Speaking as another "qualified" software engineer myself, (30 year veteran) I whole heartedly agree. It is probably a fundamental law of the universe that no complex programable system can ever be bug free, (I believe another computer guru - Dyksktra said that slightly differently) just take a look at DNA, mother nature hasn't succeeded after billions of years!
I really don't think the focus should be on trying to develop software that is free of defects, but on the processes a company uses to resolve, track, and rapidly get fixes back in the hands of the consumers. This is my biggest complaint against Microsoft. Sure I see them coming out with security patches all the time, but that is because they are responding "just good enough" to keep the biggest guns pointing at their heads from going off
If Microsoft wanted to demonstrate that they truely care about their customers experiences and their software product quality, they would provide FREE and EASY mechanisms of allowing their customers to have the ability to provide them with feedback. Built in to all their products would be convienent feedback, bug tracking and product updating mechanisms.
If a consumer reports a bug, he should expect that the vendor will make a reasonable effort to fix it and get the fix back to him/her in a reasonable amount of time. My experience with Microsoft is that it is very difficult to provide them feedback, and that they have the gall to charge you (for support) if you attempt to do so. Microsoft should view the idea of having a process which allows customers to give them feedback freely, as a favour to Microsoft! It will help them improve their products more rapidly and make their customers much more happy when they get fixes back.
Perhaps this is a good basis for suing Microsoft, not because they produce buggy software, but because they do not make much of an effort to find and fix the bugs and get the fixes back in the hands of their customers quickly and freely. As pointed out in other replies, the customer already pays in many ways for the bugs. Microsoft owes their customers the decency of having a good process in place to get the bugs reported, allow their users visibility of the bug tracking process, and make a good effort to get them resolved, without further trying to exploit and charge em yet more.
As an aside - The first bit of feedback I would provide Microsoft with is - their LACK of documentation sucks and I think IS neglegent. IMHO;-)
Not one to normally throw nuclear rocks at something, but I think the only real solution to this is to mount pressure against Microsoft to fundamentally redesign their operating system's file handling subsystem. This usage of wide open file directory structure which gives easy access to any file or directory by any installer is based on some very old file system models dating back to pre DOS days and is way overdue for an upgrade. Taking snapshots of the system and doing rollbacks is a hack at best and very likely inadaquate as that procecure may also remove applications and settings that were installed subsequently to the installation of the app which is misbehaving. And as is often mention, apps may install.dlls or other system files, override registery settings, etc. which may have widespread effects and further damage a system when removed.
I feel the basic file system model needs to be redesigned so that applications are installed in their own "sandboxs"/space period. No application should ever be implicitely given permission to modify other system/app files, no "common" registry entries can be tampered with, NO changing/adding/deletion of any Windows or Windows/System files etc. should ever be implicitely allowed. There are lots of ways to implement such a file system so that this basic sandbox paridigm can be upheld, but fundamentally the COMPLETE removal of an application should be as simple as just deleting the directory/sandbox in which it resides.
Any application which tries to modify another applications "sandbox" of files, registry settings, data etc needs to be given VERY explicit permission, from the user, to do so, i.e. file permissions controlling access should not be strictly limited to just human users, but to applications as well. Solving problems such as overriding or redirecting behaviours provided by default system files should be handled by having the OS provide adaquate interfaces and dynamic registration procedures, so that they can request, and be granted permission to override some default system behaviour.
I understand that such a radical redesign has a lot of issues/details that need to be worked out, but until Microjunk fixes their file system model, so that applications can be safely installed and COMPLETELY removed via a simple premise, and gaurentee that applications cannot interfer with each other, without permissions, then this mess is going to continue forever. This IS one of the primary responsibilities of an operating system and one that the Microsoft engineers have badly overlooked!
(PS. I get very annoyed by web based interfaces such as this which do not provide spell and grammer check options. Sorry for any misspellings, I am not good at it.)
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Speaking as another "qualified" software engineer myself, (30 year veteran) I whole heartedly agree. It is probably a fundamental law of the universe that no complex programable system can ever be bug free, (I believe another computer guru - Dyksktra said that slightly differently) just take a look at DNA, mother nature hasn't succeeded after billions of years!
I really don't think the focus should be on trying to develop software that is free of defects, but on the processes a company uses to resolve, track, and rapidly get fixes back in the hands of the consumers. This is my biggest complaint against Microsoft. Sure I see them coming out with security patches all the time, but that is because they are responding "just good enough" to keep the biggest guns pointing at their heads from going off
If Microsoft wanted to demonstrate that they truely care about their customers experiences and their software product quality, they would provide FREE and EASY mechanisms of allowing their customers to have the ability to provide them with feedback. Built in to all their products would be convienent feedback, bug tracking and product updating mechanisms.
If a consumer reports a bug, he should expect that the vendor will make a reasonable effort to fix it and get the fix back to him/her in a reasonable amount of time. My experience with Microsoft is that it is very difficult to provide them feedback, and that they have the gall to charge you (for support) if you attempt to do so. Microsoft should view the idea of having a process which allows customers to give them feedback freely, as a favour to Microsoft! It will help them improve their products more rapidly and make their customers much more happy when they get fixes back.
Perhaps this is a good basis for suing Microsoft, not because they produce buggy software, but because they do not make much of an effort to find and fix the bugs and get the fixes back in the hands of their customers quickly and freely. As pointed out in other replies, the customer already pays in many ways for the bugs. Microsoft owes their customers the decency of having a good process in place to get the bugs reported, allow their users visibility of the bug tracking process, and make a good effort to get them resolved, without further trying to exploit and charge em yet more.
As an aside - The first bit of feedback I would provide Microsoft with is - their LACK of documentation sucks and I think IS neglegent. IMHO ;-)
I feel the basic file system model needs to be redesigned so that applications are installed in their own "sandboxs"/space period. No application should ever be implicitely given permission to modify other system/app files, no "common" registry entries can be tampered with, NO changing/adding/deletion of any Windows or Windows/System files etc. should ever be implicitely allowed. There are lots of ways to implement such a file system so that this basic sandbox paridigm can be upheld, but fundamentally the COMPLETE removal of an application should be as simple as just deleting the directory/sandbox in which it resides.
Any application which tries to modify another applications "sandbox" of files, registry settings, data etc needs to be given VERY explicit permission, from the user, to do so, i.e. file permissions controlling access should not be strictly limited to just human users, but to applications as well. Solving problems such as overriding or redirecting behaviours provided by default system files should be handled by having the OS provide adaquate interfaces and dynamic registration procedures, so that they can request, and be granted permission to override some default system behaviour.
I understand that such a radical redesign has a lot of issues/details that need to be worked out, but until Microjunk fixes their file system model, so that applications can be safely installed and COMPLETELY removed via a simple premise, and gaurentee that applications cannot interfer with each other, without permissions, then this mess is going to continue forever. This IS one of the primary responsibilities of an operating system and one that the Microsoft engineers have badly overlooked!
(PS. I get very annoyed by web based interfaces such as this which do not provide spell and grammer check options. Sorry for any misspellings, I am not good at it.)