Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!ogicse!oregon!jmeissen
From: jmeissen@oregon.oacis.org (John Meissen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Lattice, er, Lettuce strikes again
Message-ID: <425@oregon.oacis.org>
Date: 19 Mar 90 19:38:48 GMT
References: <1990Mar16.211641.6821@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu> <424@oregon.oacis.org> <458@mohawk.cs.utexas.edu> <1990Mar17.213230.2326@mintaka.lcs.mit.edu>
Organization: Oregon Advanced Computing Research, Beaverton, OR
Lines: 53


 >2) Actually, Mr. Beyerdorffer, I did ask nicely for a set of 5.05 masters,
 >   since I know of 5 (6 including you) who have had problems and have just 
 >   had Lettuce ship them the 5.05 masters.  However, the person in
 >   Technical Stupidity that I talked to told me that doing so is out of the
 >   question and that my only option is to wait 2+ weeks until a fix is out.
 >   I then asked him if I could be sent a copy of the GOOD 5.04 patch.
 >   He told me no - that I was stuck with the bad 5.04 patch and therefore
 >   a useless 5.05 patch for at least 2 weeks.

 >   Now, please tell me - who is the bonehead?


Given your attitude, I probably would have been tempted to tell you the same
thing. Obviously someone with your lack of maturity has never learned that
you accomplish much more with cooperation than confrontation. My statement
stands unchanged. You, sir, are a bonehead.

  >  If the Lettuce Technical Stupidity department and Customer Screwovers
  >  are clueless as to what is going on, then they deserve whatever flames
  >  I care to send their way.

My closing point remains the same. You have no right to flame about something
you got for free. Lattice is giving you free support and free updates. You
didn't pay for any of it. Obviously you don't appreciate it, either.

The people at Lattice bend over backwards to support their users. Carlotta has
three or four people at most to help her deal with 70,000 - 100,000* users of
several incarnations of the MS-DOS C compiler, the Amiga C compiler, a half-
dozen or more cross compilers running on everything from VAX to Sun, an RPG
compiler, word-processing and database software, and miscellaneous utilities
and specialized libraries. She has to coordinate releases, updates, fixes,
production, and track problem reports and enhancement requests for all of them,
dealing with internal tech staff, tech people at SAS, and outside developers.
Lattice tech support runs a 24hr BBS with at least 4 incoming lines, and is
accessible on BIX and other nationwide networks. And they monitor and respond to
these on a DAILY basis. In addition to all that they're usually available most
of the day for free telephone access.

Frankly I'm not surprised that things sometimes get screwed up. As I said before,
this is a fact of life that most of us have learned to live with. However, given
the cost of this service to the user I think Lattice is doing a commendable job.

Obviously you have never been in a position of having to deal with markets, users,
and product issues. But let me tell you this, if someone does you a favor, you
don't poke them in the eye.

I would kindly suggest that you pull your head out of your ass, and that you do
it soon.

john-

* figures approximate, since I haven't worked there for over a year.