Open-Source Software and Its Role in Space Exploration, by DJ Byrne

http://www.cio.com/article/111950

Please bear with me a moment; I’d like to make a point about how much FOSS enters into this. Each of the following are FOSS project technologies used in the program. The flight software is mostly C, with some assembly for trap handling. It lives on file servers running kerberized OpenAFS, in a CVS repository, and is cross-compiled on Linux for RTEMS on SPARCv7 target chip. The code is built with gcc, make and libtools, and linked with newlib. (There, that wasn’t so bad. I’ll mention it again later.)

Schedule Issues in Software Projects

Introduction

Time is the ultimate dictator: “Time is also the one variable that has the least amount of flexibility. Time passes no matter what happens on a project.” (Schwalbe, chapter 6, page 202). As a result, any problem regarding the schedule of a project is likely to be the most difficult one to manage.

In this article I will enumerate some reasons that, in my opinion, make schedule problems a recurring cause of conflict in projects. Continue reading

Adivinando el futuro

Por si no lo saben, Clarin.com ahora tiene un servicio especial de adivinación del futuro. Las noticias ahora vienen con detalles exclusivos sobre lo que sucederá proximamente:

clarin.png

Es tremendo. Obviamente ellos ya saben quien ganará las elecciones de jefe de gobierno de la ciudad de Buenos Aires, pero no pueden difundirlo, seguramente por el respeto de la veda electoral.

Update del 4 de junio: Obviamente el tiro les salio por la culata.

About Corporate Politics

Introduction

Politics are part of our daily life. Nevertheless, the word has got a bad reputation in the IT world (and elsewhere, too), thanks to famous failures and managed disasters, but the truth is that to succeed, projects need politics – and project managers should know it well.

In this posting, I will describe the theoretical and empirical direct relationship between organizational verticality, worker alienation and political struggles, all leading to poor project performances. Continue reading

Hernún: “La anarquía es mucho mejor, más lindo y más productivo”

“La única forma de vitalizar el movimiento es produciendo, y en la producción hay muchas cosas sobre las que ir pensando colectivamente, inventando y discutiendo.” Quien dice esto es Hernún, argentino, músico, un agitador anárquico. Es uno más de esos libertarios que cren que el anarquismo no puede dormir en “lecho esplendido” de un pasado “glorioso”, y si ser turbulencia, estarse reinventando día a día. “Pensar y hacer, hacer y pensar”, explica él. Descubrelo en la siguiente entrevista y conoce un poco más de este inquieto “ser y estar” en anarquía.

Agência de Notícias Anarquistas > ¿Es dificil ser anarquista?

Hernún > No sé si soy anarquista. En realidad intento no ser ista de nada. Más bien me considero anárquico, pero no lo vivo tanto como una identidad, qué sé yo. Mi relación con la anarquía es vital, pero no identitaria. Para mí tiene dos facetas. Por un lado, no sólo no es difícil, sino que para mí es inevitable, lo cual en algún punto simplifica mucho las cosas. Por otro lado, es muy lindo, es agradable. Comparto con alguna gente una libertad que me entusiasma, me vitaliza. Romper en lo posible con los mandatos de la propiedad y del Poder en general, por ejemplo, es hermoso. Yo creo que vivir árquicamente es básicamente una tontería: la anarquía es mucho mejor, más lindo y más productivo. Continue reading

What happened to Dr. Dobb’s?

I have been a big fan of Dr. Dobb’s magazine for years. Until last year. Somehow during the month of June 2006, the magazine changed completely. I have read it since the late ’90s, and I always found it to be at the bleeding edge of the technology; the articles were amazing, and the best of the best developers always wrote good descriptions of their discoveries and ideas. I much prefer reading in paper than on screen, and that’s why I got a subscription to it.

However, right now I think it became a stripped-down version of MSDN Magazine. The same full-page M$ ads, lots of articles about .NET and just a few about other technologies, and also a much, much lower article quality. They are uninteresting, even boring sometimes, and definitely not worth the original Dr. Dobb’s that I knew.

I will be dropping my subscription to Dr. Dobb’s as soon as it expires at the end of this year, and will take a subscription to IEEE Software instead. Of course if you get to know another good software magazine I’d be delighted to hear about it!