History of Software Patches?

Posted by Cliff on Tuesday January 15, 2002 @03:45AM 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!"

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Re:Why? by larien · 2002-01-15 06:24 · 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.