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An Anonymous Coward writes:
After leaving a negative review and opening a support ticket about HRDSOFTWARE, a customer was told that he needed to download and install the latest version; then they would be able to provide support. He followed their directions, and once the download was installed, the program started, displayed the splash screen, and then completely shut down. After calling the support line to ask them to explain what they were doing, they informed him that he was blacklisted and the file they directed him to download blocked the software on the computer from running. PDF of ticket.
This thread on a ham radio enthusiast forum details the customer's complaint along with the expected peanut gallery postings. Discussion spread to other fora, accusations flew of favoritism and deleted posts. One co-owner pops in to say he's fixed the user's problem. Then something interesting happens on page 37. The other co-owner of HRDSoftware steps in and apologizes, reinstates the user's software, and spends the next 25 (and counting) pages engaging with the community and talking about how he can improve things going forward.
This story started out being about how users get punished for giving negative feedback, but now it is also about how to be a responsible business owner and respond to your userbase.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by VLM on Monday December 19 2016, @01:36PM
Free software. Can't brick it.
HRD was free software for the first decade or so of its life.
Its an interesting UI. A lot of remote radio control software tries to precisely emulate the physical radio, which means minimal retraining (assuming the purchaser knows how to operate the physical radio...) while also meaning minimal usefulness. HRD UI is (was?) hard to describe, like scrollbars in scrollbars in scrollbars to change frequencies and also has (had?) a very nice bookmarking and range labeling system. Even had a crude but semi usable spectrum analyzer like function.
The guy who wrote it and released it eventually got tired of it all and sold the complete rights to three guys who wanted to take it commercial which is going to be highly problematic. First of all in the modern era of software piracy you don't get that much more for pay vs free software. Secondly you can make a lot more money extorting radio manufacturers than individual hams (hams are well known for cheapness, making their own antenna wire by gripping a solid copper penny tightly in two hands and stretching it into a 80 meter dipole). Thirdly the new version of the software is competing against old downloads and installs of the free version. Fourthly the software barely (or didn't) support one dude, now they intend to support an entire commercial team? Fifthly free software scratches the itch of people who dogfood their own software, whereas commercial apps (of which there are competitors) merely checkbox marketing feature lists of stuff nobody wants but marketing, which means the existing community is completely uninterested in where the software is being led to. Sixthly the ham community is famous for extreme complaining, for example 99.9% of hams don't have any trouble, don't even blink, at soldering PL-259 connectors or anderson powerpole connectors or surface mount soldering but oh my god every single ham who's ever had the slightest problem with any of those makes damn certain everyone on the planet knows that they can't do it, therefore no one can do it and they go on and on about it, so something like paid ham radio software support must be absolute hell on earth for both sides. Seventhly this is like the 80/20 rule turned up to 99/1 or something, where almost all the performance gain in using the software came from the ancient 00s versions and any improvement today is a performance gain deep in the decimal places, so other than supporting new hardware there is little to gain by buying in, the gain you get in usability was huge by installing a free version in '08 or whatever, but the gain you get from paying up in '16 is it'll support some hardware you don't own and maybe never will.
I toyed with the idea of writing something sorta similar to HRD from the "free '00s era" run on a rasp-pi and interfaced on a web browser, on a phone or tablet. Its an interesting user interface problem, of how to "dial in" something like 8 digits of precision and use it in a hobby where you scroll around a lot and nothing is channelized while there are a large number of ranges and point sources to be plotted or clicked on or navigated thru.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday December 19 2016, @03:24PM
> (hams are well known for cheapness, making their own antenna wire by gripping a solid copper penny tightly in two hands and stretching it into a 80 meter dipole)
Thanks for the laugh!