

Interview with Bill Gates (1995) - known
http://www.cantrip.org/nobugs.html

======
halo
There's some sensationalism in the editorialising around this piece, but I
find it hard to argue with the core of what Gates is saying.

You're not going to be able to sell a piece of software based on the idea that
it has less bugs. People expect software to be bug-free. When people buy a new
version of a product, people expect new features. I mean, history has proven
him completely correct - today, vendors provide free updates in their software
to fix bugs and sell new versions with more features.

Secondly, you're always going to have bugs. It's inevitable. What's important
is that your software, both in terms of design and testing, is resilient
enough to avoid major bugs that a large proportion of people will run into.
Historically, Microsoft were good at this - there's a reason they were behind
"Writing Solid Code". What remains are bugs which are quirks and corner cases,
which are generally less important and are harder to test for. Of course, the
situation with security is rather different, as certain quirks and corner
cases can have serious unintended repercussions.

~~~
thwarted
I think it's worth making a distinction between "buying" a new version and
"obtaining" a new version (where "buying" includes software that is charged
for, even if you pirate it and don't pay for it). That is, the difference is
between proprietary software and open source software.

When I pay money for software, I expect new features. When I go to download
open source software, 9 times out of 10 I want the specific bug I'm dealing
with to be fixed (and often it is). Heh, and often the bug I want fixed is
that the software is lacking a certain feature -- but I've seen a lot of
"issues" and "bug reports" listing feature requests, so the feature gets
treated like a bug. Proprietary software is marketed in such a way that the
latest version is all that you'll ever need, rarely are its deficiencies
mentioned, and they definitely won't be mentioned as actionable "bugs".

~~~
pietro
The "versions" you're comparing aren't the same thing. Windows has a new
version in the open source sense every month, and it's distributed
automatically.

------
endtime
Is there any software company out there that ships products on the scale of
Windows and Office and always fixes all known bugs in its code before RTM? If
you know a bug will only affect 0.1% of users 0.1% of the time, it doesn't do
anything showstopping even then, and fixing it will delay your release, you'd
probably decide not to fix it too.

Disclaimer: I am working at MS this summer. But I would have said the same
thing months ago.

~~~
mcav
Heck, if and when I find bugs that affect .1% of users .1% of the time, I'd
put it at a lower priority than the release, even with a _tiny_ project. Cost
to benefit.

------
gizmo
This shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody. Any nontrivial product has a bug
database with hundreds of known bugs per module/component. Most are not worth
fixing because regression testing is so expensive. And the expectation of end
users is really low, people expect software to be lousy.

People even except phones to crash nowadays. In a Palm Pre review I read the
other day they praised the Pre's stability: it "only" crashed 4 times during
testing, and it was because "we were running a lot of apps at the same time".

Expectations matter.

------
wyday
Is this actually real? I couldn't find anything on the Focus Magazine website.

~~~
arrrg
It’s real. Here’s the article in Focus’s archive (German):
[http://www.focus.de/wissen/wissenschaft/forschung-und-
techni...](http://www.focus.de/wissen/wissenschaft/forschung-und-technik-das-
ist-kapitalismus_aid_155749.html) (quite easy to find, actually)

Interview and transcript are not exactly the same. The transcript sounds more
like, well, a transcript, the published interview is a lot smoother. Since all
printed interviews are highly artificial products this is certainly to be
expected. The transcript really seems to be the raw transcript. Even if it
isn’t – the content is the same, the printed interview only sounds nicer.

~~~
wyday
So Bill's comments are a translation of a translation? (English -> German ->
English)

Perhaps that's why they sound so unrealistic.

~~~
arrrg
I don’t think so. The linked transcript seems to be the real deal, the raw
transcript of (a part of) the interview that was later translated for the
magazine.

The transcript sounds pretty natural (then again, I’m not a native English
speaker) even if it might not fit the usual style of Gates. The German
interview sounds a little strange (you immediately notice that it was
translated). I don’t think it was translated by a very skilled translator. I
guess the English version would sound quite a bit more strange if you
translated the German interview again.

------
Tichy
He has a point though. I think if they said "you have to buy the next version
to get the bug fixes", customers would be quite upset. Some companies do that,
but really, these days I would expect to get bug fixes for free.

~~~
10ren
Even if the interview is fake, it's an interesting juxtaposition of business
and technical perspectives: "Gates" is saying "people won't _pay_ for
bugfixes; but the interviewer is hearing it as "people don't _want_ bugfixes".

I think bugfixes clearly have value, but it's a little unclear where exactly
they are monetized. Consider: under what circumstances would existing bugs
stop you from buying the present version?

\- a 100% compatible and 100% feature-comparable alternative product... which
_additionally_ has fewer bugs.

\- if you _know_ about the bug before buying it. Perhaps this is the crucial
factor: you only discover the specific bugs that are a problem for you some
time after purchasing it, so they are not well-placed to be purchase-factor.

------
marcofloriano
Bill Gates just owned the guy ! Amazing ... the interviewer tried to push the
guy but he knows exactly what to do.

From my view, Mr Bill and Microsoft cant stop evolving because of the bugs.
They are right on focusing in new features rather than on bugs. The problem is
building to complex software. That´s the mistake, on my opinion. Sometimes i
use office 2000 to write some document and i don´t feel any difference from
the 2007 ... well ... both do the job. So why i need the 2007 ? Because it´s
have more features ... just this. So the interviewer should go for that, in my
opinion, "Mr Bill, why you guys don´t build more simple and less complex
software ?" So Bill would probably answer what EVERYBODY KNOWS BUT STILL WANT
TO LISTEN TO FROM HIM TO CRUSH THE GUY ... "Well, because simple software
don´t give so much money"

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pygy
They don't fix bugs in new versions, they do that in service packs and other
updates.

By now, anyway... Were the OSRn upgrades to Win95 free?

------
tomek
Gates is a such a prick.

~~~
pasbesoin
My take (just from the provided page and not from further context) is that
Gates was saying MS does not do a new version of software on the basis of /
for the sole or primary purpose of fixing bugs. This does not mean they do not
fix bugs in a new version. It means fixing bugs is NOT the motivation for
doing a new version. Bug fixes do not provide sufficient motivation for users
to purchase the new version.

EDIT: I did not mean for my comment to be a child to this parent. Clicked
wrong when beginning it.

