--- title: "A 'softie at a linux show" url: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/8/29/a-softie-at-a-linux-show.md" canonical: "https://osherove.com/blog/2003/8/29/a-softie-at-a-linux-show.html" published: "2003-08-29T20:58:00" updated: "2003-08-29T20:58:00" tags: ["Off Topic"] author: "Roy Osherove" description: "Josh Ledgard from MS talks about the impressions of a 'softie in a linux show . Some very interesting comments, and at least one surprising anacdote.. Some of the more intersting parts:: “Listening (and Responding) to…" usage: "Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page)." license: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/" --- # A 'softie at a linux show By Roy Osherove August 29, 2003 In [Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) **Historical article** · Originally published August 29, 2003; technical details may be outdated. [Josh Ledgard](http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/jledgard/) from MS talks about [the impressions of a 'softie in a linux show](http://blogs.gotdotnet.com/jledgard/permalink.aspx/0da73a83-d04d-4bb1-bafb-d487b3e5c0f6). Some very interesting comments, and at least one surprising anacdote.. Some of the more intersting parts:: _**“Listening (and Responding) to Customers**_ _Everyone beat MS up on this one.  Simon Phipps, the Chief Technology Evangelist at Sun, made the point best when he said " I used to work as a tester at Microsoft on Word 1.0.  I would log bugs that I'm not even sure the developers ever looked at. I never saw any fixed or heard about the bugs again. The first time I logged a bug against_ [_OpenOffice.org_](http://www.openoffice.org/ "http://www.openoffice.org/") _one of the developers wrote me back, told me he had fixed it, and I would see it in a released version in 3 months".  He challenged Microsoft to do the same thing and the audience cheered. It reminded me that Microsoft cannot continue to be a black hole in the eyes of the customer._ “ “_**Worst Ploy to take advantage of:** Real networks threw an after hours party with free drinks to convince people to [build their next generation software](https://www.helixcommunity.org/ "https://www.helixcommunity.org/") for them.  “Sure, I’ll write free code for you in return for peanuts and beer”.  (With the unemployment in the valley they might have had a few takers who considered it a good offer.)_ **_Line most likely heard after people read my badge_**_: Oh, well at least you don’t work for SCO._ “ ## More in Off Topic [All posts in Off Topic](https://osherove.com/blog/category/off-topic) - Sep 1, 2003 ### [Writing a product review](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/9/1/writing-a-product-review.html) - Aug 29, 2003 ### [I've been slacking off](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/8/29/ive-been-slacking-off.html) - Aug 29, 2003 ### [A .Net weblogger business card?](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/8/29/a-net-weblogger-business-card.html) - Aug 28, 2003 ### [Main feed for blogs.gotdotnet.com, please!](https://osherove.com/blog/2003/8/28/main-feed-for-blogsgotdotnetcom-please.html) --- ## About the author **Roy Osherove**: Senior Solutions Architect at AWS working on AI for production and AI-driven development; author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership, with about 20 years of consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery. ### Sites - [RobotPaper](https://robotpaper.ai/): This blog: AI patterns and anti-patterns, AI and coding agents, and engineering leadership. - [osherove.com](https://osherove.com): Roy's personal site. Author of The Art of Unit Testing and Elastic Leadership; consulting and training on unit testing, TDD, team leadership and continuous delivery, plus about 20 years of blog posts. - [The Art of Unit Testing](https://www.artofunittesting.com): The Art of Unit Testing, 3rd Edition (Manning): readable, maintainable, trustworthy unit tests, plus TDD workshops in C#, JavaScript, Java and Kotlin. - [5whys.com](https://www.5whys.com): Roy's writing on software team leadership: self-organizing teams, surviving chaos, learning mode and the Elastic Leadership model. - [Pipeline Driven](https://pipelinedriven.org): Continuous delivery and DevOps practices: build patterns, pipeline-friendly testing, DevOps metrics and enterprise DevOps. - [Elastic Leadership](https://www.elasticleadership.com): Elastic Leadership, Roy's framework for software team leaders (survival, learning and self-organizing modes). ### Social - X: https://x.com/royosherove - LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/osherove/ ### Contact - Contact form: https://forms.gle/jQSx5KoXvrVA1JCK7 ### License Licensed under CC BY 4.0 — reuse, quote and adapt with attribution (Roy Osherove, link to the original page). License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/