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Re: Can I send a bug report or suggestion to HP's OpenVMS eng.?

 
GuentherF
Trusted Contributor

Can I send a bug report or suggestion to HP's OpenVMS eng.?

Is there a way for a customer without a service contract to send a bug report or suggestion to HP's OpenVMS engineering?

 

Thanks,

Guenther

7 REPLIES 7
Steven Schweda
Honored Contributor

Re: Can I send a bug report or suggestion to HP's OpenVMS eng.?

 
Jur van der Burg
Respected Contributor

Re: Can I send a bug report or suggestion to HP's OpenVMS eng.?

I've been trying that since I left HP in 2006 to no avail. They are simply not interested.

 

Jur.

 

David R. Lennon
Valued Contributor

Re: Can I send a bug report or suggestion to HP's OpenVMS eng.?

Hi,
i've heard of times when someone without support posts a bug report on a user forum like this and someone else with support will "realize" that this is a bug that could affect their site, as well, and enters a support case on it. I think we are all interested in making VMS the best product it can be and as bug free as possible.
With the "new" policy of patches only available to support customers it is hard for everyone to benefit from this, however...

Thanks,
Dave
Steven Schweda
Honored Contributor

Re: Can I send a bug report or suggestion to HP's OpenVMS eng.?

 
Volker Halle
Honored Contributor

Re: Can I send a bug report or suggestion to HP's OpenVMS eng.?

Guenther,

 

if you want to make your bug report or suggestion in a public forum, please do so. Otherwise your only chance is a mail to the OpenVMS programs mail address.

 

If you look at the recent XP1000 firmware date bug, this problem originated in this forum and comp.os.vms and finally found it's way into HP. Whether someone actually had a service contract and raised an 'official' call, we don't know.

 

Entering a problem this week may be a good time, as OpenVMS Bootcamp is starting on 18-MAR-2013. If you're lucky and someone spots your problem description and decides to discuss it with OpenVMS engineering, this may help. We're still OpenVMS people and - as such - are used to really report problems to the vendor ! Whether the vendor does something about the problem report, is something you can't influence.

 

I can assure you, that I have reported OpenVMS (mostly TCPIP) problems in the last couple of years (for a customer with a service contract) and they do get solved, although it may take a year or more for the solutions to appear in a patch kit.

 

Let me use this thread and tell you my view of 'problem reporting' in the IT industry, in the past and today:

 

Most of us - the 'grey-haired OpenVMS specialists' - grew up at a time, when we used to report a problem to the vendors, when we came across it. In those days, the vendors took problem reports seriously, diagnosed the problem until they understood it, designed a solution, implemented it and provided a 'patch' of some kind.

 

This attitude seems to have got lost over time. In these days, problems mostly either get ignored or worked around (reboot ?). And sometimes, if you really get a problem report to a vendor, they might decide to just suppress the error message and let others worry about the problem in the higher layers. Lack of knowledge may also prevent understanding the possible consequences of a problem. And if the measurements honor closed calls higher than solved problems, you can guess where this leads to.

 

Good luck,

 

Volker.

John Gillings
Honored Contributor

Re: Can I send a bug report or suggestion to HP's OpenVMS eng.?

Good luck indeed! I've had enough trouble getting easily demonstrated bugs addressed even when reported under a support contract! Try this one for size:

 

$ SUBMIT/AFTER="15:05 " LOGIN.COM

 

Originally detected in HP provided software, I've reported the bug, with the above reproducer, the module and line number where it happens and proposed a 4 instruction fix. Engineering doesn't want to know :-(

 

Note that the same bug affects ALL DCL instructions which have /AFTER or /SINCE qualifers (and the proposed fix will fix them all in one hit).

A crucible of informative mistakes
Pim van Velzen
Advisor

Re: Can I send a bug report or suggestion to HP's OpenVMS eng.?

You can send your report or suggestion to OpenVMS.Programs@hp.com  as Volker suggested.