ISC 2.0.2 and VP/IX Dos Emulation

[Piercarlo Grandi]

In article <290 at minnie.UUCP> diamond at hdchq.UUCP (Bill Diamond) writes:

   This is one of the most inutterably stupid ideas I've ever heard.  Why
   don't you imagine the scenarios with which we, your clients are faced.  "No
   problem Mr. CEO, just try unplugging your keyboard then plug it back in".
   Uh-huh.  I like my job. I want to keep my job.  My company demands top
   performance from me for each dollar.

If I were your CEO I would fire you straight away. If your
company demands the best from you, why are you using any software
product that is explicitly described as not guaranteed fit for
any purpose, not merchantable, etc...? Why are you risking the
company's dollar on something that it must use at its own risk,
without knowing it?

   I demand top performance for the
   several thousands of dollars I have invested in your product.

If I were your CEO I would hold you accountable for investing
thousands of company dollars in products about which the
suppliers, from AT&T onwards, are not prepared to make any
representation at all, and not telling me; actually deluding me
that I should expect everything to work smoothly.

How amused will be your CEO to learn that the several thousands
of dollars invested give your company a right to replacement of a
set of floppies should they prove physically damaged!

Can you imagine your CEO face when you tell him that all those
thousands of dollars are invested in products that come from the
equivalent of a garage sale? And when you tell him that this is
the industry standard, and that you have misled him by not
telling him the vital business information that all the computer
software (and much hardware) you use comes like that?

If I were the CEO of your company I could actually live with the
idea that this software, about which suppliers make fantastic
claims about the high level of QA they make you pay for, is used
entirely at the company's risk (CEOs of oil companies do
authorize multimillion dollar expenditures for wildcat drilling,
but they get very annoyed indeed if material facts as to the
risks are not represented to them), but I would want to have a
practical idea of the risk, or at least I would want to know it
does exist.

If I were the CEO of your company I sure would not want to see
around me a guy like you that evidently has witheld from me this
vital piece of business information, as it is *me*, not you, that
has the executive's responsibility to assess risk and decide
whether it is worth taking. And I would be very cross that you
had not even told me that I should assess the risk.

Let your CEO read the "warranties" and "licenses" of the software
and hardware you have bought, tell him to take them *literally*
and try to find a good excuse for not having told him before.
--
Piercarlo "Peter" Grandi           | ARPA: pcg%cs.aber.ac.uk at nsfnet-relay.ac.uk
Dept of CS, UCW Aberystwyth        | UUCP: ...!mcvax!ukc!aber-cs!pcg
Penglais, Aberystwyth SY23 3BZ, UK | INET: pcg at cs.aber.ac.uk