It seems that protel is going M$ way. They want us to pay for their bugs. If someone wants to pay for the technical support it's their choice, and that's fair, as Protel has to employ people to provide the service. Bug fixes, though, should be distributed free, as it has been case so far, as this is not a service. They should be obligated to provide functional product for the money we pay. This works in any other industry and should work in SW industry as well. They have to assume responsibility for their work. They should show some respect to users as well, as we help them fix their code, too (see dxp beta testing). Why don't we charge them for our time and effort?
Igor -----Original Message----- From: Brian Sherer [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]] Sent: Thursday, 6 June 2002 8:03 AM To: Protel EDA Forum Subject: [PEDA] Protel / MSoft My personal reservation to Altium's new pricing structure is that both Microsoft and Protel have historically used a "Toss it and catch it" model for software development: Write the code and release it with known bugs, and repair such bugs as become negative sales issues. No other type of product that I am aware of survives introduction with known defects, because they're forced to observe product liability laws. Until we have legislation requiring product performance to a level of competency similar to that of, say, an electric toothbrush, we're going to be subjected to software requiring six Service Patches to reach utility. Perhaps XP is much more stable than earlier flavors of Microsoft, but it has the same odor: "Use and maintain XP, or soon all the expensive Microsoft products you've been supporting for all these years will be useless." Altium's brave new world has the same feel. 99SE is already a powerful tool inspite of it's problems, and for my work, the mechanics of layout is no longer a major item in the critical path. Second, and more importantly, I suspect that not all patches to the latest product will be released before our "free" support period runs out, leaving me to pay $1600/Yr for bug removal. I don't feel this is acceptable in a package costing $8000. Any comments? Brian Foothill Services LLC * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * To post a message: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * To leave this list visit: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/leave.html * * Contact the list manager: * mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] * * Forum Guidelines Rules: * http://www.techservinc.com/protelusers/forumrules.html * * Browse or Search previous postings: * http://www.mail-archive.com/[email protected] * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
