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cURL Author Is Getting Tech Support Emails From Car Owners (daniel.haxx.se)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the email-address-in-the-dashboard dept.

AmiMoJo writes: The author of the popular cURL utility has been receiving requests for help from frustrated car owners having difficulty with their infotainment systems... [B]ecause his email address is listed on the "about" screen, as required by the cURL license, some desperate users are reaching out to him in the hopes of finding a solution.
It sounds annoying to receive complaints like "why there delay between audio and video when connect throw Bluetooth and how to fix it." But though he rarely answers them, Stenberg writes that "I actually find these emails interesting, sometimes charming and they help me connect to the reality many people experience out there."

In a post titled "I have toyota corola," Stenberg says "I suspect my email address is just about the only address listed. This occasionally makes desperate users who have tried everything to eventually reach out to me. They can't fix their problem but since my email exists in their car, surely I can!"

20 of 141 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Bluetooth delay by JustOK · · Score: 2

    What I've heard is the only solution is to get a British car, put the system in the back. Twice. Rebooting always works.

    --
    rewriting history since 2109
  2. And still... by demonlapin · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Why can't we just have a line-in input on a 3.5 mm jack as part of every damned car audio system? (Spare me the iPhone jokes.) My car has one that's in the center console along with a lighter plug, so I can actually power my Bluetooth audio receiver and connect it to the aux input. It's great. But when I rent a car, they all seem to have dropped the aux input. Bluetooth is good, but it's not that good yet.

    1. Re:And still... by Trogre · · Score: 2

      Way to miss the point there.

      --
      "Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
    2. Re:And still... by jareth-0205 · · Score: 2

      Isn't that the point though, it's a complicated technology that is frequently unreliable to do a very simple job that is already solved by means of a cable.

  3. Desperate users by mrsam · · Score: 2

    Many years ago I wrote a simple webmail server. My email address wasn't even on the login screen, just my company name. There have been more than one occasion over the years when some customer of an internet provider that used my webmail server needed technical support, and apparently managed to Google the company name, find my email address, and ask me for a password reset, or something along those lines...

    1. Re:Desperate users by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I think this is a result of so many companies making it nearly impossible to get in contact with them, or only providing a forum on their website and saying to customers "you guys figure it out on your own." Okay, I get it that there's support costs. But I would LOVE to reach out to an engineer at Amazon to tell them about a very irritating and easy-to-repro bug in their Android Kindle app when using it to play audiobooks. Or I'd love to contact Corel to tell them that they're alienating someone who's been buying and using CorelDRAW literally since version 1 with their current marketing shenanigans. But alas, there's no direct and simple way to provide feedback (at least that I've seen), and their products suffer as a result from lack of feedback.

      Interestingly enough, I have to give credit to the Visual Studio team at Microsoft for actually doing it right. They have a feedback tool built right into Visual Studio which can give both positive or negative feedback, report bugs, and even take a screenshot right from within the program. Too bad the Windows team doesn't seem to follow their example in listening to feedback. Or more likely, they're simply told by management to implement all the shitty things they've done to their users.

      One of these days, I'm waiting for a decently-large company to figure out that they can stand out from the crowd by providing outstanding customer service - that always seems to be the first to go when a company gets large. I'd think customers would actually want to support such a novel enterprise. Of course, the trick is that if your products are crap, your support costs skyrocket. So rather than fix products, it's easier for companies to simply shut down or outsource their support.

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    2. Re:Desperate users by l0n3s0m3phr34k · · Score: 2

      Dell's Enterprise Support for products under warranty is pretty decent. We use them pretty exclusively for our VMWare sub-system, hosts, SANs, iSCSI switches, and ESXi itself. 24/7 support, with a 4-hour onsite if we need it. One phone number, one ticket. I've yet to have an issue they couldn't fix.

    3. Re:Desperate users by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 3, Insightful

      It's amazing how decent support can get when you start throwing buckets of money at the company.

    4. Re:Desperate users by Dutch+Gun · · Score: 2

      Try using the Gimp, it is very easy to communicate directly with he developers - and you don't even need a Microsoft O/S, as it works fine on Linux!

      CorelDRAW is not a paint program.

      Besides, while a lot of free software is amazing, FLOSS can certainly have its own issues. I've heard it said, "if ever you are unsatisfied with the software, please feel free to return it for a full refund of the purchase price." That's a nice way of saying that if you don't like the software, you really have no recourse or even a right to complain, because you paid nothing for it.

      If you ever want to be disabused of the notion that free software is always more responsive to it's users, then just read this thread. It's ten pages of users begging for a workaround to a problem they're having, and the developer essentially telling them to piss off.

