The Mother of All Software Projects Microsoft's Windows 2000 program is big. And it has problems to match Welcome to the software factory. The ''daily build'' begins at 6 p.m. That's when engineering managers gather all of the new features and bug fixes that thousands of programmers produced during the day and bolt them together like so many auto parts. Triage'' teams comb over the bug reports and dole out assignments.
Programmers type away all day in their rabbit-warren offices.
Then, at 6 p.m., the whole process begins again. It's a factory-style process, but this is no widget plant. To accomplish this, it's welding in pieces of software that rivals treat as separate programs. Linus Torvalds, creator of the Linux freeware operating system, calls the making of Win2000 ''witchcraft'' and predicts Microsoft will have to lop off some features if it ever hopes to get the product out the door. Microsoft's top engineers are growing accustomed to the sniping.