Open Source (was Don't you just wish Rev would do this?)

[Bob Warren]

Richard Gaskin wrote:

>A lot of folks here used to cry out for free bug-fix upgrades, but last 
time Rev delivered one they complained it didn't address all of them and 
left out too many feature requests.  ;) 

-------------------------------------------------
The other day, I put forward a model under the thread "A glimpse of the future" which was totally ignored. I must therefore presume that in the opinion of all UR-List contributers, the suggestion is flawed. Except that nobody had the patience to tell me why it was flawed.

Let me make the suggestion more explicit in the hope that either its merits will be discussed, or it will be torn to pieces:

1. RR should provide feature releases on a regular basis. We pay for them.
2. We do not pay for bugfixes. The manufacturer is just putting right what he has done wrong.

Feature releases are not for the purpose of fixing bugs. In fact, they will unintentionally introduce them. But there is no such thing as a "bug-fix" release. Bug fixes are handled between feature releases, and here's how:

RR take reported bugs one by one and fix them. After fixing a single bug, they test the shit out of the IDE in order to discover the unexpected consequences. Once they are satisfied, the bugfix is immediately made available to users, either in the form of a patch, or in the form of an entirely new IDE for download. When a single bugfix is available, the "Rev Online" icon at the top of the user's IDE window dances up and down. It tells the user that a bugfix is available for direct download in a way which is exactly parallel to the way it is done for whole operating systems such as Ubuntu or OSX.

Too simple? Too naive? Economically unviable? You don't like the word "single"? PLEASE TELL ME.

Bob