Deliberately bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Gave up on DailyWTF (Score:5, Insightful)
The day Alex announced this was the day I finally stopped reading the DailyWTF. It's gotten worse and worse over the past few years, with stories that were so embellished that you stop caring. The fun part about the site was laughing at real IT blunders. But Alex and his creative writing team overdid the writing to the point where the stories were often incredibly far from the real fact (the original submitters would often explain the "real" story in the comments". This might be bearable if their writing wasn't so awful. But often they interchange important character names, have horribly confusing grammatical constructs, and generally just make a mess out of the stories.
Then to top it off, Alex shows up occasionally and comes up with nonsense like this instead of posting another story.
I'm done. Yes, it was amusing for awhile, but I'm moving on.
Re:Just call them by the real name, indulgences... (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sorry, but buying credits from a company that doesn't produce as much carbon emission as the government says it can is in no way actually helping the environment. It's a ponzi scheme. You produce the same amount of carbon, THEY produce the same amount of carbon, but YOUR costs to do business go up and the middleman brokering the credits makes a fortune.
Offsets are crap (Score:3, Insightful)
Now if we could have a tax on bad code on the other hand...
Re:Just call them by the real name, indulgences... (Score:5, Insightful)
If it was cost effective to install greener technology and produce less carbon today, companies would do it and save money.
If it becomes cost effective TOMORROW, they'll do it TOMORROW to save money.
In the meantime, the cost of carbon offsets has done nothing but cost them, and thus every one of their customers, money. Money which makes carbon brokers richer. Costs which may force that company to move their jobs overseas. That costs us all.
It's a shell game. Plain and simple. Carbon, carbon, who's got the carbon?
Re:Deliberately bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think the intent is that you buy them as penance for bad code you've already written.
No way could I come up with that kind of coin.
Re:Deliberately bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
Why would someone feel guilty for that? It's not like the buyer has no choice.
Re:Just call them by the real name, indulgences... (Score:3, Insightful)
Instead of carbon offsets, why not tax carbon directly?
Any carbon extracted from the ground in coal or gas format will be taxed per ton. Carbon derived from recent organic sources (trees, crops) would be exempt from the tax.
Increase the taxes until our carbon use is at some desired target.
The only downside that I see is that, in plastics, carbon use doesn't necessarily translate to carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere. OTOH, a manufacturer tends not to be able to show that a plastic container isn't later incinerated. So the system isn't perfect, but it is good enough.
More honest than carbon offsets (Score:3, Insightful)
This seems to be more of a fun way to give to charity than the guilt-driven indulgence scam that is carbon offsets.
Re:Deliberately bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Deliberately bad? (Score:5, Insightful)
In what way? Closed source says nothing about whether you actually use some of the very-bad laws on the books to prevent people from inspecting the workings of your program. Its perfectly possibly for me to write a closed-source program and not drag people to court for reverse engineering, and even write a license to that effect.
If I do not explicitly permit someone to distribute modifications of my software, that *would* fall under copyright law, but that's not covered by the analogy. In fact, its pretty difficult to come up with a car analogy that actually makes sense. Whether you view copyright as moral or not falls to your personal belief. My belief is that, despite Stallman's protestations, it is possible to distribute software under copyright morally, even though a lot of proprietary software vendors do not do so.
Re:Just call them by the real name, indulgences... (Score:3, Insightful)
Creating artificial limits on a gas that exists in nature and is produced by every animal on the planet is ludicrous. A gas that is REQUIRED for the plant life on this planet, which is required for the animal life. That should be really simple to see.
You wouldn't mind drinking 100 gallons of water right now, then, right? After all, water exists in nature and is required for humans to live.
How about salt? Would you like to eat fifty pounds of salt? After all, it exists in nature and is required for human life!
But control is a strong urge. We ... must .... control .... others....
Must... only... think... in... black... and... white...
Can... never... have... too... much... of... a... good... thing...
Re:Deliberately bad? (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think it's that clever. People who frequent WTF think it's the other guy who writes bad code.