Blog Entry

Submitted by John Dee (not verified) on 27 June 2006 - 2:20pm.

I think the first problem is that FTF's always appear under the BETA listing. Having to convince customers that that have to install a BETA patch to fix a problem makes them nervous at least and in some cases they have refused to do so initially.

If the problem(s) the FTF is meant to fix is serious enough they then have no choice to installthe FTF but I have not met anyone who is happy with this situation.

People associate BETA with beta releases of products. The fact that a patch can be BETA one day and of production quality the next without any changes is irrelevant to them.

Secondly, a bit if assurance from Novell as to what testing has been carried out with the FTF would not go a miss.

I could make a few more points about FTF’s but they might not be published

"Hotfix" sounds better.

Submitted by David Flax (not verified) on 27 June 2006 - 7:40pm.

I haven't relied on the FTF's. I haven't had a need to install them. I usually wait until the next SP is released.

I think they are released often enough and now that I have a couple of test servers I may start to install them to see if there are any perceivable differnces.

Pesonally I would love for Novell to release FTFs for other systems.

Submitted by FlyingGuy (not verified) on 27 June 2006 - 8:15pm.

As I responded that last time this sort of idea was floated.

They should be avaiable, easy to locate ( perhaps their own page!) with all the caviots.

For some these are litterly systen savers. They were at leance once for me.

Do you do them enough? Hard to say, but when a show stopper happens, we need them and we need them yesterday!

In my opinion, putting these out is akin to a interm build from an open source project. Do we want your nightly builds? No thanks! But we will indeed take these for those times when waiting for the next SP is just wont do.

Submitted by Dennis St. james (not verified) on 28 June 2006 - 4:38am.

I agree with the above statements. With netware if a problem arises between service packs they release that bug fix on its own. They dont say this is a beta type service pack and is not supported. I would like to see groupwise do something more like this rather than release the FTF's. Currently I think its hard to find information on the FTF's. I always check the patch area of the novell web site to see if any new patches are out that will fix a problem and thats where groupwise needs to put tested fixes.

Submitted by Jim (not verified) on 28 June 2006 - 6:05am.

We often rely of FTFs to fix broken functionality. We are lucky to be in a position to not have restrictions on running "beta" code, so we can apply FTFs at-will. I like having the ability to "fix" specific, nagging problems with FTF code vs. waiting for an official service pack. To lose such functionality would be troublesome.

Submitted by Simon Shilton (not verified) on 28 June 2006 - 6:18am.

I generally use the FTF clients, and have almost always found them an improvement on the shipping version. These have often been rolled out across the admittedly small user base as well.

Have occassionally used FTF GWIA, early 6.5 days I think, however unless we have had a real show stopper problem fixed by a FTF we generally have not used the FTF agents or webaccess.

I personally like to see them available and am confortable with the buyer beware nature of them.

Submitted by Tadd Moore (not verified) on 28 June 2006 - 8:11am.

I'm another one in the "we don't install beta code" camp. Either release a quality product the first time, or do the testing necessary to support patch code as you release it. We use this product as the messaging backbone for billion dollar enterprises - we can't make our production environment a sandbox for patch development.

We're also BES customers, and they seem to have an insatiable appetite for FTF's as it applies to client patches - I'd really like to see this stabilized, as every time we call them up, it seems there's a new patch that we absolutely have to use.

If we have a critical issue that can only be solved by an FTF, and it works, that FTF had better become either a Hotfix or a support pack pretty quickly...leaving these things in a "Beta" state allows Support to take a cop-out approach (which they have certainly done with us on more than one occasion) if you have an issue. We don't want to run anything that will cause us to operate without full technical support (e.g. no Beta code).

Submitted by Alex Evans (not verified) on 28 June 2006 - 2:06pm.

Phew, looks like I have some responding to do. In fact I started and the response was longer than my original post - so I will roll it all up into a new post.

As a relative Blog newbie I'll try a trackback to the new post - don't blame me if I get it wrong :)

Submitted by Tom Stone (not verified) on 28 June 2006 - 2:18pm.

I have used Groupwise FTFs enough to appreciate them. There have been some critical issues that have been fixed by using them. There have been several problems resolved by using them and not having to wait for a full service pack release or opening a support incident. The quality has been good enough that I have used them in production environments after some testing.

The Beta code issue is just a semantic. If you had a download area called Field Test Patches instead of Beta Downloads, more people would be likely to use them. Larger IT shops just don't like that Beta word.

Overall, I think that they are a good idea. This is a good sales point with my customers. Keeping my customers happy with GroupWise and preventing them from migrating to Exchange is my biggest challenge.