[Info-vax] Layered products, the HP view !?!

[Dirk Munk]

bill at server3.cs.uofs.edu (Bill Gunshannon) wrote:
> In article <mm2fmf$6ca$1 at dont-email.me>,
> 	David Froble <davef at tsoft-inc.com> writes:
>> JF Mezei wrote:
>>> On 15-06-19 09:56, clairgrant71 at gmail.com wrote:
>>>
>>>> That was the intent. The big thing we did was fix a long-standing bug that preventing booting on a particular i4 blade memory configuration.
>>>
>>> When you guys announced you managed to do a build of 8.4 from the
>>> sources HP gave you, would it be correct to state that this included not
>>> only VMS but also all the layered products that you inherited that are
>>> still "alive" ?
>>>
>>> And and you did that first build from the sources you got from HP, I
>>> take it that that build would have included all those small fixes HP did
>>> but never released ?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> I believe that was already mentioned by Robert Brooks.
>>
>> Bugs get fixed, in the sources, but never sent out as patches and such,
>> other than to whomever filed the support request.  So, when you rebuild
>> the sources, all the fixes are there.
>>
>> As for knowing you have a problem, but not distributing the fix to users
>> other than the one who filed the support request, well, I find that
>> rather disgusting.  Why?  Because other users could spend significant
>> time trying to find out what's going wrong before filing a support request.
>
> And that also ignores the fact that those other users, if paying for
> support, are actually paying for software taht is as bug-free as is
> possible.  Apparently that's not what they are getting.  Wonder how
> the courts would look upon this?
>
> bill
>

Those fixes can also be quick and dirty fixes for that specific 
customer, and a real fundamental fix requires more time and programming. 
Then it has to wait for a new release.