Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnewsc!lgm
From: lgm@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (lawrence.g.mayka)
Newsgroups: comp.software-eng
Subject: Re: C Community's Cavalier Attitude On Software Reliability
Keywords: You Get What You Pay For
Message-ID: <14020@cbnewsc.ATT.COM>
Date: 1 Mar 90 12:01:49 GMT
References: <60@newave.UUCP>
Reply-To: lgm@cbnewsc.ATT.COM (lawrence.g.mayka,ihp,)
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories
Lines: 32

[This is a repost, with some correction, of comments that, I
think, didn't make it off our news machine.]


In article <60@newave.UUCP> john@newave.mn.org (John A. Weeks III) writes:
>The big issue is economics.  You can have the current nationwide
>network for X dollars, or a "totally secure" network for many times
>more than X.  Please think about three facts:

One might hypothesize that better, perhaps radically different,
technologies and methods would make possible the construction of
large, complex software systems - such as those in defense and
telecommunications - that are *simultaneously* more robust, much
more flexible, and much less expensive to build.  But would
conservative customers such as the Department of Defense and the
Bell operating companies be willing to purchase such "unorthodox"
systems?  And are conservative vendors such as General Dynamics
and AT&T willing to build such systems on the mere *hope* that
customer skittishness can be overcome?  Remember also that any new
technology or method faces vehement opposition: foremost from all
those who personally benefit from the current practice,
secondarily from those who are emotionally attached to the current
practice, and tertiarily (!) from those who simply have no genuine
desire to learn anything new.  All told, the barriers are
formidable.


	Lawrence G. Mayka
	AT&T Bell Laboratories
	lgm@ihlpf.att.com

Standard disclaimer.