A truly damning indictment of the tech contract labor scene. Definitely a must-read. Josh Eidelson and Hassan Kanu at Bloomberg Businessweek.
[See the full post at: Bloomberg Businessweek: Microsoft Bug Testers Unionized. Then They Were Dismissed]
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Bloomberg Businessweek: Microsoft Bug Testers Unionized. Then They Were Dismissed
- This topic has 44 replies, 15 voices, and was last updated 5 years, 3 months ago.
AuthorViewing 13 reply threadsAuthor-
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My feelings about this are definitely not neutral.
This is a classic tactic by MS and the temp agency’s to make these problems go away. For a higher end product they would have used a similar tactic of moving the noisemakers to another – less important – team. Then cancel that product. (A “new” product might then arise a few months later with a new name.)
Remember when temp workers were subjected to 100 days of forced unpaid time off per year to reduce MS risk that they might sue again?
MS (and all their temp agencies) learned their lesson well at that time.
~ Group "Weekend" ~
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This is a credible explanation, in my opinion, of why Microsoft shut down their testing dept.
My guess is that they will never bring back their testing dept. That’s why they are now using AI and telemetry to improve their products. Not as effective as experienced human testers, at least not at this early stage. Who knows, at some point AI and telemetry may end up doing a better job than human testers.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 8.1 running in a VM1 user thanked author for this post.
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It sucks for the human task force that was let go, but with all due respect, telemetry data from a couple million users of varying system configurations is going to pinpoint issues a lot quicker and easier than a team of a couple hundred bugtest employees (and that’s probably 10x as many as they actually had).
Telemetry is “where it’s at”; privacy advocates don’t like it, but that’s the way it is now. Telemetry data costs the requesting organization very little – obviously because it costs us users a semblance of privacy. I’m ok with telemetry data being taken, at least on a basic level. I don’t think it’s fair to assume that everyone would want “user opened x app y number of times” type of data, but, if you want my crash logs to figure out why an update is causing issues, please, take the crash logs.
Something I’ve come to grips with lately – re-running Win7 without being in Group A has proven to be an impossible idea, because of system instability. So, if I’m running 7 in Group A, I basically am doing so for the sake of not having telemetry hooks, and being able to pick and choose updates. Only… I’m really not, because Group A is cumulative, so I’m not picking and choosing updates. I’m getting what they send out, just on my schedule.
Conversely, when you seriously think about it, this is the exact same as running Win10 Pro with deferrals. I’m still taking their updates, but since I cannot choose them easily, I’m putting up a fence with a timelock that opens after z days which is typically when the updates have been updated and patched to not break stuff. In that regard, (and moreso due to the issues I’ve had trying to run 7 again lately), my systems are back on 10 Pro 1709 and they’re rock solid again.
Just something for the anti-10 crowd to ponder. 🙂
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It’s not quite the same as running Win 10 Pro with deferrals.
For one thing, you don’t have to even think about when or for how long to set these deferrals, delays, or what have you. No need to worry about the 30 days or 365 days or whatever — you simply do it when you’re good and ready. No need to plan it out.
For another, there are no needless complications regarding “active hours” or when Microsoft will force you to reboot: you simply do it when it suits you and not the Redmond busybodies.
And best of all, during patch installation you don’t get those arrogant, insulting screens from Microsoft telling you how they’re making Windows so much better for you (…that is, assuming that your PC reboots afterward). I do not appreciate getting propagandized by MS; the previous “just the facts” updating process was incomparably more professional and respectful of the customer.
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Well said, Cybertooth.
One thing about gritting one’s teeth and getting through the dumbing down… It’s the masses who financed and cost-reduced all the great tech we now get practically for free. On my desk today is a computer I only dreamed about 40 years ago and never imagined I could have and use at my whim.
That being said, I sometimes do still long for the era when the company computer took up a whole building and the OS came with on-site support staff. It was a time when getting things right and being good at something was important.
-Noel
5 users thanked author for this post.
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zero2dash: I’d like to see you come to grips with Windows 7 users who have rejected updates since, oh, sometime in 2017. Let’s cite Canadian Tech as a prominent example. His recent posts here are not hard to find. They have however met with little response for those advocate Group A.
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Adding to Cybertooth comments in e.g. #212878
…or with Group B using Win 7, that still are able to easily pick – and unpick and, yes, remove individually, as needed — the Security Only and IE11 patches they allow to reside in their machines. A little more work needed than installing S&Q rollups, but not exactly rocket science either. It takes a little more practice, that’s all.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
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Who knows, at some point AI and telemetry may end up doing a better job than human testers.
But first I would have to consent and allow telemetry.
1 user thanked author for this post.
