Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!usc!wuarchive!hsdndev!spdcc!tauxersvilli!alphalpha!nazgul From: nazgul@alphalpha.com (Kee Hinckley) Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo Subject: Re: APRs (FLAME ON) Message-ID: <1991Apr13.200223.18061@alphalpha.com> Date: 13 Apr 91 20:02:23 GMT References: <9104082143.AA24021@pan.ssec.honeywell.com> <9330013@hpfcso.FC.HP.COM> Distribution: comp Organization: asi Lines: 38 In article (Glenn Parker) writes: > 1) Specify a _date_ by which the problem would be fixed. > > 2) Specify a maximum number of releases that would follow before the > problem was fixed, i.e. "Fixed within two releases" or "Fixed in > the next release." ... >There's no disguising the fact that the only thing "Fixed in a future >release" says is "Don't call us, we'll call you." That's certainly not >what I want to hear from a technical support organization. > >Of course, "Fixed in a future release" is infinitely better than "Performs >to specification," which (in some cases I have read about on >comp.sys.apollo) is the purest form of BS (bureaucrat-speak). That's great in concept. But when I got a bug report I a) usually didn't know when it was going to get fixed (you've got to schedule these things, and the schedule isn't easily predictable at the time you handle the APR) and b) had no idea which release it will go out in. (Release get added an subtracted all the time. SR9.5 was a major release with a minor number because too much had been promised for SR10. The engineer who answer's your bug would be foolish to ever mention a number of releases.) Given that situation, what do you expect? Also further consider that the words you see are often not written by the engineer who replied. These things get edited before they hit the streets, and things like "We're never going to fix your stupid bug" :-) often get turned into something more politic but less true. -- Alfalfa Software, Inc. | Poste: The EMail for Unix nazgul@alfalfa.com | Send Anything... Anywhere 617/646-7703 (voice/fax) | info@alfalfa.com I'm not sure which upsets me more: that people are so unwilling to accept responsibility for their own actions, or that they are so eager to regulate everyone else's.