Communications of the ACM
The opinion archive provides access to past opinion stories from Communications of the ACM and other sources by date.
January 2009
From Communications of the ACM
How Are We Doing?
A rabbinical story tells about an angry reader who stormed into a newspaper office waving the day's paper, asking to see the editor of the obituary column.
From Communications of the ACM
True Seeds of Open-Source Software
Though I appreciated Martin Campbell-Kelly's "Viewpoint" "Will the Future of Software Be Open Source?" (Oct. 2008), we must still rectify a small piece of history to apportion credit correctly.
From Communications of the ACM
Communications Preps Web-Enhanced Articles
The soon to launch Communications Web site will break the bounds of the printed monthly.
From Communications of the ACM
Law and Technology: The End of the Generative Internet
Exploring the expectations and implications for version 2.0 of the Net's new gated communities.
From Communications of the ACM
Ground Control to Architect Tom . . .
Architecture astronauts habitually speak at extremely high levels of abstraction to avoid engaging in tangible discussions that might lead to disclosing that they really have no idea of what they are talking about.
From Communications of the ACM
The Business of Software: The Ontology of Paper
The next generation of software engineering will involve designing systems without using paper-based formats, instead using software to develop software.
From Communications of the ACM
Technology Strategy and Management: The Legacy of Bill Gates
Assessing the pluses and minuses of the helmsmanship of Microsoft Corporation since its inception.
From Communications of the ACM
Viewpoint: Scaling the Academic Publication Process to Internet Scale
A proposal to remedy problems in the reviewing process.
From Communications of the ACM
Q&A: The Upper Limit
Jeannette Wing talks about clusters, creativity, and the power of computational thinking.
From Communications of the ACM
Why Ebay Lost to Taobao in China: The Glocal Advantage
How Consumer-to-Consumer (C2C) electronic-commerce platforms in China compete and how buyers are stimulated to be both aware and trustful of sellers through buyer-seller communication channels.