> From: Brian Mathis [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
[...]
> Have you just chosen to ignore the fact that the 3.5 ROM was available
> many months before any device was released? If so, that would be your
> fault. The OS 3.5 argument has no bearing on this discussion.
I was using the Palm OS 3.5 example solely to demonstrate that a new OS
introduces new bugs and compatability issues. Palm did an admirable job with
OS 3.5 specifically because they made the ROM available to developers
beforehand. I'm sorry if there was a misunderstanding, I don't want to
criticize Palm for doing things well in the past. :)
> We're not talking about a new OS, we're talking about the
> same old thing
> in a new case (pretty much). For new hardware, it might cause some
> issues, but, not being a hardware vendor, I really doubt that
> knowing 2
> weeks ago would've had a large impact on new products.
[...]
It is exactly the "pretty much" that means everything to software. People
familiar with software quality assurance and testing know that /any/ changes
can and will introduce bugs and incompatabilities. The only way to know that
there won't be fatal problems with a particular program is to try it out.
All that I, as a software developer, would've needed from Palm is an M100
ROM image and release notes that describe it.
If Palm is concerned about leaks of new features, they can limit the
information provided to just the ROM image, and they can require an NDA from
developers before releasing even that much to a developer. In my experience,
this is a standard practice in the software industry.
-Bob Whiteman
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