If they can't test it, they can't test it.
The only way to be sure that nothing gets left behind that worked
before is not to progress.
I don't think that your general expectations that nothing should break
and everything should be found is reasonable; however, since you did
report *this* issue there's no good excuse for them shipping without
addressing or at least attempting to contact you to verify it and/or
provide more information.
On Mon, 27 Mar 2000, you wrote:
| >Actually yours may not be one of them. They had to use a special kernel to
| >run
| >the GUI install and they don't have your CD drive. The only alternative is
| >a
| >drop-out to text mode *and * booting a different kernel. There are QA
| >issues
| >to address, and there is NO system for QA that is likely to work on their
| >development model, which is why I want to recruit you and others to put
| >together a proposed system for it.... But get over the idea that this CD
| >issue
| >of yours is a bug. Hardware gets left behind all the time.
| >
| Thankyou Thank you Thank you.
| You are the first person to give me an explanation to the problem since the
| release of O2.
|
| As for the QC\QA problem, I think software companies should look at the four
| D's; data, debug, develop, distribute.
| Mandrake does a pretty good job of collecting the necessary data for their
| product and I hope they pay attention to all of the other lists out there in
| order to keep from recreating other distribution's problems. They seem to be
| good at developing now that they have come out from under the Redhat shadow
| and I hope they continue to develop the software their customers are asking
| for with each new distribution. For example they added Blackbox, which I
| feel is one of the slimmest most dependable window managers available for
| Linux, to their distribution. The two problem areas for Mandrake seem to be
| in the debugging and distribution stages.
| They either don't have the manpower to do the necessary debugging or they
| are taking on the big 'APPLE' corporate mentality and telling us to take
| what they give us as far as HW compatability goes. I hope it's the first
| one. Then on top of this they may be overeagerly labeling there product as
| stable before it really is. Granted stability is relative in Linux and you
| can't carry old HW drivers forever in order to grow into a cutting edge
| distribution. But when something is dropped during the BETA release and they
| receive complaints about the problem, they should reincorporate the missing
| code by the 2nd post BETA release. Or in the world of Linux, give an ample
| explanation of the problem so that individual users can try to solve it for
| them. Instead, they gave the old 'we can't seem to recreate the problem on
| our testing machines', which IMHO, in the world of custom PC's equates to
| 'tough stuff'. This may be the wrong attitude.
| I'm starting to lose my train of thought on this so I will send this to you
| now and see what you think.
| Thanx,
| SA
| ______________________________________________________
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--
"Brian, the man from babbleon-on" [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Brian T. Schellenberger http://www.babbleon.org
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