Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!ncar!noao!arizona!gudeman
From: gudeman@arizona.edu (David Gudeman)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: When will Microsoft give us a *REAL WORLD* C Compiler
Message-ID: <5537@megaron.arizona.edu>
Date: 19 May 88 00:37:33 GMT
Organization: U of Arizona CS Dept, Tucson
Lines: 20

In article  <1466@microsoft.UUCP> markro@microsoft.UUCP (Mark Roberts) writes:
>...
>Finally we would like to say that we are committed to producing high quality,
>high performance products and to fixing all problems reported to us in a
>timely fashion.

But you don't give the fixes to the people who have already bought the
buggy software right?  Most programmers are aware that it is
impossible to get all bugs out of large software projects, and we
would hardly fault Microsoft for that.  But the issue you fail to
address, and the one which will keep me from ever buying a Microsoft
product, is the way you handle bug reports.  When a software product
(or any product for that matter) fails to meet specifications, the
seller is morally (and often legally) obligated to correct the problem
without charge.  All I have heard about Microsoft indicates that they
shaft their customers at every opportunity.  Microsoft is not the only
company that does this but that hardly serves as an excuse.

And they can't even claim that they can't afford to fix bugs for free.
The exorbitant rates they charge for their software would easily
support periodic updates.