Adobe updates ACR; Lightroom to 1.4

I"m wondering how they don't find these bugs before they release this. Doesn't anybody look at it before the send it out?

 

no they do not, many of the software companies seem to have taken a cue from megabill, and that is cut your r&d dept out, only keep the minimum programmers on debugging, just enough to ensure the product will load and attempt to function, and let the customer debug on their dime and time, ie time spent on the phone, your call of course to a non 800 number, or to an 800 that diverts to some 3rd world middle of the night operation, and let rajeesh walk you through the code lines until it works, when you have enough of the bugs worked out, release an update/patch, repeat as many times as necessary

 

I'd think it would be harder to do it after the fact with consumer complaints and bad press. I think it would be better for them to just check for bugs first.

 

multinationals no longer care about public opinion or bad press, unless it's a lawsuit, it's cheaper than staff, even 3rd world staff

 

I like using open source, freeware or shareware. They all mean different things but I'm not entirely sure what means what.

 

Open source means that the source code for the software is freely distributed, and as such you are free to make your own modifications to the product if you wish. Even if you're not a programmer the open source ethic can still have benefits for the user. It can also have negative effects, it's not all roses, but I'm a big fan of open source. I've seen a lot of great work done via open source.

Freeware means the product is distributed without cost. Shareware means that the product is initially distributed without cost for users to test out, but if they continue to use it they're expected to pay for the right to do so. Also known as trialware. There are variations, sometimes a product is distributed in a limited form free to use by anyone for any length of time, but you have to pay to use the extra features.. there are often little to no clear cut boundaries.

As to Adobe's bug release...

As a computer gamer, just let me say that that blog post was ASTOUNDING. I'm used to entertainment software companies selling products that are CLEARLY unfinished and not fully functioning. Once they get it out the door they release a handful of half hearted patches that sometimes cause as many problems as they fix. Eventually either they abandon it in the interests of selling MORE unfinished code or else they finally get the product into an almost complete and working state and leave it there. And the users have been so brainwashed that they accept this sort of behavior and go to great lengths to thank the developers for giving them a partially working product.

Mind you Adobe sells products that cost multiple hundreds of dollars, entertainment software usually costs $50 or less (although that cost is rising, since console games have become absurdly expensive the computer game world is trying to match them). Users of that software has a right to expect more for their much larger sum of money.

The thing that sticks out in my mind is that a company like Electronic Arts is a MASSIVE company selling software to all corners of the globe. And the best support you can get from them is email support that takes several days and does nothing more than take the user through busy work that never fixes anything and seems primarily designed to make the user give up in disgust because the company has no real solution to their problem.

Whereas when I buy a game from a small developer, often one who doesn't work through a big name distributed like EA, I find considerably MORE support. That's right folks, the small companies with small budgets put more resources into support than the big boys. When I was desperately trying to get one game to work I actually had a REAL programmer who was on the design team working with me in a support forum. He expressed massive frustration, because it became clear that the problem was the copy protection that the distributer (the company responsible for selling the program, but people who had no part in actually making it) put into the game was preventing me from playing it. As with many of these cases, the solution for me was as simple as cracking the game to remove the copy protection, a process made almost instant by the efforts of worldwide hackers. Let me emphasize that I bought this game, I had to remove the copy protection because it was preventing a legitimate owner (ME!) from using it.



Wow... anyway.. my point was supposed to be that compared to what I've seen, this move by Adobe is NOTHING. I'm disappointed to hear them say that they're looking to release betas to the public and have them do all the work, but... at least publicly announcing them as betas is better than releasing official patches which don't work and then making the users wait another month or two before fixing the bugs that the last "final" patch created.

And a public mea culpa is itself refreshing compared to what I'm used to, with no representative of the distributors or the developers willing to show their face (even a digital persona) online. I'm used to the distributors having to have other people show up to relay bad news because no developer or official distributer rep would dare make a statement in the forums full of angry users.