Business ethics

[jupiter8]

In a perfect world a company would give out lifetime authorizations if they fold but in reality it isn't that easy. I don't know about other countries (but i suspect it's the same as Sweden in most) but if i go bankrupt the code isn't mine to give away anymore. I don't own it,the bank does or the people i own money. So even with the best intentions i simply cannot give it away. I might even go to prison if i do.

[AdmiralQuality]

Seems to me a lot of the ideas here go against the little man heavily
Kind of comes across as a way for the mid size developer to kill off the little man entirely cause sure as shit is shit the big devs (If they even bother to read this) would be laughing their collective tits off
No way in hell are you ever going to stop a major software developer from putting false marketing crap on their site because it would be like asking ford not to have some scantily clad woman draped over their new car at a show
(There was a feel of "Someone pissed in my thread and i'm angry" to parts of it too)

I could go through the entire list and tell you why it really is so stupid to even think you could create a code of conduct but why bother

Most of the developers who have posted in this thread have a trusted reputation and i see no point at all in that not continuing as is and let the rest of the world get on with what they want to do

This is 2010, it is the internet, get used to it because anyone could come up with the best VSTi anyone has ever heard (They will) and not give any contact info beyond a forum and email and hey guess what , they may even give the best support anyone has ever seen too
Who exactly are any of us to say this is a bad thing ?

NAS

My sentiments exactly. Only reason I didn't say so already was I didn't want to piss off Urs because he's a genuinely nice and helpful fellow, though I frankly don't give hoot whether he approves of my ethics. Customers vote with their wallets. We should all feel as free to be sleaze-balls as we dare to -- with some companies, superior marketing (i.e. B.S.) is all they've got. I'm obviously very anti-marketing and I'll go out of my way to make sure a customer is happy (try sending an email to the president of Yamaha and see if he gets back to you in 5 minutes!) But that's my angle; try harder. For other companies, their strategy may be (and usually is) different, and that's fine. I WANT to be different.

I do agree with many of Urs' suggestions -- but there's no reason they should be enforced. The ones I implement I do by choice, but I don't want my phone number on the web. That doesn't make me a bad guy, it's just because the company is so small it doesn't HAVE a phone, anyone to answer it, nor an office other than my bedroom -- so any contact info I shared other than company email would be 100% personal. Still, I've never had a customer have to wait longer than 24 hours to get a support response (usually it's a few minutes, but I do occasionally leave the house or sleep for a few hours at a time. )

But when it comes to no contact information, it's most often the BIG companies that do that! At least you can find my email on my website, and don't have to submit your comment/question/support request through a web form. Man I hate that!

[quikquak]

I use a web form because Internet 'spiders' were scraping my email address off the site, and I got loads more spam through. I communicate normally through email after first contact.

If anybody has a marketing dept. or has been floated on the stocks, then profit will be their main concern. You can't stop that, and it's a shame sometimes, because quality assurances often come in last place.

But the advantage of a smaller company to be better than that. I think the rest has been said already.

Dave.

[AdmiralQuality]

I use a web form because Internet 'spiders' were scraping my email address off the site, and I got loads more spam through. I communicate normally through email after first contact.

If anybody has a marketing dept. or has been floated on the stocks, then profit will be their main concern. You can't stop that, and it's a shame sometimes, because quality assurances often come in last place.

But the advantage of a smaller company to be better than that. I think the rest has been said already.

Dave.

I get loads of spam too, but I check my email through gmail, which has awesome spam filtering. And if you wanted to avoid the spam-bots, you could always just show the email address in an image or otherwise obfuscate it.

And yes, marketing, paid endorsements, fake user testimonials, scantily clad women with big boobs, Jordan Rudess... if you can't stand these things then it's time to move to a tiny shack in the woods and start mailing letter bombs to every corporation on the planet. (That's a joke, just to be clear. )

[metamorphosis]

Or you could actually make your products good & unique, make them available at reasonable prices, genuinely listen to your customers suggestions and (eventually) post interviews with big names who happen to be using them, and avoid all marketing BS. Like Izotope. Who're bigger than any of you, partially because their initial and current approach to marketing.
m@

[VariKusBrainZ]

NAS's sig sums him/her up for me Lol
a true defeatist

[trimph1]

Are there any business organizations geared to this area of interest that one can join?

[SWAN808]

3.4. marking someone elses terrain

I think we need to revaluate the unspoken rules that say that no dev must pee inside another one's forum thread (no, I don't mean the thread that led me to this). When is it okay to post in a thread and when is it not?

I think that e.g. a thread in Instruments where someone asks about specific products of specific companies is *not* open for other companies to market their stuff in. One can always react if a user innocently drops a product name. But jumping in just out of the blue without *any* invitation by the OP or anything is *not* *cool*.

