aglew@crhc.uiuc.edu (Andy Glew) (09/20/90)
Not to jump on the bandwagon, but here's a little anecdote about
bug-reporting and Encore (and IBM, and DEC, and SUN):
I recently discovered a minor bug with file descriptors that occurred
both on our Encore and our IBM RT. Verified it was a bug against a SUN
and a VAX. I actually remembered it as a bug I'd fixed in BSD in a
company far, far, away.
Having once been an OS developer, I wrote up a brief description and a
repeatable test. I also figured out a work-around for my own use. I
then looked for someone to report this bug to, so that IBM and Encore
would have a chance of figuring it out.
I asked our sysadmin who to email bug reports to at Encore. He asked
his Encore contact, who said that we would have to log a service
request and fill out this paper form. Ie. we would have to *pay* to
make a bug report (if we didn't have a service contract), even though
I didn't really want a fix. Neither of us felt like filling out a
paper form, so I simply didn't go any further.
MORALS:
(1) Companies that aren't ready to accept customer bug reports
throw out a valuable opportunity to improve product quality
(and create customer resentment).
(2) Make it easy for a customer to make a bug report. Filling
out and mailing a paper form is significantly less easy than
emailing a description.
But Encore is by no means alone in this.
We attempted to report this bug to IBM. First, the customer interface
person asked "What's a bug?". Once we got past this guy, it again
turns out that we have to log and pay for a service request. Guys, I
was trying to do you a *favour*.
Ditto SUN. Well, actually, SUN does have a person to email to, but he
only accepts email bug requests from "official" system administrators.
See MORAL #2 above - I'm not going to waste my and my sysadmin's time
explaining a bug to him, so that he can waste his time explaining it
to the company. Sure, it's not all that much work to ask my sysadmin
to forward an email report to the bug-mail address, but it's more work
than sending it directly. And, in this case, it was enough to make me
simply not bother.
Next time I will probably just post the bug report to comp.sys.encore.
But, again, that's more work than emailing it (nntp starts up slow on
my system). Plus, I thought that Encore might not like getting bug
reports in that public forum - as seems to be the case.
--
Andy Glew, a-glew@uiuc.edu [get ph nameserver from uxc.cso.uiuc.edu:net/qi]boykin@encore.com (Joseph Boykin) (09/20/90)
In article <AGLEW.90Sep19125331@dwarfs.crhc.uiuc.edu>, aglew@crhc.uiuc.edu (Andy Glew) writes: > I asked our sysadmin who to email bug reports to at Encore. He asked > his Encore contact, who said that we would have to log a service > request and fill out this paper form. Ie. we would have to *pay* to > make a bug report (if we didn't have a service contract), even though > I didn't really want a fix. Neither of us felt like filling out a > paper form, so I simply didn't go any further. Well, I can't speak for Umax or any other product that Encore has, but if anyone finds a bug in our Mach release, feel free to send it to me. No guarantees that we'll fix it, but I do guarantee we'll at least investigate the problem. There *are* advantages to dealing with a product in the nebulous "Advanced Technology Research Products" category: you deal directly with development! By the way, there *are* a large number of people, including those in Customer Service who read this group. Most won't respond to the group, but *do* respond directly to the person who posted the problem. ---- Joseph Boykin Manager, Mach OS Development Encore Computer Corp Treasurer, IEEE Computer Society Internet: boykin@encore.com Phone: 508-460-0500 x2720