direxorg

For most project it is not about clicks but about conversion and that is greatly depends from the product that you are selling. Facebook is more "fun" than "money spending" community. Google unrelated CPC keywords give 8X fold better conversion than Facebook targeted ads from each click for me. Would be more useful to have specific information on your numbers beside clicks.

World becoming a better place with such code available for public to be built up on and not only to military in homing heads. I guess it is one point for "Make something free that was initially available for pay?" Just like "plenty of fish" doing... http://www.vti.mod.gov.rs/vti/lab/e-tv.htm

If it is going to affect search ranking than it is the time to build network of professional (+1) recommenders with whole bunch of profiles with fake pictures and googleplex of "friends" build via social gaming. Basic package +1000 for your search term on 30th page to move it up a notch $99.99. Does domain name GooZynga available? :-) Anybody want to apply late for that project - it is a future of a Social Search... :-) You know "next big thing" :-)

In effort to spur some discussion please answer few questions in your mind:

When Microsoft took their first patent who was inventors and what it was for...

Great lets check answers 1986 (10+ years after founding), S.Balmer at al., ant they patented a book holder! http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT4588074

Next question how much does it cost to proceed with a patent litigation?

($3M to $10M)

And a multiply choice one: Patent give you a) protection b) ability to attack someone

And the answer is... you know.

So patents are excuse to NOT do something rather then any help. When you will grow to really big company there will be other rules of the game. Check on Apple Nokia recent patent war and how Apple "did not infringe any of Nokia patents" and not paid royalty to most of the players in the field.

So if you want to start something that might infringe something-something go ahead and, on the way, get some patents on what you are doing if you have time to bother...

Beside obvious reason of existing bugs in software there is a thing that we are dealing on hardware level such as changes in the memory due to cosmic radiation and noise (popular problem in high altitude observatories for example) and since int can change any memory including working registers, adress pointers, etc. it means that gradually memory in your device turns into noise. Professional devices often have a watch-dogs basically a circuit that have to be reset. In some cases when there is extreme availability is required such as fire alarms on petrol and chemical facilities or process control boards two spare modules constantly monitor each other and reset if needed. There is also a parity bits, ECC and lot of other options.

In 2002 we did custom patch for an energy company which had hundreds of outdated remote RS232 terminals hooked up via wireless links to the central station for control and monitoring. Their goal was to encrypt transmitted messages so it will not be intercepted and messed with during wireless transmission. Solution was Linux boxes on both sides that encrypts communication using OpenSSL... The problem was the terminal do not want to talk to Linux over crossover Ethernet because of.... you guessed... bug in TCP... To solve that we had to make patch for Linux kernel. and let me tell you that code in 2.4 kernel was very ugly with extremely funny comments :-)

My companion since than developing drivers and "he feels that he is doing something important rather than boring UI".

but all he is doing is mostly his own projects and drivers since updating open source IS a pain in the neck.

I guess problem in collaborative work is the reason why people do open source vs something that have to be supported. What do you think?