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SvenC
Tomato Guru
Germany
339 Posts |
 Posted - Apr 10 2005 : 10:00:35 AM
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Hi SBrennecke,
the company I work for also wants to make money and has to pay the employees. We take about 20% from the initial product price per year to give support to our customers. This leads to pay the the full product price every 5 years compared to the 2 years of WT.
So its not so much to get everything for nothing but a little (bugfixes) for a little (support fee) and more features for more money  |
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selmo
Junior Member
19 Posts |
Posted - Apr 10 2005 : 5:39:19 PM
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You say socialist whining, I say important feedback from their loyal established customer base regarding support policy changes. tomayto, tomahtoe (whole, that is)
current-users WT()
{
if (operate_as_past_and_feared_planned)
{
NULL << reportedbugs;
unwanted updates = new bugs [many];
old_bugs_not_fixed += bugs_from_new_unwanted_features;
for (;;)
{
GetMoney (NULL);
customers--;
if (fedup)
return unhappy_customer;
}
}
if (listen_to_feedback)
{
if ((new features) && (want_features)) money++;
else FixOldBugsFirst();
customers++;
return happy_customer;
}
} |
Edited by - selmo on Apr 10 2005 5:48:53 PM |
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ether
Tomato Guru
USA
130 Posts |
Posted - Apr 11 2005 : 12:00:27 PM
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quote:
Originally posted by selmo
You say socialist whining, I say important feedback from their loyal established customer base regarding support policy changes. tomayto, tomahtoe (whole, that is)
current-users WT()
{
if (operate_as_past_and_feared_planned)
{
NULL << reportedbugs;
unwanted updates = new bugs [many];
old_bugs_not_fixed += bugs_from_new_unwanted_features;
for (;;)
{
GetMoney (NULL);
customers--;
if (fedup)
return unhappy_customer;
}
}
if (listen_to_feedback)
{
if ((new features) && (want_features)) money++;
else FixOldBugsFirst();
customers++;
return happy_customer;
}
}
Exactly. |
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Ondrej Spanel
Senior Member
40 Posts |
Posted - Apr 14 2005 : 02:13:58 AM
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quote:
Originally posted by weshunt
It seems a couple years ago fixes got made, but lately I've lost heart in reporting bugs, because not only are they going unfixed, they are going unanswered.
My two cents:
I understand a decision with paid product support and I have no problem with it (I think in past it was actually similar - when a major upgrade was out, you had to to pay for the upgrade, like when upgrading from VA 6 to VA .NET).
What I am however not happy about is the fact bugs are not fixed - I also gave up reporting bugs or, as even the ones which were confirmed were often not fixed.
My conclusion is: I see no problem with paid support, as long as bugs are really fixed and problems solved. If I see no indication this is the way (and I currently do not see it), I see no reason to pay for support, just to get a Tip of the day.
(And make no mistake: I am writing this post not because I hate VAX, but because I love it).
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Edited by - Ondrej Spanel on Apr 14 2005 02:14:58 AM |
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LarryLeonard
Tomato Guru
USA
1041 Posts |
Posted - Apr 14 2005 : 10:52:10 AM
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How can developers - developers! - not understand that time and money are finite? Do you really think WT doesn't want to fix bugs. Hello? There's a new IDE coming, and - even though I'm personally sure it will suck - even I can see from a business standpoint that VAX *must* be ready for it. How can any rational person be suprised that bug fixes are slowed or even stopped while work for the new IDE ramps up? Everyone please stop and think before posting any more foolishness like this.
Do I wish they'd fix more bugs? Sure - I probably have more bugs pending than anyone but Uniwares (and a few others). But someday, my boss will force me to use the new IDE, and I'll be glad then that VAX is available.
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Edited by - LarryLeonard on Apr 14 2005 11:09:29 AM |
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willdean
Tomato Guru
134 Posts |
Posted - Apr 14 2005 : 1:07:25 PM
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Well, *I* don't have any problem with the finite nature of time or money, but WT have gone about things very strangely in the last few months. For ages we get no bug fixes (there used to be a regular trickle of these), then we get a bizarre, unasked-for feature (tip of the day) - which prompted the first bug-fix for ages - to fix a problem with the new feature.
