http://ayende.comAyende @ RahienCopyright (C) Ayende Rahien 2004 - 2021 (c) 202660People have to remember programmers at these shrinkwrap houses suck too. They are simply scrambling to fix your problem and have no idea how. I cant tell you how many times my last statement to tech support is, "Am I the first guy to ask for this feature?" And of course the feature is something common sense related and the product is rev 8 or something ridiculous. Dont even get me started on product revving. Programmers seem to think it's macho or something to rev, rev. Just keep your product at v1.0 and make sure it runs. Your customers will be much happier. When it's rev 8 and sucks, they know YOU suck. http://ayende.com/3815/the-other-side-of-build-vs-buy-decisions#comment5http://ayende.com/3815/the-other-side-of-build-vs-buy-decisions#comment5Sun, 18 Jan 2009 15:23:40 GMTOSS FTW!1!!!1 But seriously, this is really annoying, and one of the reasons I try to look at an OSS solution first. Support is often just as good, and you can always fix it yourself. Sure, fixing it yourself costs time, but so does being dependent on an other company. Then again, sometimes there isn't a good OSS alternative. @Steve, Regarding the 'No Responsibility For It Working', I can say to my customer it isn't my fault all day, but he still expects me to fix it. http://ayende.com/3815/the-other-side-of-build-vs-buy-decisions#comment4http://ayende.com/3815/the-other-side-of-build-vs-buy-decisions#comment4Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:29:05 GMTBuild vs Buy is often better framed in terms of what the true trade-offs are, of course, which more often than not end up being... Control Over Your Own Destiny vs. No Control Over Your Own Destiny -or- Responsibility For It Working vs. No Responsibility For It Working FWIW, I agree with your estimation that BUY is the default action to select and BUILD is the position that you need to be convinced of after finding nothing worth BUYing that solves the problem, but this is certainly one of the very real downsides to this approach as you quite correctly point out. http://ayende.com/3815/the-other-side-of-build-vs-buy-decisions#comment3http://ayende.com/3815/the-other-side-of-build-vs-buy-decisions#comment3Sat, 17 Jan 2009 21:10:25 GMThope you hear back from them. it's not fun when you're stuck and have no control.. unless you break down and write your own over the weekend; which wouldn't surprise me about you. http://ayende.com/3815/the-other-side-of-build-vs-buy-decisions#comment2http://ayende.com/3815/the-other-side-of-build-vs-buy-decisions#comment2Sat, 17 Jan 2009 17:21:02 GMTThe funny thing is that you often get the same type of behavior from companies that make industrial hardware sold for €6,000 a piece. http://ayende.com/3815/the-other-side-of-build-vs-buy-decisions#comment1http://ayende.com/3815/the-other-side-of-build-vs-buy-decisions#comment1Sat, 17 Jan 2009 16:30:10 GMT