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Bugs In Microsoft Technical Documentation Rising

Posted by kdawson on from the costs-of-monopoly dept.

snydeq writes "The number of bugs in technical documentation for Microsoft communication protocols continues to grow, according to court documents filed for ongoing antitrust oversight of the company in the US. Problems with the technical documentation — which includes 1,660 identified bugs as of Dec. 31, up from 1,196 bugs on Nov. 30 — remain the major complaint from lawyers representing the group of 19 states that joined the US Department of Justice's antitrust lawsuit against Microsoft. Lawyers for the states have complained repeatedly that technical documentation issues are opening faster than Microsoft can close them. Nearly 800 Microsoft employees are working on the more than 20,000 pages of technical documentation, according to the court documents filed Wednesday."

8 of 146 comments (clear)

  1. "Bugs"? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Do they mean documentation shows bugs with Microsoft's communication protocols or that the documentation is incomplete or erroneous?

  2. When you have documentation by El+Lobo · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When you have REAL documentation, and millions and millions of technical pages about APIs, applications, several operative systems, you will have some millions of documentations bugs as well. Hell, even in some(very poor documented, as many are as a norm) open source projects there is a lot of wrong or not up to date information. Just look at, for example, the Indy open source documentation with several hundred of empty pages with a "to be complete" caption since year 2001, and even there I found some wrong interface description exactly yestarday. So how can I call this "article" news? Oh, the old habit of bring to front something "negative" about you know who, I get it...

    --
    It's time to realise that Abble's products are the biggest abomination these days. Just say NO to the dumb iAbble way!!
    1. Re:When you have documentation by Yvanhoe · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It puts emphasis on a common problem with closed-source : if you have a very buggy documentation you can't use the old trick of hand waving and say "read the source, Luke"

      --
      The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
  3. Not MS's fault. by R2.0 · · Score: 5, Funny

    The order said that MS had to provide documentation. It didn't specify that it had to be correct.

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    "As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
  4. It was the best of times... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    ...it was the worst ofIRQL_NOT_LESS_OR_EQUAL

    Technical information:

    *** STOP: 0x000000D1 (ox20000001, 0x00000002, 0x00000001, 0xF6EA8BBF)

    *** OLEAPI.PDF - Address F6EA8BBF base at F6E8F000, DateStamp 3f04cf17

  5. Re:To the editors by jonaskoelker · · Score: 5, Funny

    Please stop posting articles from info world. The have ads after every page of the article

    O_o How do you know this???

  6. Re:Shocked, shocked that there is gambing going on by Opportunist · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Because documentation bugs, if any MS bugs, directly affect Linux users. Faulty documentation leads to faulty implementation of MS formats, I leave the rest to you.

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    We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  7. Re:To the editors by truthsearch · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The best remedy is to stop going to sites that don't mind annoying their users. Why reward them with traffic so they can go sell more ad space? We wouldn't need ad blockers if we only visited sites that are interested in keeping their readers happy. If they have no interest in giving me a positive experience then I have no interest in going there.

    Now back to the topic: I don't think this is a delay tactic. I think it's incompetence stemming from a lack of interest in providing good documentation.

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    Developers: We can use your help.