Comments on: Software Customer Bill of Rights http://www.satisfice.com/kaner/?p=8 On the craft and community of software testing Thu, 09 Sep 2010 01:04:48 +0000 http://wordpress.org/?v=2.7 hourly 1 By: Michelle Taylor http://www.satisfice.com/kaner/?p=8&cpage=1#comment-1263 Michelle Taylor Fri, 13 Jul 2007 09:52:15 +0000 http://www.satisfice.com/kaner/?p=8#comment-1263 It occurs to me that if software companies are obliged to provide lists of known defects to customers, the obvious result of this is that the companies reduce their testing efforts and quietly discourage formal reporting of bugs so that they can claim to not have known about their software's defects. Companies who test their software well will have intimidatingly huge lists of 'known defects' which will hurt their market position, because the everyday consumer won't realise that a long list of known defects is in fact a sign of careful testing of the product (and is likely to mean that the more serious defects that lurk unannounced and unfound in competitor products have been found and fixed in this one). So this recommendation would actually hurt software testing. <em>[[This is a common misunderstanding of the proposal, usually spread by vendors who don't like it. </em> <em>If you don't test your product, then at the time of release, you indeed won't know about its bugs. So far, so good, right?</em> <em>Of course, you also miss serious bugs that you really would have wanted to fix, bugs that will hurt your reputation in the market, kill your sales, drive up your tech support costs--people search for bugs in their code and fix them for a reason. </em> <em>But even if you dodge finding your bugs, not long after you release your product, people call you, send you letters, write reports in magazines--guess what. You just heard about your bugs. Now you have to disclose them, just as if you had found them yourself. </em> <em>So you achieve what with this strategy?</em> <ul> <li>Bad customer relations</li> <li>Crappy bug-filled product</li> <li>High tech support costs</li> <li>Bad magazine reviews</li> <li>And you still have to tell people about your bugs.</li> </ul> <em>In most cases, it would be a lot cheaper to find and fix (or document) serious bugs before release.</em> <em>-- Cem Kaner ]]</em> It occurs to me that if software companies are obliged to provide lists of known defects to customers, the obvious result of this is that the companies reduce their testing efforts and quietly discourage formal reporting of bugs so that they can claim to not have known about their software’s defects. Companies who test their software well will have intimidatingly huge lists of ‘known defects’ which will hurt their market position, because the everyday consumer won’t realise that a long list of known defects is in fact a sign of careful testing of the product (and is likely to mean that the more serious defects that lurk unannounced and unfound in competitor products have been found and fixed in this one). So this recommendation would actually hurt software testing.

[[This is a common misunderstanding of the proposal, usually spread by vendors who don't like it.

If you don't test your product, then at the time of release, you indeed won't know about its bugs. So far, so good, right?

Of course, you also miss serious bugs that you really would have wanted to fix, bugs that will hurt your reputation in the market, kill your sales, drive up your tech support costs--people search for bugs in their code and fix them for a reason.

But even if you dodge finding your bugs, not long after you release your product, people call you, send you letters, write reports in magazines--guess what. You just heard about your bugs. Now you have to disclose them, just as if you had found them yourself.

So you achieve what with this strategy?

  • Bad customer relations
  • Crappy bug-filled product
  • High tech support costs
  • Bad magazine reviews
  • And you still have to tell people about your bugs.

In most cases, it would be a lot cheaper to find and fix (or document) serious bugs before release.

-- Cem Kaner ]]

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