[DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero

[Paul A Norman]

Richard,

Do you rmemeber when Microsoft wanted to charge for "upgrades" that were
fixes and what happened?

Paul




2009/9/19 Jolyon Smith <jsmith at deltics.co.nz>

>  Even Microsoft think it’s worth issuing fixes and indeed updates LONG
> after 18 months has passed.
>
>
>
> Barely a day goes by without some Windows update or other shoehorning
> itself into my XP system that Microsoft last got my money for almost 10
> years ago.
>
>
>
> And I can only hope that you were being funny in that passage about “low
> quality requirements” not being bugs.
>
>
>
>
>
> I cannot think of any other product for which I am asked to pay the sorts
> of $$’s I am asked to pay for software that would come with a complete
> denial of liability should it turn out to be partly or entirely unfit for
> purpose or actually cause me loss or harm.
>
>
>
> Actually, I can think of one product where the customers are treated with
> disdain equal to that of the software industry .... and interestingly it’s
> the only other industry where the customer is referred to as a “user” by
> their “dealer”.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> *From:* delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz [mailto:delphi-bounces at delphi.org.nz]
> *On Behalf Of *Richard Vowles
> *Sent:* Saturday, 19 September 2009 15:49
> *To:* NZ Borland Developers Group - Delphi List
> *Subject:* Re: [DUG] A change in upgrade policy coming from Embarcadero
>
>
>
> Comparing software development to plumbing is a road to madness, surely?
> Thats almost certainly like saying software development is an engineering
> discipline, which it has clearly been disproved from being.
>
>
> Delphi consists, last I heard, of 26000 different source files - to expect
> that entire tree to be "bug free" is questionable in the least. Besides, a
> bug is defined as being something that does not meet the requirements. Given
> Delphi's "set of requirements" for shipping is determined at the point of
> shipping, technically it meets those requirements and thus has no bugs. All
> subsequent "patches" are, technically, not bug fixes but requirements
> changes. As the quality of requirements set by Borland were clearly much
> lower than people would generally consider acceptable (for Delphi 2005, and
> most certainly for Delphi 8), that is really a mismatch in requirements
> expectations. Remember, we are talking *Borland* here, not *Embarcadero*.
> Embarcadero, I think, has a pretty good track record, and a much higher bar.
> But even E have "feature defects" they consider acceptable when shipping.
> Everyone does.
>
> As an interesting aside, Support and Maintenance on Delphi (and all IDEs
> from Borland and I am assuming from E but I haven't closely looked at the
> T's&C's) *specifically exclude* bug fixes. Included are new versions and
> workarounds (if possible). S&M is also only provided two versions earlier
> from the current version (from memory) meaning even D2006 is excluded from
> the attempts for workarounds.
>
> I'm sorry, but I would not commit to writing an application and then fixing
> any things its users considered bugs gratis for eternity. I would consider
> it reasonable for 3 months as long as it was agreed to in the original
> payment schedule, but I would *certainly* not expect it after 18 months. In
> the case of a development tool, with the importance of supporting
> technology, I would expect new releases every 18 months and would be
> concerned if I did not see new releases coming out from the vendor.
>
> Richard
>
>   2009/9/19 Kyley Harris <kyleyharris at gmail.com>
>
> Paul. I agree 100% a professional software company, E, should not charge
> 1cent to license holders for genuine bug fixes and should package free
> releases independantly of feature releases until they are fixed. Otherwise
> they are not professional anything
>
>
>
> When I pay my plumber to fix a leak. I don't expect to have to pay him to
> fix the new secondary leaks he caused by being a bad plumber
>
>
> --
> ---
> Richard Vowles, Technical Advisor
> Developers Inc Ltd
> web. http://www.developers-inc.co.nz
> ph. +64-9-3600231, mob. +64-275-467747, fax. +64-9-3600384
> skype. rvowles, LinkedIn, Twitter
>
>
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