🚀 go-pugleaf

>"We sent out 10,000 copies. We got only a little over 500 inputs 
>[bug reports], and less than half of those translated into real working problems."

Please note that due to some type of miscommunication, the above attribution
to John W. Thompson grossly misrepresents reality. IBM received thousands of
bug reports from the approximately 10,000 beta testers of the "Merlin " product.

Many of the bug reports were either duplicates of other bug reports, or they were
suggestions for requested enhancements. After screening the thousands of reports
received, the IBM quality assurance team distilled the thousands of reports down
to about 500 unique, valid bug reports.

I mention this only because some people may feel that IBM did not receive all of
the very good input from beta testers (ie, one person submitted several hundred
reports alone). We did receive and review all of these reports, and we are very
appreciative of the people who spent time testing various hardware and software
configurations with Merlin.

John

In article <4u8ktl$3mku@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>,
 <baxte17@ibm.net [Kevin J Baxter]> wrote:

>"I don't see the reason, quite frankly, for a second beta," [Thompson] said. 
>
>"We sent out 10,000 copies. We got only a little over 500 inputs 
>[bug reports], and less than half of those translated into real working problems."

Aaaaarrrghghhh!!  [gurgle]

Perhaps the reason they got so few bug reports is because their bug reporting
software was *extremely* slow, and their FTP site was down or too slow to
use on the final day of testing.  Because of the slowness of their software,
I wrote my bugs down on paper, then stayed up late and typed them into
BGReport all at one go.  

My email to IBM about this:
====
From: jiml@teleport.com (Jim Little)
Date: Mon, 22 Jul 96 13:27:45 -0700
To: bgreport@vnet.ibm.com
Subject: Can't send BGReports

I have 77 BG Reports to send you.  Unfortunately, your FTP site is going
extremely slowly, and my attempt to send you five at once via email
bounced.

I will try again tomorrow, the 23rd.  [The beta closed on the 22nd.]

-Jim Little  (jiml@teleport.com)
====

Their response, which I deleted in a fit of disgust, was basically as follows:
"Thank you for your participation in the Merlin beta program.  The beta
is now closed.  Do not upload any more BG Reports to our ftp site."  The
FTP site contained the same instructions -- so I didn't upload the reports.

Included in those 77 unsent reports were four extremely serious installation
bugs (which included the failure of the VGA portion of the install to display
on a Princeton Ultra 15 monitor using a ATI Mach32 video card AND the 
removal of one of my hard drive partitions -- interestingly, Windows 95 had
the same problem) and a number of less serious VoiceType bugs and user
interface glitches.

The above press release may be simple "put on your best face" marketing
fluff, but if it's not, I have a feeling OS/2 is going to go out with a
whimper when Merlin is released.  The product contains a number of bugs --
not especially serious bugs, but the kinds of bugs that make you think,
"Whoever programmed this was really sloppy."  The system as a whole feels
like a contraption made out of lincoln logs, erector sets, legos, and
masking tape -- it's obvious that IBM barely tried to integrate the various
components and simply tossed them all on one CD with a "unified" (I use the
term loosely) installation program.

Until now, I figured that this was simply because the product wasn't done
yet.  I figured that they were going to get the serious problems out of
the way first, then work on the details of integration later.

As it is, though, IBM seems to have their head in the sand and doesn't even
know about the serious problems, let alone the "differientiates an OK product
from a great one" details!  IBM: You're not reading this and wouldn't pay
attention even if you were, but: Forget COMDEX.  Forget Windows NT.
Releasing a product before it's ready is infinitely worse than releasing
a product late.  You're poised on the verge of permanently destroying OS/2's
credibility.  Don't.

I'll wait to see the product turns out before I pass final judgement.  But
at the moment, I have little hope.

-Jim Little  (jiml@teleport.com)

In <4uc0ba$n4l@nadine.teleport.com>, jiml@teleport.com (Jim Little) writes:
>In article <4u8ktl$3mku@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>,
> <baxte17@ibm.net [Kevin J Baxter]> wrote:
>
>>"I don't see the reason, quite frankly, for a second beta," [Thompson] said. 
>>
>>"We sent out 10,000 copies. We got only a little over 500 inputs 
>>[bug reports], and less than half of those translated into real working problems."

