Unix horror stories

[Bill McGonigle]

On Aug 29, 2006, at 13:32, Randy Edwards wrote:

>  If one paid for a shoddy piece of software one is much more likely to
> complain -- they feel ripped off and most people bitch about being 
> ripped
> off.
>
>    But with free software, in many ways you're intimidated from 
> complaining
> because you didn't pay for the software.

I don't know - I remember a day a few months ago where I had a user's 
Outlook program eat its registry profile and took a couple hours to get 
back in operation (importing a .PST file sets all-time slow database 
algorithm records).  I didn't even bother complaining to Microsoft.

Later that day I found that the 'rewrap' program didn't do fixed 
indentation as I needed it to.  So I wrote to the author.  OK, I 
actually sent him a patch file.  He wrote back the next day saying he 
had posted a new version to the site with my patch.  But if I couldn't 
I probably would still send him a suggestion.

I typically get positive feedback from such mails.  Only once have I 
received a request for money (and I was even offering to buy the guy 
hardware!).

-Bill

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