todd@uhunix2.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Todd Ogasawara) (03/05/91)
I recently received my Arity Prolog 6.0 for MS-DOS and was outraged by what
Arity has foisted on its customers as a $127 (including shipping) upgrade.
What was advertised as a major upgrade from version 5.1 is merely a
maintenance release with a few cosmetic changes (very few and minor).
The worst of it, from my point of view, is the 18 pages of documentation
changes which is simply provided as a README file with references to the
page number where the corrections should be applied. It should be noted
that these corrections are in addition to numerous other corrections to the
5.0 manual that had to be made when it was released.
If I were to actually take the time to pen in all the corrections (which is
ludicrous), it would have to be on top of some the corrections that I
actually did pen in when 5.0 was released. Arity's refusal to provide new
documentation in the face of the fact that the manual that came with 5.0 is
now hopelessly out of date with their current product is outrageous. This
says nothing of the fact that the Arity 5.0 manual was poorly written and
error-ridden to an unbelievable level to begin with. I wrote and mailed a
reasonably toned letter of dissatisfaction to Meredith Bartlett (VP of
Marketting at Arity) two days before I learned that I was not going to get
any new manuals (which I hoped would clear up a few changes they made to
some proprietary predicates). Now, that I know I am not getting any new
documentation, I am outraged at what they have sold to me under what I
consider "false pretenses."
If any one else is similarly outraged at Arity, please write a letter to
them and say so. If anyone is interested in sending a group letter, please
let me know and I will coordinate such an effort. I am going to wait for a
response to all the questions I posed in my first three page letter to
Meredith before drafting a stronger letter of complaint.
--
Todd Ogasawara, U. of Hawaii
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