>> Why does everybody think it's expensive to design and test software 
>> properly?
> 
> Umm, because if MS spent another 6 months designing certain parts of 
> Windows better and testing it more thoroughly, that would cost 6 months 
> of salaries (plus all the other costs to run those departments) and also 
> 6 months of lost sales.  In short, they have to decide when to release 
> the product for maximum profit, and it will always be before they've 
> fixed all bugs.

Well, sure, it's almost impossible to make completely bug-free software. 
You could sit forever removing bugs, but as you say, eventually you have 
to release a product.

My problem is this: M$ doesn't even bother *trying* to produce 
high-quality software. They just release the most bug-ridden lump of 
junk they think they can possibly get away with. Their whole business 
model is about chucking out software as cheaply as possible, and then 
charging vast sums of money for it as if it were some premium-grade product.

I dislike people charging a fortune for crap. I have no problem with 
people charging lots of money for a product that's actually *good*, but 
I resent being charged a fortune for crap. (Hell, I don't even mind so 
much when cheap stuff breaks - it was cheap, after all...)

>> There's plenty of non-M$ software which works reliably enough to not 
>> cause a problem.
> 
> Sure, there's also apples that taste different to pears.

Yeah, that's true. I mean, it's not like OpenOffice Writer is anything 
like Microsoft Word. Not like they do the exact same function and even 
read the precise same file format. And hey, what Writer does it way 
easier, because it runs on multiple platforms, not just one, right?

> Did you ever stop to think that if they designed and tested more 
> thoroughly they might have *less* cash?  I'm sure MS has already stopped 
> and though about exactly this, and TBH I think they are in a much better 
> position to decide how much (re)design and testing to do than you are.

Except that they're not interested in how to make a better product. 
They're interested in how to screw the customer out of more money for 
the least possible effort. They're parasites.

As if that wasn't bad enough, then they try to claim that they're these 
visionary leaders of innovation and technical advancement, when they 
can't even produce a word processor that works properly - something that 
existed decades ago...

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