Microsoft preps 13 updates for August Patch Tuesday Microsoft is fuelling up 13 bulletins for release next week, including an update that guards against critical flaws in Internet Explorer. Another "critical" bulletin affects Windows server operating systems, and addresses a code-execution risk on unpatched systems. Also of note is an update restricted to newer versions of …
...easy to tell the developer missing the commercial realities of software development, or the developer who doesn't have to worry about his meal-ticket month by month.
That reality is that development actually has to finish before it can be sold, and once it is sold, should require *minimum* maintenance until it's OOL or out of contract.
A product that requires monthly patches, often patching the same files again and again, consuming thousands of man hours - per month - post-sale, is not a development success.
"A product that requires monthly patches, often patching the same files again and again, consuming thousands of man hours - per month - post-sale, is not a development success."
So by that standard there isn't a single OS or browser on the market that is "a development success".
Right then, sorted.
Correct. And they're not just "development failures" either. They're "commericial failures" too.
All that time spent...none of it being reclaimed through direct sales profit (only Opera are commerical IIRC). Firefox is different naturally, but being open-source has it's own issues and development standards.
Instead, those IE development man hours (which won't be cheap btw) get shunted into the Office, Server products and OS budgets, and you - the consumer or business - pay for it everytime you upgrade windows or Office. Think about that next time you upgrade - "I'm paying MS to fix products I didn't buy or maybe don't even use".
Now, I'm not saying post-release development should be avoided - it's inevitable, especially for critical patches. But take IE6 - how many patches were there in total, and how many were "critical"?
If IE was a car, and you'd had an average of 13 critical safety and other recalls* every month since 2001, you - as the consumer - would be pretty pissed off by now. Even if the car was free.
(*my made up figure btw)
Given that no OS or browser out there today can meet your standards for a development and commercial success, I have to wonder - what OS and/or browser (or other significant, consumer-facing software with wide-spread adoption) do you have to *your* credit that is a development and commercial success?
It's easy to sit in an ivory tower and decry the desolation and destruction around you, but it is an entirely different matter to actually clear the land and build a city that meets your own lofty criteria.
After installing a new distro of Ubunto (11.4) only 3 weeks ago, I have a message indicating 58 updates required. So, not much better in the alternative market although I concede there is little prospect of these "maintainers" recovering their costs from joe public, other than sales to big business. Must go, updates are in region of 600Mb....
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