On Fri, Oct 20, 2000 at 05:15:03PM -0400, Robin Hanson wrote:
> When talking with a student about explaining open
> source software, it occurred to me that reporting bugs
> in a software program could signal to the producer
> that one is a high volume user of the software. After
> all, the more you use it the more likely you are to
> find bugs. And if the producer price discriminates,
> they should then charge you more for the next update,
> or at least not offer you a discount.
> Anyone know if software companies price discriminate against people
> who send in complaints about bugs?
AFAIK, there is no price discrimination against reporting bugs,
but there is price discrimination against demanding bug-fixes,
which is very different.
You have a variety of contracts, with varying guarantees
with respect to bug-solutioning service.
The basic (lack of) service is the mere right to report bug,
with no guarantee of solution. For proprietary software,
often only official users are entitled to report bug.
Then, phone assistance during normal opening hours,
for a time-based fee, or for a yearly subscription.
Then, you can get insurance of a solution within 3 opening days,
then 1 opening day, then 4 opening hours,
then a given number of hours 24/7/365, opening or not.
Finally, you can get access an engineer from the company,
working with you at your office to help adapt the software to your needs.
That's the general idea. Every company has its own service packages.
The point I think you miss is that reporting a bug is GOOD
for the software provider, because a bug that isn't reported
is a bug that hurts the company's reputation nonetheless;
reporting it gives the company the opportunity to fix it,
or to prepare customers to avoid it and not complain about it.
So you shouldn't discourage people from reporting bugs.
On the other hand, prioritizing a bug fix induces a cost
to the software provider, that will thus try to make money out of it.
Of course, in the case of proprietary software companies living
on the copyright monopoly model of microsoft, while propagating
the myth that software is a product, and that service doesn't exist,
then the opposite is true: to Microsoft and monopolistic software vendors,
reporting bug is use of resources, and fixing bugs is no source of revenue.
Hence, Microsoft will indeed discourage bug reporting,
by providing less and less efficient support channels to end-users,
and promoting an attitude of guilt and lack of understanding among them.
"Our products are perfect"; "it's not a bug, it's a feature";
"if it doesn't work, it's because of what you have installed";
"if it doesn't work, don't try to understand:
you can't, even we can't; just reboot."
I've heard that with Microsoft, you indeed have to pay access
to advanced support channels, before you can hope to report a bug.
Actually, Microsoft externalizes most of its cost of supporting
individual end-users by demanding from the computer manufacturers
that THEY should take care of end-users.
Morality: monopolies are EVIL. Free market is GOOD.
Copyrights and patents are monopolies.
Free Software is a Free Market for services.
[ Fran�ois-Ren� �VB Rideau | Reflection&Cybernethics | http://fare.tunes.org ]
[ TUNES project for a Free Reflective Computing System | http://tunes.org ]
May your desire to be correct overcome your desire to have been correct
(which you were not, anyway). -- Far�
