Gossamer Forum
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Concerned
Dear Gossamer Threads,

I purchased Gossamer Mail back in May 2002 and I think its a great product. I do however feel very distressed by the amount of bugs that have been reported by myself and on this forum for version 2.06 and 2.1. I feel like the GM discussion forum has more become a bug reporting forum. I think that e-mail is one of the most important services provided on the internet, yet I feel that GM is still in Beta stage! A e-mail solution has to be rock solid! There can't be users that don't receive mail and features such as WAP that don't work. I also find it weird that there is no solution to combat SPAM e-mail when sent to a user that doesn't exist. Even though GM bounces mail I still receive them back!
I bought GM when 2.06 was released and was promised that many bugs would be squashed in 2.1. I was also promised that some new features such as an improved address book would be included in 2.1. None of these materialized in 2.1 even though it took almost a month later than promised to release 2.1. The promises of 2.1 was what convinced me to buy GM!

As I have already said I really like GM, but I strongly feel that Gossamer Threads isn't giving the program the attention and priority it needs. I have only seen one person working with GM (Adrian) and he often states that he doesn't have time to do things. I often see Gossamer Forum being updated! So why isn't more resources put in to make sure GM is bug free!!
I really think that GM needs more attention as its your most important and expensive program!

Thanks
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Re: [Surfer2] Concerned In reply to
I second that. It seems that we are in fact the beta testers, helping to redress the product each time. As you say, they should be working on feature requests rather than on bug fixes. Yet, that's what we are doing and what I see them doinga ll the time. Too may bugs exist in GM for it to be seen as a stable product. Also, I seem to have seen that version 2.01 spent more than a year before coming out. That's too long. There must have been a stop in development at some point?

I personally believe a product should never be put on the market when it is not solid enough. Bugs are normal, but not when they are so many. THis is not to say that I want to slam the developpers. I wanna help to redress the way things are going here.

I agree that GM is a very interesting program. It is very well designed too and does include a lot of features. However, such features do not seem fully developped or stable enough. Too many inconsistencies still exist if one is to look at all the bugs reported on this forum.

If the product had not been so expensive, I would have happily moved to something else.

But hey, let's work with these guys, and see if at least they can use our advice to make the product better. I am really hoping they could act more quickly on issues that involve bug fixing as well as direct customer support.

Currently, I see the following issues:

1) Direct one on one support still takes too long. In case of emergencies, one can loose customers quickly because of the slow response. This applies both to this forum and direct email communication.

2) Lack of organization in the way bugs and fixes are processed.

For better efficiency, the GM staff should:

- have a bug track system where each bug that is reported is repertoriated.

- Whenever a fix is found, then a solution must be appended immediately to the bug track. That way, each of us can use this as a resource and squash the bugs as solutions are offered. This would reduce demands for direct support as most of us can apply such fixes. Indeed, we would all use the upgrade when it is available, but we should never have to wait for it to fix sensitive bugs. In fact, working from a bug track system helps to make sure that the upgrade will be good.

Right now, the forums are a mess and one must read everything and solutions to bugs are not easily found in the forums.

Last but not least:

GM staff should have a mail list of all of the GM users. They should basically inform us of serious bugs by email and let us apply solutions. THis is important as my biggest fear right now is that GM may have very severe security holes that we may not be aware of because its programmers are very slow at developing solutions. What this means is that there may be exloits out there being performed on us without us knowing because the staff seems somewhat hesitant when it comes to providng fast solutions. A security and bug alert system would help tremendously to make sure that all of us are up to date and that some of us are not left in the dark.

My fear is that if we have no customers informing us of problems, and if we do not read the forums, we may end up with buggy products. Only a good system of communication and reporting of bugs and fixes can help to improve the service.

And it would simply significantly reduce the amount of time spent by GM staff in direct support. The bug track would help us know in real time when solutions are found. THis bug track could be in a protected area and we could use our licence numbers and passwords to get there.

Thus, they could concentrate more on working on the solutions rather than on support. They would also be able to do away with this weird way they have of assisting some customers with problems, yet forgetting that we are all afflicted by the same problems and that we should all be informed of all problems regardless of whether we visit the forums are not. So, the bugtrack should automatically mail us when a bug is included, as well as when the fix is found.

My two cents.


THanks/
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Re: [Surfer2] Concerned In reply to
Hi,

Thanks for the feedback. I can appreciate what you are saying. Gossamer Mail is our most complex product as it has to deal intimately with a large number of different mail systems. A lot of the support that we end up providing (delivering mail, bcc's, bounce handling, etc) are caused by differences in mail software behavior (i.e. qmail vs sendmail vs MS Exchange). That said, Gossamer Mail 2.0.6 did have too many bugs, and we were definitely not happy with that. I do feel that 2.1 was a big improvement in terms of the look and the quality.

Rest assured, Gossamer Mail is still actively being developed, and enhanced. It is an integral part of our software. We are keeping track of all reported bugs and feature requests.

The forum has been updated a lot recently as it's still a new product, and we are getting it competitive in terms of features.

Cheers,

Alex
--
Gossamer Threads Inc.
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Re: [Mama] Concerned In reply to
Your spot on Mama! Lets hope Gossamer is listening!

I really like Gossamer Mail, but I feel that fixes and updates are going to slow! Many of the bugs are in fact small spelling mistakes and simple code errors!

I really hope Gossamer adds more resources to add stability so that they can continue on adding new features.
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Re: [Surfer2] Concerned In reply to
Hi,

Quote:
I think that e-mail is one of the most important services provided on the internet, yet I feel that GM is still in Beta stage!

Quite True.

Quote:
I was also promised that some new features such as an improved address book would be included in 2.1. None of these materialized in 2.1 even though it took almost a month later than promised to release 2.1. The promises of 2.1 was what convinced me to buy GM!




Same here. While on Address book issue there is a post on the forum also months before 2.1 was rolled out
http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=157101

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=152513

http://www.gossamer-threads.com/perl/gforum/gforum.cgi?post=188843

Even I was impressed with features planned with 2.1 release. I waited for six good months hoping that few of the enhancements were going to be delivered.

Quote:
As I have already said I really like GM, but I strongly feel that Gossamer Threads isn't giving the program the attention and priority it needs. I have only seen one person working with GM (Adrian) and he often states that he doesn't have time to do things. I often see Gossamer Forum being updated! So why isn't more resources put in to make sure GM is bug free!!

So I have a GM user who shares the same feeling as me. We as clientns can only hope. Setting /getting the priorities is not within our prerogative. Only thing that we can do is keep on reporting the Bugs!!!! with the hope that before the sunset at leat there is someone to respond.

Truth is always harsh but only good guys always shun the idea of being a psychophants or rather being surrounded by a cotorie of ppl who always take the opportunity to talk only good things!

Anup

Last edited by:

anup123: Jul 25, 2002, 5:08 AM