As someone else pointed out, this is a misphrasing: IBM only got 500
_unique_ bug reports. Obviously many bugs were reported multiple
times -- at least one user reported over 100 of these, from what
I've heard.

So most or all of your 77 probably were covered.

 ----------------------------------------------------------------------- 
Joseph J. Kesselman             http://pages.prodigy.com/keshlam/
"This note is a production of Novalabs Consulting, which is solely       
responsible for its content. Opinions not necessarily those of IBM."

In article <4u8ktl$3mku@news-s01.ny.us.ibm.net>,
baxte17@ibm.net  [Kevin J Baxter] wrote:
>
>IBM is banking on the prediction that cross-platform Java applications, 
>rather than Win32-specific applications, will proliferate throughout the 
>Internet.
>
Not a bad interpretation since Corel has announced that they are
working on an app suite designed to run totally on Java.  It is nice to
see IBM has moved from chasing Microsoft to blazing new trails.  One
thing I have noticed with a lot of the press dicussion that has been
going on with regards to Merlin is the lack of mention about any Win32
support, maybe IBM has managed to distract their attention away from
that topic.

>Thompson said IBM's move was not a matter of desperation.
>"There's a sense out there that this is [OS/2's] last chance, and I 
>don't think that's true," he said.
>
It is nice to see IBM's offical stance move away from the "now or
never" approach to gaining marketshare.


-- 
Noah Aklilu
aklilu@nyquist.ee.ualberta.ca
http://www.ee.ualberta.ca/~aklilu/
Electrical Engineering
University of Alberta
*******************************
Fear the man with one more question
******************************* 

In <4ub974$1cmc@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, soyring@  (John A. Soyring) writes:
>>"We sent out 10,000 copies. We got only a little over 500 inputs 
>>[bug reports], and less than half of those translated into real working problems."
>
>Please note that due to some type of miscommunication, the above attribution
>to John W. Thompson grossly misrepresents reality. IBM received thousands of
>bug reports from the approximately 10,000 beta testers of the "Merlin " product.
>
>Many of the bug reports were either duplicates of other bug reports, or they were
>suggestions for requested enhancements. After screening the thousands of reports
>received, the IBM quality assurance team distilled the thousands of reports down
>to about 500 unique, valid bug reports.
>
>I mention this only because some people may feel that IBM did not receive all of
>the very good input from beta testers (ie, one person submitted several hundred
>reports alone). We did receive and review all of these reports, and we are very
>appreciative of the people who spent time testing various hardware and software
>configurations with Merlin.
>
>John


That's 500 bugs.  Count them, 500 bugs.  I suggest, Mr. Soyring, that it's
far better for IBM to work out all these bugs, especially relating to 
installation procedures, and delay Merlin awhile.  Release a second beta, and 
let this one be an open beta, let it be much more widespread than 10,000 users. 
Let Microsoft roast from its premature release of NT 4.0, but IBM does not have
to join MS in the frying pan.

Do what that team name's says---Assure Quality.

Rgds,

Chris

Famous People on Operating Systems (Please feel free to contribute)
Rene Discartes---"I think, therefore I don't use Windows."
Clint Eastwood---"A man got to know his operating system limitations."
Albert Einstein---"E=OS/2"
Hamlet---"To Warp or not to Warp, that is the question."
Steve McGarrett, Hawaii Five-O---"Boot'em, Dano."
President Roosevelt---"This day shall live in infamy."
(On the day Windows 95 is launched.)  ***crobato@kuentos.guam.net***

crobato@kuentos.guam.net wrote:
> 
> In <4ub974$1cmc@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, soyring@  (John A. Soyring) writes:
> >>"We sent out 10,000 copies. We got only a little over 500 inputs
> >>[bug reports], and less than half of those translated into real working problems."
> >
> >Please note that due to some type of miscommunication, the above attribution
> >to John W. Thompson grossly misrepresents reality. IBM received thousands of
> >bug reports from the approximately 10,000 beta testers of the "Merlin " product.
> >
> >Many of the bug reports were either duplicates of other bug reports, or they were
> >suggestions for requested enhancements. After screening the thousands of reports
> >received, the IBM quality assurance team distilled the thousands of reports down
> >to about 500 unique, valid bug reports.

