Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!seismo!sundc!pitstop!sun!amdcad!ames!elroy!aero!sm.unisys.com!otto!rex
From: rex@otto.lvsun.com (Rex Jolliff)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st
Subject: Re: Bugs in new BETA ROMS?
Message-ID: <679@otto.lvsun.com>
Date: 5 Sep 88 01:06:54 GMT
References: <561@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu>
Reply-To: rex@otto.lvsun.com (Rex Jolliff)
Distribution: na
Organization: Las Vegas Sun
Lines: 71

In article <561@accelerator.eng.ohio-state.edu> (news) writes:
[ a whole lotta talk about Mr. Drapal making a ''harmless'' statement about
  a bug in the new beta roms, and how atari has ''spewed out large amounts
  of lawyer-speak'' to try and ''silence him as fast as possible, and in the
  worst possible way'' ]
>
>I do not want to make or imply a statement of condonement or
>condemnation of Mr. Drapal's methods and style of communication; I can
>envision scenarios in which he would be perfectly justified doing what
>he is doing, and I can see circumstances under which his actions would
>be very unethical.  

After heading what Atari and Simon Poole had to say, I don't see any way
in which Mr. Drapal could be justified doing what he is doing.  Either he
has an illeagal copy of the ROMs (or the disk based version), or he
breached his contract (or at least his promise) with Atari about not 
talking publicly about bugs in the beta roms.  Either way that was not at
all ethical.

>Since I do not know the background, I will not
>make judgements.  

well it's a little late for that.  I'd say that you're first eight or ten
sentences sounded pretty judgemental to me.

>However, ethical or not, Mr. Drapal's communications
>allege bugs in both the beta-ROMs and in Atari's development methods.

You're absolutely right, and it was none of Mr. Drapal's business to do so.
As others have said,  one of the main purposes of the beta test is to
determine what bugs have not been found at implementation time.  I believe
that Atari is perfectly justified in keeping their PRE-RELEASE bugs to
themselves if they want to, especially when their current reputation in that
respect is not at it's best.  Whether Mr. Drapal stole the beta roms, or
simply broke his promise with Atari doesn't matter. What does matter is
that Mr. Drapal deliberately damaged Atari's reputation, however tarnished
it might already be, and you seem to be in support of that.

>... Yet, Atari representatives seem unwilling to do much
>more than publish statements synonimous to ``Of course this is all
>unfounded.''  I find this very disturbing.

Atari representatives responded by stating that the bugs Mr. Drapal talked
about will be fixed in the release version (in other words, the new roms
will read IBM disks).

>I know it is very difficult to remain calm when someone is shouting in
>your face (and I won't claim to always, or even most of the time, be
>able to do that), but when you are the company mouthpiece (no slur
>intended, quite the contrary) you have to try and do that, or your
>customers will get restless. ...

I think that Atari's response to Mr. Drapal's nonsense was written in a
sufficently calm style.

>Rob Carriere
>The above are my opinions and feelings on the matter discussed, they
>should not in any way be attributed to or associated with, The Ohio
>State University, its College of Engineering or the Department of
>Electrical Engineering.



-- 

Rex Jolliff  (rex@otto.UUCP, {utah-gr, psivax, ihnp4, rutgers}!otto!rex)
The Sun Newspaper -            |Disclaimer:  The opinions and comments in
Nevada's Largest Daily Morning | this article are my own and in no way
Newspaper                      | reflect the opinions of my employers.
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
What happened to our superior space program?