Jon Elson wrote:
> Geoff Harland wrote:
> > But just in case anyone has a "tin ear", I do NOT think that defects like
> > that are "all right then" at all.
> > I'm not unduly bothered about that defect in particular, but it is still
> > all-too-typical of what Altium has
> > been shipping to its customers since the days when God was still in diapers.
>
> Although I would have much preferred Altium continued work on P99
> instead of always making a "New, Revolutionary,
> Totally recreated from the ground up" sofware package, I think I can see
> that they make a lot more money selling a
> new package than updating an old one. But, really, P99 is a ten-year
> old package, so I can understand their dropping
> support and improvements.
I don't dispute that it would be more profitable for Altium to sell new
versions of their software than to continue issuing SPs for earlier versions.
(And I am not suggesting that it is wrong for Altium to (attempt to) make a
profit from selling software to the public at large.)
However, I consider that their customers are also entitled to be provided with
software which is free from serious defects (ideally, totally defect-free of
course, but as that would not be realistic, and/or result in much higher
prices, then at least free of all serious defects), and in the event that any
serious defects actually are "shipped", then to have those rectified on an ASAP
basis.
"Signing on" for that attitude would be "doing the right thing" as far as their
customers are concerned, and it would also reduce (if not totally eliminate)
any cause for any of their customers to believe that Altium is in the business
of selling them snake oil. But over and above that, treating their customers to
that level of care and consideration would increase the likelihood that more of
them would want to "come back again" (in the form of updating to each new major
version of the application).
But instead of focusing on eradicating outstanding serious defects within each
SP released for each major version, Altium has been providing a lot of new
functionality instead. That would be less objectionable if there were no
still-outstanding serious defects at the time, and if the new functionality was
not also defective, and if previously provided functionality wasn't also
"broken" at the same time. And (not too surprisingly, given all of that) after
the last SP has been released (for each major version), many serious defects
are still outstanding. And because no more SPs have been released for any major
version after the initial version of the next major version has been released,
such defects end up being of a "permanent" nature, as far as each major version
is concerned.
I agree that it could be regarded as "over the top" for Altium to issue any
more SPs for Protel 99 SE, as it definitely is "long in the tooth" at this
point in time. However, if they actually did issue another SP for it, then it
could be regarded as sending a powerful message to their customers that they
actually do care for them. And even though many of their customers (currently
owning no later version than Protel 99 SE) would (still) *not* subsequently
upgrade to any later version, the attitude projected by Altium could still
result in *some* of those customers subsequently opting to upgrade, when they
would not *otherwise* have done so. So maybe the number of customers upgrading
could even be sufficiently large to cover the costs associated with tracking
down and subsequently rectifying the outstanding serious defects within Protel
99 SE, resulting in outcomes of not only doing the right thing for those
customers, but also doing no harm to (and
perhaps even improving) their bottom line.
But even if it could still be regarded as "over the top" for Altium to issue
any more SPs for Protel 99 SE, or for DXP (because of the period of time that
has lapsed since the last SP was released for each of those versions), the
still very buggy nature of AD2004 would be good grounds for at least one more
SP to be released for at least that version. As I have said before, it would be
one thing to not issue any further SPs for that version if there were no
outstanding defects of a serious nature - but that is definitely not the case.
And as such, there are arguably good grounds for owners of AD2004 to take a
class action suit against Altium (because of outstanding defects of a serious
nature), and as such, they have arguably had an undeserved break, due to those
customers not doing so (to date).
> > I honestly can't and don't understand why there aren't far more complaints
> > about how buggy Altium's
> > software is. However, as far as I am concerned, anyone who doesn't see fit
> > to complain about the
> > defects in their applications, but who is prepared to publicly defend them,
> > is an accessory to the
> > provision of crappy software, and is thus part of the problem.
> >
>
> I do NOT defend Altium, and have decided I will not buy anything else from
> them. I am still using P99,
> and will continue until something better comes along, or I need some feature
> that it can't supply.
I strongly suspect that you are far from alone. And I also strongly suspect
that for a substantial proportion of those customers who actually do upgrade,
they do so with a lot of ambivalence, because of Altium's form in breaking
functionality which had previously been provided.
Example (one of many): In Protel 99 SE, users can edit the sequence in which
printouts are actually printed (which is very useful if you want to create an
Acrobat file, and you want the sequence of printouts to match the sequence of
layers), by dragging the icons provided for each printout on an as-required
basis. That functionality has been "lost" in the following versions of DXP and
AD2004, so editing the sequence of printouts means having to delete any "out of
sequence" printouts and then redefining each of them (at the very end of the
prevailing sequence of printouts).
UUUUUGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That functionality has supposedly been restored in AD2006, but too bad for
anyone who hasn't upgraded to that version though.
