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History of Software Patches?

Posted by Cliff on from the digital-archaeology dept.

NinaBeth asks: "I'm interested in the history behind software patches for an academic paper I'm writing. In particularly, I'm wondering what motivates shrink-wrap software companies to release patches? Why send out 'broken software'? Is it purely financial? Has anyone done a cost-savings analysis of QC prior to release versus user-reported problems? Any stats on the average number of patches an application will require? Is any one particular company more patch-happy than others? I don't need much, just a reference or two would be helpful. Thanks for any suggestions!"

3 of 39 comments (clear)

  1. Why we patch by cassidyc · · Score: 2, Informative

    I work for a software firm that produces safety critical distributed systems. We have close relationships/support with our customers, and will, if the customer finds a safety critical issue, provide a patch.
    Non critical issues, however, get fixed in subsequent upgrades/releases, as a rule, we tend not to patch these.

    We don't release "broken" software, but real life usage finds thing that we just cannot test for.

  2. Here's a few. by ReluctantBadger · · Score: 3, Informative


    "Is any one particular company more patch-happy than others?" In my professional experience, I have found that two names stand out as the "patch kings". Not to Microsoft-bash, but there is a good deal of patches released for nearly all of their software and components. You may want to try looking at recent patch histories at Microsoft for IIS, and critical updates for Windows 98 and Internet Explorer. I spend maybe 2 days a month doing a full probe and catalog of the knowledge bases and product areas looking for updates, especially for Outlook. My other favourite is HP. Out OfficeJet T45 needs new driver pack downloads with every release of Service Packs for Windows 2000. The original Win2k T45 drivers worked OK on Vanilla and SP1 systems, but when you upgrade to SP2 - BANG! 100% CPU usage. This is just one example of many. Their VL400 series and Brios have had many, many revisions and updates. One of the really annoying things with HP Brios is the vast difference in the product model numbers and video/chipset drivers. Most irritating, especially when I want to do a GHOST rollout. Yes, this is hardware, but DAMN - it's annoying. No doubt here come the "Then why are you using MS?" and "why not standardise your user desktops for GHOST rollout" replies. Fact is, in the real world of support, it isn't always that simple. I am trying to get everybody on the same VL400 workstation, but you gotta justfy the cost savings against IT support time!

  3. Re:Why? by larien · · Score: 4, Informative
    The real world is a much harsher test environment than internal or even beta testing.
    As per the The Ten Commandments for C Programmers says:
    ...for surely where thou typest "foo" someone someday shall type "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious"
    It's amazing how silly/malicious some (l)users can be.

    There's also the maxim that companies keep writing more foolproof software, but the world keeps building better fools.