SGI responses

[Reinhard Doelz]

Hi, 
just a few (very critical) words on the praising of SGI's responses...

1.) I agree that the response on bug reports is (mostly) such quick that 
    I don't think that there is a more efficient method available.
2.) I agree that people at SGI try to do their best, and they do it very
    hard. They are friendly and ask questions to nail the problem down.
3.) I agree that my programs are not bug-free (but I don't sell them either).

* B U T * 

I am afraid that bug reports are necessary & effective, and the fixing of bugs
is another story! Once you've encountered ^a problem, it makes you happy that 
SGI is able to reproduce the bug. But this does not at all mean that your 
problem is solved nor that a workaround is provided! E.g., 

> Authorizing-Users: Mark Callow <sgi!msc%ramoth.SGI.COM at ucbvax.berkeley.edu>
> 
(Stuff deleted.)
>
>In other words, this is a bug in the GL.
>
>We are planning to fix the GL so you can use graphics from multiple
>shared-processes (sproc threads).  This is probably typical of the
>problems we will uncover in that work.  You can expect the problem to
>be fixed though I don't know when.
>
>Unfortunately I can't think of a workaround.  Perhaps the GL experts can
>help.

At least that means that they are aware of it ...  
My problems went the same way: bug reported, bug accepted, promises to fix it 
and then ... black hole.

I am afraid that there are so many bugs that SGI is just too small (or just 
doesn't employ enough people) to get around this problem. On the VAXes, the 
introduction of VMS 5.0 went fairly smoothly because the product has been 
tested carefully, and admittedly DEC is slightly bigger than SGI is.
I agree that I like to get new products as soon as they're available, but if 
the staff of SGI is too small to keep tracking all the problems, I suggest a 
discount system for bug reports: per bug 5 -20% off the maintenance, depending
on severity.

Reinhard 
(don't flame me too much - I am suffering from an IRIS since 8 months).