Re: How do I write directly to a memory address?

["Dmitry A. Kazakov" <mailbox@dmitry-kazakov.de>]

On Wed, 09 Feb 2011 13:52:07 -0500, Hyman Rosen wrote:

> On 2/9/2011 1:34 PM, Dmitry A. Kazakov wrote:
> 
>> No, the technology must be able to produce an economically reasonable
>> product. The software industry in its present state is not economically
>> sustainable because the producers are not liable to software faults. Which
>> means that there exist hidden costs of software paid by others. This is a
>> form socialism (distribution of wealth), which is known for not working.
> 
> The cost of software is borne by manufacturers of devices which
> need it to function (e.g., Apple), or by end users who purchase
> it (e.g., Call of Duty: Black Ops), or by companies which build
> empires on top of it and use it to acquire money in other ways
> (e.g., Google). It is nonsense to say that producers are not
> liable for software faults - such faults are punished by market
> forces rather than legal ones, but they are indeed punished.

Look how MS was punished!

How many new OSes were developed in recent 20 years (0).
Name one SW company getting revenues from compiler sales (0) .
Develop a component library and sell it. How much would you earn (0).
Can you earn anything by selling a device driver?

Now consider the following statement. The most complex and expensive (in
terms of invested man-years and know-how) software is given away for free
or far under the real costs. OSes, compilers, numerical libraries, OCR,
drivers etc. You can sell only something simple, which one specific
customer needs because he cannot do it by himself and you could hack it in
a couple of months. Who pays for this banquet?

> Socialization of software costs comes when governments fund software
> development.

by buying Windows licenses.

Government is a dwarf playing no role on the would-be-market of software.

> Many of those attempts fail precisely because of the
> lack of market forces pressuring the developers.

Forces are lacking because there is no software market at all. It became a
monopoly long ago.

>> Here is a steak infected by botulin in front of you.
>  > How do you know it works as it should?
> 
> Because I purchased it from a vendor who is subject to periodic
> inspections by my city's Board of Health, who in turn bought it
> from a supplier who is subject to the USDA.

Who does inspect MS?

Who does the ECU of your car? Have you heard about the crash assistant
built in there? Do you have a steer by wire system? Brake by wire?

> Before I purchased
> it I examined the packaging and the appearance of the steak and
> it looked much like other good steaks I have eaten in the past.

Have you eaten another Windows?

> If, nevertheless, the steak is infected, I may get sick.

Who will pay for that? And who pays for Windows damages?

> But I
> would find it unreasonable to submit each piece of food I was
> about to eat to a laboratory procedure to prove its safety.

This tells about the level of acceptable risk.

Now the problem with software is that any risk is considered acceptable and
nobody is liable. With the food if you get poisoned, or merely fat (like in
the McDonald's cases), you may get a huge compensation exceeding the cost
of one steak in the proportion of one to 10**7. For the software you cannot
even get your money back. You call it a functioning model?

-- 
Regards,
Dmitry A. Kazakov
http://www.dmitry-kazakov.de