As a common rule one should say: Don't do to your competitor's thread what you don't want done to yours. The milages seem to vary though

This one is only related to marketing, right? Not normal participation?

Let us say that a company market their new synth as sounding exactly like the original Aries 300 System, but in reality it simply doesn't - then what?

I think it is inappropriate for a direct competitor to comment in a other business thread on this matter...or try to subjectively 'police' what does and doesnt sound accurate - again - on the competitor thread...

In reality - it is better IMO to let the users come to judgement about whether something is or isnt accurate...

[Urs]

I do agree with many of Urs' suggestions -- but there's no reason they should be enforced.

That's what I'm saying - it's a choice one can make. I never wanted to enforce something, I just wanted to invite.

And of course it might be interesting to see what others think.

[quikquak]

It's about common sense though, and most unethical things are to do with the treatment of your workforce. And there's that other little thing called bribery, which happens all the time I suspect!!
http://tutor2u.net/business/strategy/bu ... ssues.html

It's worth reminding that a lot of gadget and film review programs on TV have been paid to have products on the show. They are not reviews, but endorsements - is that ethical? Or the only way it works.

Dave

[AdmiralQuality]

It's about common sense though, and most unethical things are to do with the treatment of your workforce. And there's that other little thing called bribery, which happens all the time I suspect!!
http://tutor2u.net/business/strategy/bu ... ssues.html

It's worth reminding that a lot of gadget and film review programs on TV have been paid to have products on the show. They are not reviews, but endorsements - is that ethical? Or the only way it works.

Dave

Yeah, that's what I'm trying to say I guess. Again, I'm on the side of busting my ass to make sure the customer is happy, but not every company can afford to do that. And once you get bigger, have investors (or gawd forbid, stock-holders) all ethics get thrown out the window, and if you try to get in the way of it they'll throw YOU out the window and replace you with someone more ruthless. For better or worse, it's just the way business works in this world.

Fortunately, we're all little guys here, so we can afford to hang on to our morals. And yes, we should be proud of that. But if other companies can't or won't adhere to my same standard of ethics, I say that's great, because that makes my little company stand out. For example, I've definitely turned some people off with my unspectacular looking, utilitarian website. But that's because, as long as the website is functional, I don't want to spend any more time and money on it that could have gone instead into making more and better products. A shiny website doesn't help my customers ONE BIT. But some people don't get that, they WANT to see the company they're purchasing software from blowing wads of cash on advertising, endorsements, overblown shmancy web sites, etc. So I choose my niche, and other companies choose theirs. It's all good, and it just means there's that much more choice for the consumer to pick from.

[Urs]

No way in hell are you ever going to stop a major software developer from putting false marketing crap on their site

This is hardly needed with the big ones - I actually like NI's approach of basing their celebrity opinion by a video tutorial. NI also don't plaster their tastefully done website with a gazillion buzzwords. They simply don't need to do that. (And those people at NI I know are sincerely nice people)

When things go fishy though, e.g. when I accidentally come across false claims on a company website, I sometimes send an email to them (provided they let me). That's because shady business conduct affects us all. Sending emails sometimes has an effect, other times not. I myself react on such requests rather quickly, e.g. when asked recently to remove a link to an mp3 from my forum.

Anyhow, to see how the unfortunate behaviour of one developer affects other devs, here's an example: Due to the way Kjaerhus folded many people got some resentment towards small developers. Quite some people geared towards big names rather than small devs in some threads on that topic. A proper exit strategy would have avoided that, and maybe from nowadays perspective he would have implemented one. Kjaerhus is however not the problem and I never found him shady.

It's not remotely funny how having a posh website often gets confused with professionalism. The two occurr to be mutually exclusive in our realm, with few exceptions. [snipped part that may be misunderstood] One recently sees some small businesses who put a considerable amount of money into marketing and website poshness.

I believe that exaggerated promises lead to quite an amount of impulse buys. Impulse buys often create frustrated users who may or may not start thinking twice if they spend more money on plugins. The scenario is "If those guys don't cut it, why would an indy do so?". Hell, they are not even a big company, they just have a posh website.

Hence I do sincerely believe that false marketing must not be ignored. Simple as that, and of course not just on posh websites.

Creating awareness can't do any harm either.

Urs

[NAS]

NAS's sig sums him/her up for me Lol
a true defeatist

Wow what a great contribution to the thread
try to derail much ?

NAS

[quikquak]

False claims are a matter of fraud, not ethics. If a company states something that's a lie, then that's "taking money by false pretenses." And is liable to deception offences, and the Theft Act, and other such blah-blah stuff.

Marketeers tend to exaggerate, but do not lie. My favourite, is anything that's "psycho-acoustic," it always makes me smile when I read that one.

Dave

[Urs]

Yeah, there's a fine line I guess.