Omega Research - Saviour or Demon?

[Carroll Slemaker <cslemaker1@xxxxxxxx>]

Many posts have appeared damning Omega and others defending Omega.
Many of those, unfortunately, have been mainly emotional and not
well thought out.  Some defenders, for example, have said, in effect,
"If you don't like TS, then quit using it!"  This reveals a gross
insensitivity and a lack of grasp of the issues involved.  If a person
has paid one or two thousand dollars for a product, it's not easy to
simply scrap it and chalk the experience up to bad luck.

Therefore, I'd like to offer the following as an ethical foundation
for discussions of this subject, a list of what a customer should
fairly expect from a software creator/vendor.  But note carefully the 
opening clause which begins "Unless . . ."  So here goes:

UNLESS the customer is provided by the vendor BEFORE the sale with a
written statement or specification which CLEARLY describes all 
exceptions to the following, a customer has a right to expect the
following, and the vendor has an ethical (if not a legal) obligation
to provide the following:

1. Software which is robust.  "Robust", with respect to software,
means that it behaves gracefully "under fire" - it traps and handles 
in an appropriate manner all user-input and data errors;  it never
responds to such conditions in an uncontrolled manner by aborting,
crashing the system, or corrupting itself or its data, especially
where the corruption is covert - not immediately apparent.  The
engineering rule for robust software is that any secondary damage 
caused by user or data error must be controlled and kept to an 
absolute minimum.

2. Product defects which are encountered by customers will be
promptly corrected by the vendor, or a workaround will be devised,
or the customer will be offered the option of a refund of the 
purchase price.  What is a defect?  A defect is any operation which
is contrary to what is described in the documentation.  And if the
documentation is ambiguous or incomplete, then the standard will be
however the average reasonable customer would expect the software
to operate based upon the available documentation AND advertising
materials and operational characteristics of other similar products.

3. The vendor will maintain a list of reported defects/problems
in which symptoms and workarounds, if any, are clearly and 
completely described.  This will permit some customers to avoid
the problem with its attending frustration and loss of time (and,
perhaps, money).

4. If the documentation is ambiguous, unclear, or incomplete, then
a convenient, accurate, and effective technical-support program
will be provided by the vendor.

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There it is.  What do you think?  Does Omega meet this standard?

Carroll Slemaker