Re: [ql-users] Software pirates in our midst?

[Roy Wood]

In message <00a401c287fe$d067c620$4f6887d9@asusone>, dndsystems1 <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes

D&D, according to their adverts, are selling a patched version.

This is precisely what Wolfgang is striving to avoid.

You're not still on about that are you, I can't belive it. Look at it
like this there are 2 versions of 2.98, the first was flawed, the
second was fixed. The second version makes the Q60 behave like other
platforms _adding_ to uniformity across platforms. The first version
makes the Q60 behave like nothing else because it is wrong.

You seem to deliberately want to misunderstand the concepts here. Your 'patched version' made my Q40 crash. It was, therefore, not fully correct either. Had you taken the trouble to become resellers and had you wanted to you could have submitted the patched code to Wolfgang and had it tested and incorporated into the system. You did none of these things and you made no attempt to find out why it crashed my Q 40 at Hove. 'It works on the machine I am selling so that is all I need to know' is not good enough if you are to lay any claim to be part of the system. There have been many occasions where users have reported things to me that crashed on their system and worked on mine but I always made the effort to try to find out why. This is called support. If you patch a version of SMSQ/E and distribute it will get out to other systems because we are all in communication (mostly) and other people will try it out on other machines and then......chaos. You could be saying there has to be a version of SMSQ/E specially for the Q60. If so you must discuss this with Wolfgang.

As you well know there has been more than 1 version of SMSQ/E with the
same version number on a number of occasions. You will have seen new
versions created at workshops for some reason but the version number
was not incremented, these were probably bug fixes.

No version of SMSQ/E for any platform other than QPC2 was created for release at a workshop. TT would never be left alone long enough to do it. There have been tweaks done at workshops but these were not distributed to the general public.

You have supplied
different versions of SMSQ/E with the same v. number to customers. I
know this from the QL subgroup we used to run, I had the same version
of SMSQ/E on my Aurora from Jochen yet when I installed your supplied
SMSQ/E on another Aurora owned by one of the group it would not work
correctly, not until 2? months had passed and you sent him a
repaired/altered/patched version which I installed and hey presto it
worked.

The only time SMSQ/E versions did not change with the program was with the QXL and that was a problem TT had with that platform and that platform alone. I find this hard to believe. Maybe the one I got from Jochen at the show was corrupt somehow but I cannot recall this at all.

All the same version number. This has always happened in our
group. I took my master SMSQ/E disk to Jochen years ago with a problem
after a recent update and he said "Yes there is a fix", took the disk
overwrote it and gave it me back. I asked "Is that a new version
then?" he said "No, it has the same version number". I asked "How many
different versions of the same number are there". He smiled and
replied "Two". It has always been this way. It is perfectly
acceptable, this is what happens when something is under development.

Did they have an 'a' after the number perchance.

Look at it another way. I travel hundreds of miles to see Jochen at a
workshop - in the above example - he says "Yes, there is a fix" and
waves a disc at me. "But", he says "You cannot have it, you must wait
for a couple of months because that is when the next version will be
compiled and released." I say "You're £$%$%^&&* joking, I'm standing
in front of you, a fully paid up owner of SMSQ/E and you've got what I
need now but your asking me to wait 2 months, $%^&£)( hell fire".
"I've travelled a long way for this could I not sway your opinion?"

This is rubbish because Jochen compiles the code himself. If there is a fix for a problem and Jochen has it will have been compiled onto a disk and be ready for a show. He may, of course be waiting for someone to test it......

Hope you enjoyed that. The point is in the above situation it is bad
customer practice, too rigid and generally not nice, although
officially correct. SMSQ/E was patched all over the place to get it
working the Aurora then eventually well sorted versions would appear,
no great fuss. It's just progress during development.

The situation with the early Aurora was indeed chaotic I agree and I want to avoid a repetition of it. It is possible, therefore, that you ads mislead us when you said 'it has been corrected'

--
Roy Wood
Q Branch, 20 Locks Hill Portslade. Sussex. BN41 2LB. UK
Tel : +44 (0)1273 386030 Fax : +44 (0)1273 430501 (New number!)
Mobile +44(0)7836 745501
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