Then we get a 'that's all folks' message, apparently telling us that we're now going to have to pay for unspecified future releases - presumably the bug-fixes we've been waiting for.
I'm quite happy to pay for upgrades - VA is worth far more to me than I've ever paid for it, and WTS seem to have done huge amounts of development without asking for more money in the last couple of years.
But it would have been a MILLION times more sensible to have announced a great new release - with 300 bugs fixes and supporting (or upgradable to) VS2005, and AT THAT POINT said 'but we're afraid you've got to pay for it'.
Doing it the way they have, at the tail end of a bug-fixing hiatus and an absurd feature debacle with no sign of anything better on the horizon is just daft, and the reactions here from some very loyal customers illustrate that.
If they're not critically short of developers and/or cash, they they didn't ought to act in a fashion which makes it look like they are.
Will |
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ether
Tomato Guru
USA
130 Posts |
Posted - Apr 14 2005 : 1:12:10 PM
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Lary, we are supporting software that is well over 5 1/2 years old. And guess what, we don't charge for that support. We continue to develop new features for it as well. The new customers pay the same price as the old, and the old get the upgrade for free. Only when we bump a major version number do we charge for the upgrade. And even then, we still go back and fix bugs in the old version separate from the new. It's called taking care of your customers.
New sales brings in new money to continue developing new features and fixing old bugs in old versions. If you want old customers to upgrade, you treat them well and continue to support the old software with patches to fix bugs until they are ready to move to the new version. There are a lot of developers out there that do this. This is not a new idea. For crying out loud, even Microsoft does this. I don't understand why WT can't as well. |
Edited by - ether on Apr 14 2005 1:13:03 PM |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19014 Posts |
Posted - Apr 14 2005 : 3:19:25 PM
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before i begin this post is entirely unofficial, and completely my own views on this situation  i just don't want people thinking i somehow get to speak for WT
the timing of this announcement is not all that brilliant, i think we can all agree on this.
beyond this i can see some logic to adding the tip of the day feature. just look around at the number of new forum users who pop up and have very little idea of the full scope of VAX. from this perspective adding a tip of the day feature does make sense, since it points out things most users probably do not know.
the next argument is probably "this is taking resources away from bug fixes".
hands up how many people here could write an IDE plugin to do the sort of things VAX does.
now hands up how many people here could write a tip of the day window.
from the outside the tip of the day window looks like the sort of job you can give to a more junior programmer. at a guess the bulk of the work is in the actual tips themselves, which don't sound like the sort of thing most programmers write.
so it is possible that the tip of the day had virtually no impact on getting VA ready for .NET 2005 or bug fixing.
again the timing for releasing the tip of the day is not brilliant but that is not really a hanging offense.
as a passing point builds 1299 and 1301 have both been released since the tip of the day, and neither relate to the tip of the day.
right, now onto the "fun" part of this post
several people have said "why not fix bugs in the old version". this is a perfectly reasonable question, i myself have asked this.
if you work somewhere where this happens, how many active versions do you maintain and bug fix?
i once had the following educational experience with bug fixing multiple versions. we have a reporting tool, which was composed of about 12 interlined small UNIX programs. all of the code was UNIX C, stored in a CVS repository.
so far so good. on this particular day there were 5 versions of this tool. the oldest 3 were with various customers (some of whom were very bad at installing upgrades), one was in testing and one was for development.
each version of the code had been changed, but this job had been given to different programmers, at different times, one bug or feature at a time, with different bugs or features addressed in different versions.
then we (actually I) had to do some serious changes to the program to bring it up to the latest official government standard 
this involved changing about 20 different .c files, scattered across 12 different subdirectories.
all was fine until i was suddenly told i had to merge this work back into the other 4 branches.
vim diff mode is a wonderful tool, far better than most windows diff programs i have used. but it is not magic, and it does not understand code. so for each changed file, in each branch i had to pick through every change, and work out how to port it back to the older version.
it took me over a day, working solid on this and only this to sort out this mess.
my personal opinion, based on experience, maintaining more than 2, or at most 3 versions of the same code quickly becomes a nightmare. if you can easily and successfully do this with more than 3 versions i would love to know how.
so, how many versions of VAX would be required to fix bugs in old versions and add new features (eg support for .NET 2005) for the latest version? i once tried to answer this question and did not like the answer i came up with.