> >John
> 
> That's 500 bugs.  Count them, 500 bugs.  I suggest, Mr. Soyring, that it's
> far better for IBM to work out all these bugs, especially relating to
> installation procedures, and delay Merlin awhile.  Release a second beta, and
> let this one be an open beta, let it be much more widespread than 10,000 users.
> Let Microsoft roast from its premature release of NT 4.0, but IBM does not have
> to join MS in the frying pan.
> 
> Do what that team name's says---Assure Quality.

I agree.  Let IBM put out a quality product from day one.
The heck with the Comdex and XMAS deadlines.  Let IBM ship
quality product and if you do need to step on NT's toes
do it with a free widesprad BETA of a stable product
you thnk should ship as Gamma or GA.

I'm going to hold off on MERLIN if I read about bugs.
So will many people.  John Sorying was on COOA in 1994
responding to lies about non existant bugs in WARP.
Let that be a lesson about how serious a bug is for
OS/2's image.

I think Win95's rollout demonstrated just how serious the
initial prespective can be for any OS.  I'm betting NT gets 
slammed for it's quality -- or lack of.  


-- Dr. Joseph C. Coughlan, jcoughlan@gaia.arc.nasa.gov

IBM?  IBM??

Hope you guys REALLY get the gist of posts like this!!!!!!!

I think Windows (MS products in general) get a bit of a break in the press.  Oh you may 
hear about a bug...then how to work around it or how it'll be FIXED in the next version.

When you hear about a bug in OS/2...it's like someone ran over the reporter's
mother with a truck!!!!

It's going to make the headlines, you can count on it!  

The good stuff?  Look back at the NOS comparison a while back...if you READ the
article you can find that the single processor version of Warp Server compared 
pretty well, no VERY well with the four processor version of NT.  You sure could
NOT tell it by the head lines (or the chart for that matter!).

OS/2 "just ain't gonna git no respect" if it's buggy and hard to install.

IBM: Be LATE, not foolish.

Clif


In <320B6C61.394A@gaia.arc.nasa.gov>, "Dr. Joseph C. Coughlan" <jcoughlan@gaia.arc.nasa.gov> writes:
>crobato@kuentos.guam.net wrote:
>> 
>> In <4ub974$1cmc@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, soyring@  (John A. Soyring) writes:
>> >>"We sent out 10,000 copies. We got only a little over 500 inputs
>> >>[bug reports], and less than half of those translated into real working problems."
>> >
>> >Please note that due to some type of miscommunication, the above attribution
>> >to John W. Thompson grossly misrepresents reality. IBM received thousands of
>> >bug reports from the approximately 10,000 beta testers of the "Merlin " product.
>> >
>> >Many of the bug reports were either duplicates of other bug reports, or they were
>> >suggestions for requested enhancements. After screening the thousands of reports
>> >received, the IBM quality assurance team distilled the thousands of reports down
>> >to about 500 unique, valid bug reports.
>
>> >John
>> 
>> That's 500 bugs.  Count them, 500 bugs.  I suggest, Mr. Soyring, that it's
>> far better for IBM to work out all these bugs, especially relating to
>> installation procedures, and delay Merlin awhile.  Release a second beta, and
>> let this one be an open beta, let it be much more widespread than 10,000 users.
>> Let Microsoft roast from its premature release of NT 4.0, but IBM does not have
>> to join MS in the frying pan.
>> 
>> Do what that team name's says---Assure Quality.
>
>I agree.  Let IBM put out a quality product from day one.
>The heck with the Comdex and XMAS deadlines.  Let IBM ship
>quality product and if you do need to step on NT's toes
>do it with a free widesprad BETA of a stable product
>you thnk should ship as Gamma or GA.
>
>I'm going to hold off on MERLIN if I read about bugs.
>So will many people.  John Sorying was on COOA in 1994
>responding to lies about non existant bugs in WARP.
>Let that be a lesson about how serious a bug is for
>OS/2's image.
>
>I think Win95's rollout demonstrated just how serious the
>initial prespective can be for any OS.  I'm betting NT gets 
>slammed for it's quality -- or lack of.  
>
>
>-- Dr. Joseph C. Coughlan, jcoughlan@gaia.arc.nasa.gov

