[comp.unix.sysv386] Vendor Bug Reporting Policy

jtc@motcad.portal.com (J.T. Conklin) (02/19/91)

In article <1991Feb18.175533.12275@kithrup.COM> sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) writes:
>SCO managed to get it working before their first release; AT&T and Dell
>managed to get it "fixed" for their second release.  All without having to
>redesign an enormous program written entirely in assembly.  Or would you
>rather that the fpu emulator have more bugs introduced?

Was the existance of this bug passed up the chain of command to AT&T and 
then distributed to all other sysv386 vendors, or did SCO, Dell, and AT&T
keep it to themselves.  If so, I consider SCO, Dell, and AT&T as much at
fault as ISC, ESIX, Bell Tech, and Microport.

Seriously, are bug reports/fixes passed back to AT&T or do vendors have
some sort of bogus attitude that "bug fixes are propritary as they give
us an edge over our competition."

	--jtc

-- 
J.T. Conklin    jtc@motcad.portal.com, ...!portal!motcad!jtc

sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan) (02/19/91)

In article <1991Feb19.002252.15194@motcad.portal.com> jtc@motcad.portal.com (J.T. Conklin) writes:
>Was the existance of this bug passed up the chain of command to AT&T and 
>then distributed to all other sysv386 vendors, or did SCO, Dell, and AT&T
>keep it to themselves.  If so, I consider SCO, Dell, and AT&T as much at
>fault as ISC, ESIX, Bell Tech, and Microport.

Uhm... AT&T gave out 3.2.1 to all of its source customers (as far as I know;
everyone's comments [including some people from at&t] in this group seem to
indicate that is the case); Dell, at least, used the AT&T 3.2.1 solution
(whatever it is).  AT&T may have gotten wind of it from SCO; I don't know.
As far as I'm concerned, AT&T acted properly, and SCO does not have any
compulsion (legally, at least, and probably ethicly) to give value added
work (which included bug fixes) back to AT&T.  After all, SCO pays AT&T for
code, not vice-versa.

-- 
Sean Eric Fagan  | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it;
sef@kithrup.COM  |  I had a bellyache at the time."
-----------------+           -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_)
Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.