NEW *VIP* program for developers

[John McDaniel]

Waves writes via mass email:

WAVES - WE ARE ASKING FOR YOUR VOTE

Everyone here at Waves is honored that the IR-1 Parametric Convolution Reverb has been nominated for a Technical Excellence and Creativity (TEC) Award in the Signal Processing Technology / Software category.

And we're asking for your vote to recognize the engineers who developed this groundbreaking processor-the first convolution-based reverb that allows classic parameters to actually affect the convolution, not just "filter the result."

To vote, just fill out the ballot card included in the September issue of Mix magazine. With your endorsement, you'll be joining the audio pros who have recognized IR-1 as a major achievement in the development of convolution reverb.

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Dear WAVES,

We regret to inform you that your VIP (Vote Insurance Program) expired two weeks before your communication. Therefore, we will be unable to cast any votes for the IR-1 in the TEC Awards balloting.

As you know, from the information in your VIP agreement, the VIP program must be renewed on an annual basis to remain active. The Vote Insurance Program guarantees that we will vote for any of your products when they are nominated for an industry award, provided that your VIP account is current.

The VIP program has been developed in response to the needs of software developers. It is based upon the sincere effort of end users who feel a responsibility to the software developers who make our lives so effortless and wonderful. It is a tiered program offering the flexibility to accommodate developers at all levels. The tiers are:

Plutonium Level VIP

The Plutonium level VIP program is for developers who deliver software that is innovative, on time, bug free, regularly updated, reasonably priced, properly supported, copy protected transparently with guaranteed 99% uptime, and documented by a well written, comprehensive printed manual. The cost of the Plutonium VIP program is free, although it must be renewed annually at AES. To date, no software developer has chosen this level of Vote Insurance Program coverage.


Mercury Level VIP

The Mercury level VIP program is for developers who deliver a pretty good product, crash their prototype fewer than 3 times in a single trade show demonstration, miss release deadlines by less than 12 months, respond to support emails in less than 30 days, and have an automated phone system with at least 5 nodes and a minimum of 4 options per node and 2 or more sub-menus for at least 3 options in at least 3 nodes (giving the illusion of an extensive support organization). Mercury level developers need not be polite to end users, but merely show occasional grudging respect. PDF manuals are acceptable at the Mercury VIP level, as are onerous CP practices. The cost of the Mercury VIP program is defined by the formula below:

$$ = (((T+L)B*P*D*R)(1/S))*F

T=total products
L=total products released late
B=bugs
P=# of pdf manuals
D=# of days past release date
R=# of revisions required to squash bugs
S=# of full time support staff
F=# outstanding bugs never fixed

Alchemist Level VIP

The Alchemist level VIP program is for developers who lust for the transmutation of old DSP code from college assignments into efficient, bug free cross platform software that will become the next "must have" amongst the audio digerati. Developers at the Alchemist level do not need to concern themselves with deadlines, respect for customers, support, accurate documentation, transparent CP, or shipping a final product. Alchemist level developers are allowed to ship software at any stage of development while referring to it as golden. The cost of the Alchemist VIP program is calculated by multiplying the Mercury VIP formula by the number of lines of code in current or future software offerings.

Once again, we would like to remind software developers that the VIP program was designed with their needs in mind; taking into account input from a number of code geeks in the industry. Although we wish it were so, no program can perfectly serve every single software developer. We feel that the VIP program breaks new ground in our effort to serve software creators, and reinforces our commitment to making the lives of developers more utopian.

Sincerely,

the SUCKERS team

Software
Users
Committee
Kvetching
Endlessly for
Reliable
Software

[putney]

Cute!

[Chief Technician]

John - this is great!!!!!!

Let me see, based on your criterion for being worthy of votes, it seems that all the nominated products for categories II J, I, and M will get zero votes, resulting in no winner!

I see a trend developing on the DUC, and while I would not credit myself with starting it, the bottom line is this... fix the bugs!

Unfortunately, the cost of Alchemist is too high for my thesis project to ever be eligible for consideration, which I might add does have a deadline and requires documentation.

[bad jitter]

LOL!!!!

[Mark Wheaton]

this is a great joke, but seriously, a similar program of user certification by a pro user group with efforts toward lobbying state and federal legislators on behalf of reasonable software user rights would be go a long way towards making software developers sit up and take notice. Any users out there who know how to get this off the ground?

I know this flies in the face of the free market mentality that has driven our economy for the last 20 years or more but really there needs to be legal means to achieve reasonable controls on the way developers support and upgrade their products.

[GW]

My exact thoughts when I got the Waves-mail. Hope it reaches into the corridors of Waves management, those guys ain't for real!!!

[mindnoise]

(giving the illusion of an extensive support organization)

I like that bubble economy.

[Chief Technician]

Any users out there who know how to get this off the ground?

Find a lawyer that worked for Microsoft on the Mac OS v. Windows case that started in the late eighties. Why a lawyer that was on the Microsoft side of that case? Because Apple shot themselves in the foot with the original settlement, allowing Microsoft to take Windows, with all of its Apple-originated concepts, to the point they have reached with XP. You wouldn't want a lawyer that was part of that gaffe for Apple's side, would you?

[Jeff D.]

I'll vote for the IR-1 when they fix my Masters Bundle V4 so that it works in Peak without crashing.

[Chief Technician]

I thought you all would find this amusing.

When I arrived at the studio this morning, the email John McDaniel received was waiting in my inbox. I use Netscape v7.1 for an email client, and I have it configured to automatically filter out the spam/junk into the Trash.

The WAVES email was deemed trash! Perhaps Netscape knows they have a few bugs to fix?