In article <320B6C61.394A@gaia.arc.nasa.gov> "Dr. Joseph C. Coughlan"
<jcoughlan@gaia.arc.nasa.gov> writes:

> I think Win95's rollout demonstrated just how serious the initial
> prespective can be for any OS.  I'm betting NT gets slammed for it's
> quality -- or lack of.

How can you 'slam' a product if it is of excellent quality?  From your
above statment and your opinion of NT4's quality, it is *obvious* you
have never used it.  


-- 
Wayne Hyde                  |              System Administrator
wjh@cis.ufl.edu             | Fla. Cooperative Fish & Wildlife Research Unit
http://www.cis.ufl.edu/~wjh |                    and the
I speak for me, not them -> | U of Florida Department of Surveying and Mapping

In <WJH.96Aug10113559@rock.cis.ufl.edu>, wjh@rock.cis.ufl.edu (Wayne J. Hyde) writes:
>In article <320B6C61.394A@gaia.arc.nasa.gov> "Dr. Joseph C. Coughlan"
><jcoughlan@gaia.arc.nasa.gov> writes:
>
>> I think Win95's rollout demonstrated just how serious the initial
>> prespective can be for any OS.  I'm betting NT gets slammed for it's
>> quality -- or lack of.
>
>How can you 'slam' a product if it is of excellent quality?  From your
>above statment and your opinion of NT4's quality, it is *obvious* you
>have never used it.  

You must be kidding, or at least color blind. I was forced to use NT 4.0 for 
a while and it is ...... not really that good. I refuse to get into a war about 
it, but lets face it, its just software piled on top of software. Its a lot better
than W95, but that is nothing to write home about. 

Junk on junk. When will bill ever sell a good program written from the ground 
up?

After using it for a while, I started setting up the desktop with those ridiculous
shortcut icons. After making look almost decent, I changed a few network 
settings so I had to reboot. Can't NT do anything dynamically? Anyway, when
it came up, it had lost all of its shorcuts and the desktop was hosed. 

Why not rebuild it and make it object oriented like a real os? Just a junk 
GUI on a pretty good OS. 

Sorry, everyone to their own way, but for me, its just the same old stuff re-
hashed, certainly not improved. 5 years ago, it might have set the world 
aflame, now its about as sharp as a bag of wet hair.  I think M$ might be 
reaching a point where they are dissapointing too many people and they need to
come up with something original and with quality. You can't run forever with 
the same product.

Don't rag on me, its just my opinion. I know you don't share my sentiments. :)

John

In article <4ub974$1cmc@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, soyring@austin.vnet.ibm.com wrote:
>I mention this only because some people may feel that IBM did not receive all
> of
>the very good input from beta testers (ie, one person submitted several hundred
>reports alone). 