(If you own a copy of the Acrobat application (rather than just the freeware
Acrobat file reader), it is possible to edit the sequence of pages within an
Acrobat file. But that application is not cheap, so anyone using any
freeware/shareware application that just creates Acrobat files (and which
doesn't also support editing the sequence of pages within such files) has still
been let down by Altium.)
> > It is public knowledge that many people are unhappy about Microsoft. I'm
> > not trying to start any flame
> > war on that matter, and/or which type of OS (Windows, Linux, or others)
> > that people should install on
> > their PCs, but at least MS continues to provide service packs and patches
> > for earlier versions of
> > Windows for quite some time after releasing following versions. (They
> > aren't still supporting NT 4.0,
> > but they still did so for some time after releasing following versions, and
> > AFAIK, they are still, for at
> > least the time being, continuing to support Windows 2000.)
>
> M$ litany of software problems is a bad joke, and if a car company made cars
> like that, there would be
> Attorneys General all over them. I mean when TV talk show hosts are making
> "blue screen" jokes and
> everybody gets them, it is pretty bad PR. On the other hand, that's why M$
> has 50,000 employees!
> Altium is a bit smaller.
"Altium" is supposedly a Latin word meaning "to grow large", but their efforts
to date have arguably made a mockery of that aspiration. But as CAD
applications are of a specialist nature and subsequently have a relatively
small market (unlike applications such as Word or Excel, for instance, or
products such as automobiles), Altium's efforts are not going to show up on the
radar of the public-at-large in the same way as MS (or GM) does. And if I had
to hazard a guess as to why Altium hasn't been bothered by lawsuits (so far),
it is probably because they have relatively few (large) corporate customers
(who would be more inclined to take serious offence to the quality of Altium's
software).
> > OTOH, each time Altium releases another major version, they stop releasing
> > SPs for the previous
> > major version. It would be one thing to not continue releasing SPs for the
> > previous version if the last
> > SP released for that version resulted in it being totally bug-free.
> > However, not only has that never
> > been the case, but the final versions of each major version still contain
> > *serious* defects, such as
> > those involving output (e.g. Gerber files and printouts).
>
> I would bet that Altium could not put together the pieces needed to recompile
> P99SE at this point.
Do you have anyone in mind as far as placing such a bet is concerned? Or any
idea of what odds you might be offered? :-)
But what else can I say on that particular matter? Competent corporations
always "back up" files of an important nature (and repeatedly), which in this
context would mean the relevant source code files, and any other files required
for that task.
So Altium "should" be able to recompile Protel 99 SE if they really wanted to.
(That said, in the event that they don't attempt to do that, it wouldn't
necessarily be because they can't, but because they don't see sufficient merit
in actually trying. But then I'm sure you know that.)
Then again, most companies wouldn't "ship" software which contains any
subfolder with a name of "Vaccum Tube Amplifier" (which was, and thus still is,
an ongoing "feature" of AD2004). So who knows whether they really could still
recompile Protel 99 SE? (Hopefully though at least they themselves know whether
or not they still could.)
> It would have been real nice if they released the source code to the public
> domain when they dropped
> it, but they would know it would come back as an open source project to BITE
> them!
>
> I have been working with an open-source CNC software project, and the amazing
> development, and
> the rapid fixing of bugs, by NO-PAID volunteers, is totally amazing!
> Jon
I fully agree that if they ever released any source code to the public domain,
then they would be shooting themselves in the foot. And even though many people
doubtless think that they have managed to do that on a regular basis anyhow, it
is still understandable that they would still want to keep their source code to
themselves.
That said, if they ever were to release their source code, then it is unlikely
that any truly serious defect would still be around any more than a month
later, as dozens/hundreds/thousands of pairs of eyes would have tracked down
the locations and causes of each such defect, and subsequently contributed the
changes necessary to rectify them.
But as long as Altium continue favouring new functionality over rectifying
outstanding defects, then they continue risking having their customers, and
would-be customers, looking at alternative CAD applications. And there are
various open-source freeware CAD applications, such as FreePCB (Windows), gEDA
(Linux), and KiCad (Windows or Linux or Mac), which are progressing in leaps
and bounds. So even though Altium are ahead, as far as functionality is
concerned, they really do need to wake their ideas up as far as treating their
customers is concerned. Because even if they manage to remain ahead of those
applications as far as functionality is concerned, the increasing functionality
and decreasing bugginess of those rivals means that they have the serious
potential to appeal to increasingly larger numbers of users - who don't
necessarily want all of the new functionality that Altium perceives as being of
interest and value to them (but who do want an
application which doesn't "bite" them in the form of mis-manufactured PCBs, in
turn due to serious defects).
Regards,
Geoff.
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