Re: AN IMPORTANT MESSEGE FROM SYMBOLICS SOFTWARE SUPPORT

[Paul Pangaro <pan%athena.pangaro.dialnet.symbolics.com@RELAY.CS.NET>]

I respectfully ask that all those interested in software bugs and
fixes read the following and respond. Your opinions are important
during a phase when we (SLUG) again push to get some action on a
long standing issue: getting Symbolics to provide timely
information about the existence of, work-arounds for, patches for and
future fixes for known bugs as discovered by users (and Symbolics
developers too, presumably).

(1) A former President of Symbolics was a very strong supporter of
users telling Symbolics about bugs found. He said to me that it
was like your friend's telling you that you fly was down. He had a
high degree of interest in instrumenting a way to get bugs
responded to, and there were many conversations about how to get
his organization to provide a facility for users and Symbolics
alike to report, track, and announce the existence,
fixes/work-arounds for, and future repair of bugs in system
releases. E-mail of course must be the primary mechanism, for
timeliness. 

For whatever reason, this process went in circles inside of
Symbolics for 2 years without any meaningful response.

(2) Conversations with the current regime at Symbolics, especially
at the top, have indicated a similar desire to respond to users in
a timely and useful fashion with information about what the bug
is, how to avoid it, patches if available, and when/if it will be
fixed. I believe this interest is real and sincere and I have
operated with the idea that something would happen. 

However, expressed executive desire and instrumentation by
managers are clearly different. I believe I have personally been
patient (perhaps too patient) but now find the situation absurd
--- those of you who have seen recent e-mail on the topic can
judge for yourselves.  After 12 months of discussion (which after
all is in addition to the time mentioned in (1) above), again, we
are back to square one (defined as SLUG again being asked to
define its needs in this regard). We hope to have some better
sense of where we will end up in September, when the flurry for
IJCAI quiets down, and SMBX-East and SMBX-West can convene.

(3) If you are a user who desires the above discussed facility,
tell this e-mail list and anyone else that you know at Symbolics
about it. I realize that I run the risk of apathetic non-response
from you all; little response to this request will discredit
the idea we have fought all these years and the issue will be
truly dead. As President, however, I must trade off more
important with less important issues, and that distintion must
come, in part, from you.

Do you respond?


Best,
PANgaro