      I'm not picking on free software. After all, my first two examples were of commercial software. I'm just saying that it's prone to the same shitty customer service, although I suspect it may be often for different reasons.

         

      --
      Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
    5. Re:Desperate users by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2

      One of these days, I'm waiting for a decently-large company to figure out that they can stand out from the crowd by providing outstanding customer service - that always seems to be the first to go when a company gets large. I'd think customers would actually want to support such a novel enterprise. Of course, the trick is that if your products are crap, your support costs skyrocket. So rather than fix products, it's easier for companies to simply shut down or outsource their support.

      Unfortunately this doesn't usually work out. Example: Starwood hotel group has/had excellent customer service. Business and pleasure travelers who experience a Starwood hotel become brand-loyal quite quickly. Marriott's customer service is slightly below average, but they chain generates more profit. With that profit, they bought Starwood, and at the end of this year much of the Starwood customer service team in Connecticut is getting laid off. If the money you save by providing low quality service is enough for you to buy out the competition, it doesn't really matter.

    6. Re:Desperate users by blackest_k · · Score: 2

      So it seems that the issue in this case was a server with a security vulnerability that the then current version of filezilla wouldn't work with

      2solutions

      fix the server
      use an older version of filezilla

      3rd solution make the current version of filezilla compatible with the broken server.
      Does it need spelling out why the 3rd solution is not a solution?

      Basically the server provider gets complaints that the clients can't connect with the current client builds. Either they are too lazy to fix the server or were unaware of the issue. In the latter case they are now informed in the former case they pretty much have to admit to the client they are too lazy or incompetent to fix the server. The client has the choice to use the old version of filezilla or find a more responsible host. The client may also be unaware of the security issue till filezilla stops working. However they know now.

      I am 100% with the developers of filezilla on this one, because getting my site compromised is not acceptable. Especially if I will rebuild and the vulnerability is still there. The only people who should be disappointed by the vulnerability being fixed are the people who wish to exploit it.

      --
      Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
  4. This is why I quit tech support by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    And got into politics. After all, if I had to suffer human stupidity, I might as well be grossly overpaid for it.

  5. Re: The law of unintended consequences... by opus_magnum · · Score: 2

    Maybe not explicitly, but I think there is an implicit requirement and also a tradition/convention of including your email address in open source software. After all, the author has to be contacted about changes.

    cURL is MIT licensed which requires the copyright notice to be shown.
    (actually it's the only requirement, much more permissive than the GPL)

  6. Perhaps. . . by smooth+wombat · · Score: 2

    if we weren't trying to technology the crap out of everything we wouldn't have so many problems.

    It's an absolute factual truism, the more complicated you make something the more problems you will have and these "entertainment systems" are living proof.

    Apparently in the mind of engineers a simple on/off knob, one which can be easily felt and operated without taking ones eyes off the road is now verboten. Instead, one now has to look at a screen, in the middle of the car, hope they find the correct icon to select, touch some more icons to get closer to what they want, possible go through a menu system and if they're lucky, at that point can finally listen to the radio or play music.

    Whatever happened to, "Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler."?

    --
    We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
  7. Re:When the radio in my new Ford... by TapeCutter · · Score: 2

    I have a 13yr old mazda 6. The leather seats are worn out and the gearbox makes strange noises but the factory installed sound system is still fucking awesome.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  8. Re: Bluetooth delay by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Informative

    Either your phone or the bluetooth stack used in the stereo do not support one of the low latency audio codecs in current use, and therefore defaults to the standard codec which has that level of latency inherently. Even low latency aptx is on the order of 50ms or so, not particularly low latency, but much better than default for sure.

  9. Re:Uniform multimedia by CanadianMacFan · · Score: 2

    So that they can make money selling ads?

  10. Re: Honestly, pretty neat by Chrontius · · Score: 2
    Did you RTFA?

    The hacker news discussions on this post took off. I just want to emphasize that this post is not a complaint. I’m not whining over this. I’m just showing some interesting side-effects of my email in the license text. I actually find these emails interesting, sometimes charming and they help me connect to the reality many people experience out there.

  11. My car is 15 years old so forgive my ignorance by Skuld-Chan · · Score: 2

    Why does a car need the curl utility to make bluetooth work?

  12. Re:Bluetooth delay by snookiex · · Score: 2

    I always thought the delay (which also affects some bluetooth headsets/speakers) was caused by the audio compression/decompression process.

    --
    Open Source Network Inventory for the masses! Kuwaiba