Hi, A few comments on this thread:
It is difficult, and more often than not, impractical, to separate out bug fixes from feature enhancements. For example, if there are bugs in a certain area and requests for enhancements, it might be quicker to implement the enhancements and fix the bug together. Or it may simply be that a feature as designed really needs to be redesigned somewhat in order to improve it. Some people have their own definitions of a bug fix and a feature. Often a new feature is just as important to a customer in getting a job done as a bug fix. The new Distribution Builder is an example of this - its a major feature upgrade with a redesigned interface and additional functionality. Yet it fixes many bugs too. It simply wouldn't be possible to separate out the "bug fixes" in this upgrade and offer them as 2.x.x release upgrade, because the code was rewritten. We could do one or the other, not both. You may suggest that this is the exception rather than the rule, but in our experience it is the rule, and a straight "bug fix" which is not best solved by at least slightly enhancing a feature is the exception. So, you may suggest, fix the bugs that are separate and then move on to new features. But that's not really what most most people want - the areas we have been working on are being done in a strict priority order, and a new Distribution Builder for example, ranks higher than most other items and thus is in the next release. We could of course double all our prices across the board to pay for doing both things, but I suspect that this wouldn't be appreciated either. Obviously, we see a potential difficulty with people expecting free bug fixes which are mixed in with major new features. Both 2.2 and 2.3 have major new features and many enhancements. As such, we recently took the decision to end the confusion created by charging for individual releases, and move all our upgrade pricing over to one year upgrade packs. That way you'll get new features, bug fixes, enhancements and anything else we produce for a year for one low fee. Pricing will be set when we ship 2.2. As ever, if you think you need special treatment for some good reason, you can contact us directly and negotiate. Someone complained that we didn't release notes about 2.2. We haven't officially announced that release yet, so obviously we haven't published the release notes. Its worth noting that the vast majority of our customers work with Revolution just fine on a day to day basis and do not find the product overly buggy. Unlike many other companies, we currently make our bug database public. And of course, as with any tool of this complexity, there are real issues that do affect a number of customers and we're working on those in line with the schedule I have previously stated on this list. With regard to company communication and the suggestion that we implement additional levels to make it easier to communicate: the company already has a multi-user multi-level support tracking system which allows the right person to get and deal with your enquiry. When I referred to the length of time it takes to reply to emails, I was referring to email that bypassed the system we have in place, by being sent directly to me. It gets read and replied too, but it can take time. Finally, someone suggested that there is wording in our license that allows you to skip the next upgrade and pick any upgrade you choose as a free upgrade. That wasn't our intention when writing that license. However, as ever we will probably be willing to work something out with an individual customer if the contact us off list with specific circumstances that justify doing so. Kind regards, Kevin Kevin Miller ~ [EMAIL PROTECTED] ~ http://www.runrev.com/ Runtime Revolution - User-Centric Development Tools _______________________________________________ use-revolution mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.runrev.com/mailman/listinfo/use-revolution
