Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!mcsun!ukc!dcl-cs!aber-cs!emerald!pcg From: pcg@emerald.cs.aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) Newsgroups: comp.unix.i386 Subject: Re: ISC 2.0.2 and VP/IX Dos Emulation Message-ID: Date: 20 Nov 89 12:09:12 GMT References: <240@hdchq.UUCP> <36515@ism780c.isc.com> <290@minnie.UUCP> Sender: pcg@aber-cs.UUCP Organization: Coleg Prifysgol Cymru Lines: 59 In-reply-to: diamond@hdchq.UUCP's message of 17 Nov 89 16:13:48 GMT In article <290@minnie.UUCP> diamond@hdchq.UUCP (Bill Diamond) writes: This is one of the most inutterably stupid ideas I've ever heard. Why don't you imagine the scenarios with which we, your clients are faced. "No problem Mr. CEO, just try unplugging your keyboard then plug it back in". Uh-huh. I like my job. I want to keep my job. My company demands top performance from me for each dollar. If I were your CEO I would fire you straight away. If your company demands the best from you, why are you using any software product that is explicitly described as not guaranteed fit for any purpose, not merchantable, etc...? Why are you risking the company's dollar on something that it must use at its own risk, without knowing it? I demand top performance for the several thousands of dollars I have invested in your product. If I were your CEO I would hold you accountable for investing thousands of company dollars in products about which the suppliers, from AT&T onwards, are not prepared to make any representation at all, and not telling me; actually deluding me that I should expect everything to work smoothly. How amused will be your CEO to learn that the several thousands of dollars invested give your company a right to replacement of a set of floppies should they prove physically damaged! Can you imagine your CEO face when you tell him that all those thousands of dollars are invested in products that come from the equivalent of a garage sale? And when you tell him that this is the industry standard, and that you have misled him by not telling him the vital business information that all the computer software (and much hardware) you use comes like that? If I were the CEO of your company I could actually live with the idea that this software, about which suppliers make fantastic claims about the high level of QA they make you pay for, is used entirely at the company's risk (CEOs of oil companies do authorize multimillion dollar expenditures for wildcat drilling, but they get very annoyed indeed if material facts as to the risks are not represented to them), but I would want to have a practical idea of the risk, or at least I would want to know it does exist. If I were the CEO of your company I sure would not want to see around me a guy like you that evidently has witheld from me this vital piece of business information, as it is *me*, not you, that has the executive's responsibility to assess risk and decide whether it is worth taking. And I would be very cross that you had not even told me that I should assess the risk. Let your CEO read the "warranties" and "licenses" of the software and hardware you have bought, tell him to take them *literally* and try to find a good excuse for not having told him before. -- Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk@nsfnet-relay.ac.uk Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg@cs.aber.ac.uk