mogul@jove.pa.dec.com (Jeffrey Mogul) (03/19/91)
Or rather, announcing the "NOT SPR" service.
In my next posting, I will provide "software" (well, OK, a shar
file containing a shell script), along with which comes the
following README file:
Information about the NOT SPR service
SPRs (Software Problem Reports) are Digital's mechanism for accepting
software bug reports from customers. [SPRs may be filed by any
customer, with or without a support contract, although only those
customers with contracts are able to dial into the DSIN system to
discover the fate of their SPRs.] SPRs are not meant to be used to
obtain help with problems (e.g., "how do I do X?"); they are a way for
customers to help Digital improve the quality of its software.
Many customers have complained that there is no way to file SPRs via
electronic mail. A group of Digital employees have volunteered to
accept bug reports via email, validate these (to ensure that a bug is
still present in the most recent version of the system), and enter them
into the internal bug-reporting system.
We call this service "NOT SPR", because it isn't exactly an SPR-by-email
service. This is an unofficial service; we make absolutely no guarantees
about it and may terminate it without notice. We do not promise to
respond to your message, although you may receive responses. Unless you
request us not to or we believe that it would be unwise, we may post your bug
reports in a public place (such as a newsgroup or a publicly-FTPable
directory), so don't say anything you wouldn't want others to see.
We will accept reports about bugs in the ULTRIX base operating system
and in the "UWS" (window system) software. We do not expect to be able
to deal with bugs in "layered products" (software options that you pay
extra money for). We would really appreciate it if you only filed a
report once you have verified that the bug still exists in the most
recent version of the software; the software product groups are not
happy about processing reports about bugs that they have already solved!
Although we cannot guarantee that all the bugs you report will be
fixed, we want to make every reasonable effort to improve the quality
of our software, and we believe that listening to your complaints and
suggestions is necessary if we are to meet that goal. By reporting
bugs, you help us and you also increase the chances that your bug will
be "fixed in the next release."
We might decide once in a while to find some way of recognizing those
of you who have provided the most high-quality bug reports.
HOW TO SUBMIT BUG REPORTS:
Bug reports should be submitted using the "notspr" program. This
program is a shell script, which should run on any ULTRIX system. You
may obtain the sources either
o by using anonymous FTP to host gatekeeper.dec.com
retrieve file "/pub/DEC/notspr.shar"
o by sending email to "ftpmail@decwrl.dec.com"
the body of the message should contain these lines
connect gatekeeper.dec.com
get /pub/DEC/notspr.shar
and you will receive the file by email within a few days
In either case, once you have the file you can unpack it in the usual
way (i.e., cd to the directory where you want it and type "sh
notspr.shar").
The "notspr" program is run without any arguments. It prompts you for
some information, and then (after a brief delay) pops you into your
favorite editor, as determined by the EDITOR environment variable.
(The default editor is "vi".) Please edit the form to describe your
particular bug as specifically as possible. Then, save the file and
exit the editor; the bug report will be sent via email to the NOT SPR
system. (If your mail system does not understand Internet mail
addresses, you will have to edit the line in the script that looks like
this:
NOTSPR="notspr@decwrl.dec.com"
to reflect your mail path to decwrl.dec.com.)
Please do not send other mail to this mailbox. If you have a problem
with the NOT SPR system software, please send mail to
notpsr-owner@decwrl.dec.com
but please do not send other complaints to this mailbox!
Thank you for your participation.