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Re: [LUG] Another example of open vs closed source

 

On Sun, Apr 21, 2013 at 01:01:22PM +0100, Martijn Grooten wrote:
 
>    I think this has little to do with open or closed source. It would have
>    been had there been some bug in Excel that had produced the wrong results,
>    but it was just someone using Excel incorrectly. Could have happened to
>    LibreOffice as well. Or to someone using pen and paper.
> 
>    If you want to draw an open source-related conclusion from it, it's good
>    to keep in mind that the paper itself, including the sources it used, was
>    publicly available. Yet it took people years to spot the mistakes. So the
>    fact that something is open source doesn't mean it will be without errors,
>    or that these errors will be spotted easily.

The initial paper did not provide the data

http://thedudedean.newsvine.com/_news/2013/04/20/17842706-reinhart-rogoff-and-herndon-the-student-who-caught-out-the-profs

(I can't find the less gossipy paper on line but the concept is there "So
Ash and his colleague Prof Robert Pollin encouraged Herndon to continue the
project and to write to the Harvard professors. After some correspondence,
Reinhart and Rogoff provided Thomas with the actual working spreadsheet
they'd used to obtain their results.")


-- 
Henry
Communication not signed with an original manual signature or an appropriately 
verified digital signature is not binding.
Sun Apr 21 14:51:18 BST 2013

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