i help out on this forum, more bug fixes from whole tomato would make my life a lot easier. i have outstanding bug reports myself i want to see fixed.
the unfortunate truth is that it is a lot easier to criticize than it is to offer helpful suggestions on how to resolve this situation. as Larry says simply ignoring .NET 2005 is not an option. yet supporting this has to be done without breaking support for VC6, .NET 2002 and .NET 2003. rather a tall order i suspect.
i agree with the "we want bug fixes" cry, i do. can we please give WT a few months and see how things develop? surely they deserve the benefit of the doubt. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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SvenC
Tomato Guru
Germany
339 Posts |
Posted - Apr 14 2005 : 4:30:19 PM
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Hi feline,
I think I wrote that somewhere at the beginning of this thread:
I find it totally correct to switch over to a new major release and demand for and upgrade fee to use it. If the former version is stable enough (looking at its main functions) than stop developing it further.
This is like VA 4.1 was at some point announced to not being developed any further and we had to upgrade to VA6. At some point VA6 and later VA7 have been made "read only" and we switched to VAX10.
When I switch to VAX 11/12... then I will do that on purpose and will pay the upgrade fee. But looking at the major version cycle of VAX then I doubt that there will be a major version every year. But the support time is limited to one year. *That* makes me wonder.
Even if WT is not going to deliver a new major version with new features for three years (take any number of years greater 1 of your choice) I cannot get the bug fix for "my" version which is still the "current" version 366 days after I bought that version.
Supporting VS2005 as VAX host is definitely something which I'd call a new major release. So if we would have been told: "When we release the first version which does support VS2005 (let's call it VAX11 or VA XI) then you will have to pay an upgrade fee and we will stop developing VAX because we think for most users VAX it is stable enough (yes, we know template support could be better, but that is a difficult one)" then I would assume that there would have been much less frustration and much more understanding among the customers.
I hope that I could make my point clear so that I do not sound like just another whining socalist
Bye,
SvenC |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
19014 Posts |
Posted - Apr 15 2005 : 2:32:04 PM
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that is a good point
i am in the unhelpful situation of seeing this from both sides. as a customer i am not thrilled with this news, but i can understand the reasons for the action. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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Vectrex
Junior Member
Australia
11 Posts |
Posted - Apr 28 2005 : 01:20:47 AM
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sorry to revive this, but I think Stevens idea would solve everything :D
"...here at ClickTracks, we let all users download the latest version, and they therefore get all bug fixes for free, but the new features don't appear if they haven't purchased a subscription."
so just work on new version and grey out features beyond what the licence key allows. So you guys only work on one version and old users don't have to pay extra for bug fixes, plus the greyed out options would be a good advertisment to upgrade  |
www.similarmusic.com - alternate electronic music interfaces. |
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Stephen
Tomato Guru
United Kingdom
781 Posts |
Posted - Apr 28 2005 : 11:13:12 AM
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| I also said: "This works well for us, although I realise it may not be practical for Whole Tomato's code." |
Stephen Turner
ClickTracks http://www.clicktracks.com/
Winner: ClickZ's Best Web Analytics Tool 2003 & 2004
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WannabeeDeveloper
Tomato Guru
Germany
775 Posts |
Posted - May 13 2005 : 5:07:09 PM
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Hacking deeply into an IDE at almost every of it's main features (code editing) is definitely not the kind of application that allows easy "greying out" functionality.
How do you "grey out" enhancement for VS 2005 (which, for example, is one of the "new" features of Visual Assist)? An annoying Messagebox saying "Sorry, your Version of Visual Assist X is not for Visual Studio 2005" coming up at every start of the IDE?
Doubtful.
I would de-install that kind of annoying tool as soon as it finished painting that Messagebox, for sure!
The WT Team chose to fix bugs and put in new features instead of wasting time disabling features. They will make sure that Visual Assist is usable. If you want support for more than 1 year, you gotta pay after that year of bugfixes and new features. Your current stays intact, it will not cease to work after 1 year!
So if you're happy with your version, you won't have to pay anything more...
I doubt that the majority of people "re-newing" their license do that because they urgently need bugfixing.
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Edited by - WannabeeDeveloper on May 13 2005 5:13:02 PM |
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