Firewall Wizards mailing list archives
RE: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads?
From: "Paul D. Robertson" <proberts () patriot net>
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 11:19:22 -0500 (EST)
On Sat, 4 Jan 2003, Noonan, Wesley wrote:
users want. As functionality is added, because customers want it, so are bugs and vulnerabilities. The sad thing is, if the users do find an
Let's just dispell this myth. Features in a lot of software aren't added because of customer wants, they're added as marketing feature draws[1], or for other business reasons by vendors. Yes, occasionally a user-requested feature get added, but mostly it's companies trying to push in a particular direction. Lots of companies asked for a version of Word that wouldn't do macros once upon a time. Lots of companies now would like a version of Outlook that can't render HTML. I think I know 2 people who use HTML in e-mail. I don't see a groundswell requiring it. I know a lot of companies, representing hundreds of thousands of users who'd be really happy with a copy of Outlook that simply wasn't capable of rendering HTML (the client, not funky filtering between the client and the server, and not server-side stuff.) While I'm dreaming, how about a copy of Exchange that isn't capable of auto-HTMLing mail originating on a client set to do plain text? You wouldn't believe the posts I reject here because the original author isn't able to control the formatting of their own messages. While we're in the dragging parents into it mode (Hi Cat!)- my Dad uses Outlook (or Outlook Express) at work, but I've gotten him to Pegasus at home (which happened back when there was a lot of autoexecuting preview pane stuff going on with Outlook Express.) He knows how to send and recieve mail, and he's happy- initially he wanted Outlook Express at home, because he knew the interface, but he went and loaded Pegasus on his brand new computer last week (quite a feat, I can assure you) instead of using Outlook Express, because now he's familiar enough with Pegasus' interface that there's nothing "featureful" that's significantly different from Outlook Express to have him "need" Outlook Express. It's a mail client, there's just not that much to mail. Tacking on stuff until it bloats past usability/security isn't going to help. At some point, the user population will understand that it's possible to *finish* software. That there's no gain to them for some change due to someone's idea that the market will flock to a competitor if they don't change something every quarter or two. Right now, the market is being manipulated by vendors that want to boost quarterly earnings reports by getting people to change software frequently. That's the driver, not the user, not the feature, pure and simple artificial economy generation. Personally, I can only just remember the last time a word processor added a feature worth upgrading for (WYSIWYG and compound documents were both worth-while.) Paul [1] While there's some correlation between marketing features and customers, it's rarely customer driven in the mass-market software industry. That's because a significant portion of customers would be perfectly happy with "don't add feature $Foo," and I'd hazard to guess in most cases that portion would be larger than the portion who want feature $Foo. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Paul D. Robertson "My statements in this message are personal opinions proberts () patriot net which may have no basis whatsoever in fact." probertson () trusecure com Director of Risk Assessment TruSecure Corporation _______________________________________________ firewall-wizards mailing list firewall-wizards () honor icsalabs com http://honor.icsalabs.com/mailman/listinfo/firewall-wizards
Current thread:
- Re: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads?, (continued)
- Re: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads? Gary Flynn (Jan 05)
- Message not available
- Re: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads? Marcus J. Ranum (Jan 03)
- Re: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads? Mike Hoskins (Jan 03)
- Re: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads? Mike Hoskins (Jan 03)
- Re: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads? David Lang (Jan 03)
- Re: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads? Gary Flynn (Jan 03)
- RE: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads? Paul D. Robertson (Jan 05)
- RE: Re: Anybody Recognize These Uploads? Bill Royds (Jan 05)