Please help me diagnose this crazy VMWare/FreeBSD 8.x crash

[Joe Greco]

> On 4/2/2012 11:43 AM, Joe Greco wrote:
> > As a user, you can't win.  If you don't report
> > a problem, you get criticized.  If you report a problem but can't figure
> > out how to reproduce it, you get criticized.  If you can reproduce it
> > but you don't submit a workaround, you get criticized.  If you submit a
> > workaround but you don't submit a patch, you get criticized.  If you
> > submit a patch but it's not in the preferred format, you get criticized.
> 
> I'm still not sure what you're taking as criticism. Nothing I've said
> was intended that way, nor should it be read that way. If you feel that
> you've been criticized by others in the manner you describe, you should
> probably take it up with them on an individual basis.

It certainly seemed to me that

> As much as I'm sensitive to your production requirements, realistically
> it's not likely that you'll get a helpful result without testing a newer
> version. 8.2 came out over a year ago, many many things have changed
> since then.

was an unwarranted criticism for reasons that I've already explained.

Or perhaps this:

> And since you can't reliably reproduce the problem, how do you expect us
> to? I understand that these sorts of bugs are difficult/annoying, etc.
> Been there, done that.

Which would appear to be suggesting that either (or possibly both):

1) The reporter has a duty to be able to "reliably reproduce the problem"
   prior to reporting, and/or

2) That there was some unreasonable expectation on the reporter's part
   that you were expected to reproduce it.

I consider 1) to be ridiculous, as long as the reporter is reasonably
willing to work to resolve the issue, that should certainly be good
enough, and he's certainly been interactive enough to _my_ comments,
and 2) seems to be nowhere in sight in the reporter's comments, but
is nonetheless present in your response.

Please respect Reply-to.  Thanks.

... JG
-- 
Joe Greco - sol.net Network Services - Milwaukee, WI - http://www.sol.net
"We call it the 'one bite at the apple' rule. Give me one chance [and] then I
won't contact you again." - Direct Marketing Ass'n position on e-mail spam(CNN)
With 24 million small businesses in the US alone, that's way too many apples.