Re: Stupid Licenses (YUCK!)

Article View: comp.security.misc

Article #692

Back to comp.security.misc Previous Next

#692

From: Charles Geyer
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 00:23

35 lines
2211 bytes

In article <1992Dec22.034142.14471@fsl.noaa.gov> bear@kestrel.fsl.noaa.gov
(Bear Giles) asks:

> Would you postpone a release with known bugs (documented in a 'here there
> be dragons' addendum) which would replace a previous, more buggy version?

Why can't they just provide a release that fixes the old bugs without
introducing (known) new ones?  Featurality first is the only explanation.

> What about a release with significant improvements which just happened
> to crash if you had a really obscure combination of hardware and software?
> What if the company offered you a free upgrade (or other compensation)
> if its software twigged on this odd combination?
>
> Or what if the software only had problems on really old systems which
> should have been upgraded a long time ago? ("Gee, I'm running DOS 2.8
> on a 5 MHz XT and your program doesn't seem to work!")  How long do
> you need to keep providing upgrades for existing platforms?

A customer can't really complain if software doesn't work on hardware the
vendor doesn't claim it works on.

But the "should have been upgraded a long time ago" reminds me of another
consequence of the software industry's abysmal quality level.  Only a fool
"upgrades" unnecessarily.  Most "upgrades" turn out to be degrades that
needlessly break lots of working applications and only provide bells and
whistles in compensation.  This forces sensible customers to fall behind
"current" versions of operating systems.  It's sound defensive computer
usage.

-- 
Charles Geyer
School of Statistics
University of Minnesota
charlie@umnstat.stat.umn.edu

Technical Details

Message-ID: <1992Dec28.002314.21233@news2.cis.umn.edu>

Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!wupost!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!charlie

References: <bhayden.724690634@teal> <1992Dec19.023609.26000@news2.cis.umn.edu> <1992Dec22.034142.14471@fsl.noaa.gov>

Show Full Headers

Complete Article Headers

Newsgroups: comp.security.misc,comp.org.eff.talk
Path: arc1-ca.pugleaf.net!sparky!uunet!wupost!spool.mu.edu!umn.edu!charlie
From: charlie@umnstat.stat.umn.edu (Charles Geyer)
Subject: Re: Stupid Licenses (YUCK!)
Message-ID: <1992Dec28.002314.21233@news2.cis.umn.edu>
Sender: news@news2.cis.umn.edu (Usenet News Administration)
Nntp-Posting-Host: isles.stat.umn.edu
Organization: School of Statistics, University of Minnesota
References: <bhayden.724690634@teal> <1992Dec19.023609.26000@news2.cis.umn.edu> <1992Dec22.034142.14471@fsl.noaa.gov>
Date: Mon, 28 Dec 1992 00:23:14 GMT
Lines: 35

Reply to Parent Message