"It may that the story David Riches was trying to write is that as much as 60 per cent of the code might have to be re-written if Vista is to regain that new file system we're being denied. That sounds quite plausible to us. We doubt that his story is correct. But it's not without at least some credibility. The irony is that in calling Riches a less than credible jerk, Scoble has almost certainly increased his readership. We can point him in the direction of a calming tree or two."
As someone who recognized the 60% number as an impossibility as soon as I saw it on Slash-dot, there IS a plausible explanation for that number being used. It may well be that on a module by module basis that 60% of the code will need to be touched, or even that 60% of the code will need to be recompiled (due to library changes etc.) It may well be that such a statement could be translated into "60 percent of the code" by a journalist or other non-technical type. For those journalists that have been good enough to admit that they are not coders, you have to take EVERYTHING they say about code with a huge grain of salt. But instead of acknowledging that possibility they are apt to just call one another LIARS, and in the process, bringing into question not only their technical knowledge base but their credentials as journalists as well.
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