That wouldn't be a Mr. kwilas would it?  *grin*

                                                                -Ben

In <320B6C61.394A@gaia.arc.nasa.gov>, "Dr. Joseph C. Coughlan" <jcoughlan@gaia.arc.nasa.gov> writes:
>crobato@kuentos.guam.net wrote:
>> 
>> In <4ub974$1cmc@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, soyring@  (John A. Soyring) writes:
>> >>"We sent out 10,000 copies. We got only a little over 500 inputs
>> >>[bug reports], and less than half of those translated into real working problems."
>> >
>> >Please note that due to some type of miscommunication, the above attribution
>> >to John W. Thompson grossly misrepresents reality. IBM received thousands of
>> >bug reports from the approximately 10,000 beta testers of the "Merlin " product.
>> >
>> >Many of the bug reports were either duplicates of other bug reports, or they were
>> >suggestions for requested enhancements. After screening the thousands of reports
>> >received, the IBM quality assurance team distilled the thousands of reports down
>> >to about 500 unique, valid bug reports.
>
>> >John
>> 
>> That's 500 bugs.  Count them, 500 bugs.  I suggest, Mr. Soyring, that it's
>> far better for IBM to work out all these bugs, especially relating to
>> installation procedures, and delay Merlin awhile.  Release a second beta, and
>> let this one be an open beta, let it be much more widespread than 10,000 users.
>> Let Microsoft roast from its premature release of NT 4.0, but IBM does not have
>> to join MS in the frying pan.
>> 
>> Do what that team name's says---Assure Quality.
>
>I agree.  Let IBM put out a quality product from day one.
>The heck with the Comdex and XMAS deadlines.  Let IBM ship
>quality product and if you do need to step on NT's toes
>do it with a free widesprad BETA of a stable product
>you thnk should ship as Gamma or GA.
>
>I'm going to hold off on MERLIN if I read about bugs.
>So will many people.  John Sorying was on COOA in 1994
>responding to lies about non existant bugs in WARP.
>Let that be a lesson about how serious a bug is for
>OS/2's image.
>
>I think Win95's rollout demonstrated just how serious the
>initial prespective can be for any OS.  I'm betting NT gets 
>slammed for it's quality -- or lack of.  
>
>
>-- Dr. Joseph C. Coughlan, jcoughlan@gaia.arc.nasa.gov

Has anyone ever thought of including a full hardware diagnostic program as part
of the installation software of a operating system ??  Something like "Checkit", 
this could seperate some of the hardware problems (that might have gone un-
detected untill installing the new O.S.) from actual software bugs.

Stu

Benjamin Y. Lee (bylee@alumni.princeton.edu) wrote:
: In article <4ub974$1cmc@ausnews.austin.ibm.com>, soyring@austin.vnet.ibm.com wrote:
: >I mention this only because some people may feel that IBM did not
: > receive all of the very good input from beta testers (ie, one
: > person submitted several hundred reports alone). 

: That wouldn't be a Mr. kwilas would it?  *grin*

I would expect Kwilas to use interal, probably Forum based methods for
his bug reports, in which case I'd doubt they'd get counted on the
same scale.

--
J C Lawrence                           Internet: coder@ibm.net
---------------(*)               Internet: clawrenc@cup.hp.com
...Honorary Member Clan McFUD -- Teamer's Avenging Monolith...

Ken Prince <princekr@pop.ds.dupont.com> wrote in article
<4usnbd$obs@topgun.es.dupont.com>...
> wjh@rock.cis.ufl.edu (Wayne J. Hyde) wrote:
 
> >In article <320B6C61.394A@gaia.arc.nasa.gov> "Dr. Joseph C. Coughlan"
> ><jcoughlan@gaia.arc.nasa.gov> writes:

> >> I think Win95's rollout demonstrated just how serious the initial
> >> prespective can be for any OS.  I'm betting NT gets slammed for it's
> >> quality -- or lack of.
 
> >How can you 'slam' a product if it is of excellent quality?  From your
> >above statment and your opinion of NT4's quality, it is *obvious* you
> >have never used it.  
 
> I have used it, nothing spectacular. MSNBC tried to use it - they have
> now switched all their servers to UNIX. MSNBC is Microsoft+NBC.

I've used NT, Win95, OS/2, and Linux on my home PC.  I used to use Linux
(v0.12 until 0.99) and OS/2 (2.0b through Warp beta) exclusively a few
years back, but have since switched to Win95 and NT.  Why?  Because I like
them better, and they work better for me.  

As for MSNBC switching to Unix from NT:  I didn't know they even used NT to
begin with.  If they did switch, it could be due to many reasons (NT not
being up to snuff, or the admins not knowing NT well enough, etc).