[TZubiri]

Side note.

One of the advantages of using proprietary packaged software is supposed to be a unified support and product.

In this case the maintainer redirects the issue to some other team and passes the ball as if it were an open source project with 50 dependencies with thin responsibilities "no, if there's an issue with a button, you should report it to GUI-button, we do GUI-form and we just pass the button generation to their library"

[RajT88]

Microsoft is a many headed beast.

Finding the right contact even for employees inside the beast is challenging and a skill all its own.

[nottorp]

I'm more used to hear this kind of 'it's not our fault' crap from state bureaucracies not companies that want me to pay them...

[msk-lywenn]

When a company has its street named after themselves and a fleet of buses to carry employees to the company, one can start considering Microsoft as a state with all the necessary bureaucracy.

[immibis]

Large enough companies are states - period. Apple is a state. So was Standard Oil.

[eptcyka]

Bureaucracy sets in before statehood.

[hbn]

Microsoft is long past the point of realizing they don't need to make their product good to keep users. Everyone who uses Windows is stuck using it because of software lock-in, or it's what's on the laptop their job provides, or because they can't afford a Mac. Outside of niche communities, there aren't a lot of "Windows fans" out there these days.

They'll gladly harvest your data whether you like them or not!

[volemo]

> because they can't afford a Mac

Ha, as if the situation with macOS is much better? The OS space is a (lopsided) duopoly, both Microsoft and Apple know it and have pulled down their sleeves long ago.

[hbn]

Yes, I have years of experience with both and macOS is way less of a user-hostile experience. People buy Apple products because they like them.

[RajT88]

Some people buy Apple products because they have succeeded in making it a minor status symbol. It's interesting, because one symbol is wealth (Apple devices cost more), but the other is a symbol of being a creative professional.

I would describe myself via metaphor: the redneck who likes to race cars, and doesn't care about the car as long as it has most of its wheels, and he'll drive the hell out of it.

[nottorp]

Because they like them better than Windows actually.

They're both crap, Apple is less crap.

This post typed on a macbook pro.

[cjbgkagh]

Large companies are the same for the same reasons, the relationship between you paying them and their personal benefit is so incredibly remote that it might as well not exist.

[RajT88]

I am sorry if it sounded like I was suggesting it was not their fault.

I was simply stating fact, without any particular opinions on the matter of fault.

[Uvix]

For stuff where they take money, like Azure, Microsoft has clearer lines of support. .NET and Windows are loss leaders.

[TZubiri]

Yup, definitely has felt that way for years, they do try to consolidate but it takes years. When I was trying to setup something for customer support I was navigating all of their redundant products, Teams, Skype, Skype for Business (different thing), Lync.

But that is way more normal for microsoft, because it's about redundant products that get merged eventually. What's not typical is internal dependencies being exposed, the case above were many MSFT teams/products in the same tier, the case in this article is many MSFT teams/products in a single vertical, at different tiers of the supply chain.

It's possible that this is more a feature of open source, this being an open source MSFT product (.NET core) and the report having been filed through an open source channel (github issues). I think that if the issue were submitted to some account manager or customer service rep through a channel linked to a paying customer account, the response would have been very different.

But you cannot expect a quality customer service response if there's no $ being paid to the maintainers. Whether it be Microsoft or whatever FOSS project.

[wat10000]

Which is exactly why the employees need to be the ones shepherding these reports to the right place.

[MarkSweep]

The maintainer is not a Microsoft employee. For what that’s worth.

[II2II]

The buck is passed all of the time, it simply happens internally and out of sight of the customer. In this case, it looks like an open source component managed by a commercial company. They could do everything out of sight, but the open source world also encourages transparency.

[TZubiri]

Right, as a customer you always prefer that it happen out of sight, but I guess these are the very tradeoffs of choosing open source software, you can't get the best of both worlds.

That said, maybe a slight change like, "I'll open a ticket with the other team" instead of "you should open a ticket with the other team" makes all the difference. But like I said in another comment, if you open a ticket on github, you aren't paying for that support, you should aim to have a commercial relationship with Microsoft and then raise the issue through that commercial channel.

Otherwise you have no recourse to complain, you are getting everything as-is.

[cjbgkagh]

I think a big part of the transparency was to help clean up this very mess, motivate developers to do the right thing or face public ridicule. The public is not in any org chain, we don’t get performance bonuses, we’re not incentivized to hide issues from upper management, it is very much the opposite. Having this out of band communication is incredibly valuable and helps keep the reporting chain honest. Someone somewhere inside MS will use this example in an effort to fix the process, much easier to say 30 random internet people with no motivation the lie or collude all agree that this is unacceptable than to say “I think this is unacceptable”.

[wat10000]

It's easy to have both transparency and proper handling. "Thank you for the report. This issue is actually in the underlying Whatever library. I've passed it along to that team."