Telemetry is “where it’s at”; privacy advocates don’t like it, but that’s the way it is now. Telemetry data costs the requesting organization very little – obviously because it costs us users a semblance of privacy. I’m ok with telemetry data being taken, at least on a basic level.
I personally don’t believe that Microsoft is gathering personal data from users; I believe they are gathering technical data, and as little personal data as possible. In my honest opinion, they are using that data to make Windows better, not to profit by marketing the data.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 8.1 running in a VM1 user thanked author for this post.
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I agree, I think Microsoft is trying to do the right thing. I believe they are better than Google in that regard.
I am one of the paranoid few who don’t like the telemetry, but it isn’t Microsoft (or even advertisers) I’m worried about. It’s the government using a secret court (Patriot Act) to track individuals through the data that companies collect. I don’t mind lawful non-secret court orders (even those that are sealed for a reasonable amount of time) to get that same data, but the secret court scares me, because I don’t know the government is doing the right thing.
So, as a matter of principle, I don’t use products with telemetry any time I can help it. Even though Microsoft does seem to have a good track record of protecting user data and rights.
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I personally don’t believe that Microsoft is gathering personal data from users; I believe they are gathering technical data, and as little personal data as possible. In my honest opinion, they are using that data to make Windows better, not to profit by marketing the data.
I disagree with this.If that was the case why hasn’t win 10 improved?Its the same garbage that was released in 2015 ..Each month keeps getting worse with the updates..
Edit to remove HTML – Please use the “Text” tab in the post entry box when you copy/paste
1 user thanked author for this post.
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We are in the early stages of AI/telemetry being used to improve Windows. It may not be too good right now, but it should get better and better over time. That is the basic underlying premise of AI.
Maybe it would have been smart for MS to retain beta testers until that point that they aren’t needed, rather than letting them go now to save money (while letting the end users be the guinea pigs) in the hopes that future technology might possibly be just as good?
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The issue here is not telemetry & AI vs human workers, it is the fact that Microsoft & Lionbridge colluded in their (successful) attempt to deny basic benefits to temp workers who had organized as a union. It is one thing to use technology to improve company performance; it is another to treat your sub-contractors like sub-humans.
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I didn’t address that aspect of the question, because this is a tech blog, not a political blog. But now that you have brought it up…
I am a subcontractor, and have been for about three years. I believe that I and other employees of the subcontracting company (that is, the company which issues me my paycheck and provides me my benefits) have every right to organize as a union within that company, and even go on strike, if we so choose. But I don’t believe we have any right to organize and form a union at the company we have been contracted to. I have no business relationship with that company; I am, in effect, a visitor, not a member of the family.
It seems that, more and more, we are tilting literally everything in favor of the worker. We need to take a more balanced approach to this question. Companies do have legitimate business needs, and so they need to be able to look after their own business interests. Otherwise it won’t be long till they will go out of business. If that ever happens, we will all lose.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 8.1 running in a VM2 users thanked author for this post.
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The original article that is referenced is not a tech article, and the focus is political. In fact the first sentence of the piece is “Silicon Valley’s contract labor has become a hot political topic…”. I disagree with you that we are over-compensating in favor of workers. However, I appreciate that you are willing to speak up.
2 users thanked author for this post.
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Unions have their own problems and it’s worth noting that in the story the reason for the talks between the union and Lionbridge breaking down was that MS wanted them to guarantee at least 3 weeks paid time off.
Most likely the union figured it could get more while renegotiating contracts. I’ve found that many unions for lower paying jobs rarely offer much benefit. Usually they work to secure better pay for the lifers but will do things like cut pensions benefits for the junior workers.
1 user thanked author for this post.
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I didn’t read the story; but if Microsoft is going to dictate the pay and/or benefits of subcontractors, then it is implying that they are employees of Microsoft. But Microsoft is not issuing paychecks to these subs, because in fact they are not employees of Microsoft. Therefore, it is none of Microsoft’s business how much paid vacation they get; that is between the sub and the subcontracting company; and that is where a union would come into play, because any sort of negotiation like that should be between the subs and the company which actually employs them, that is, the subcontracting company.
If Microsoft wants to, they can specify the days that the subs will work or will take off; but what they get paid for the days off is not Microsoft’s concern, it is the concern of the subcontracting company.
Group "L" (Linux Mint)
with Windows 8.1 running in a VM1 user thanked author for this post.
To diverge from the business and political aspects a bit, and veer back to the technical…
The whole point of a walled-garden company store is that all the Apps inside are vetted and tested and can’t hurt you, right?
Without folks – and specifically Microsoft folks – to do that vetting and testing, what exactly does an App store bring to the party that you can’t get from the wild Internet?
I’m sure some businessman or businesswoman thought slashing labor costs was a great idea but…
You really can’t add the kind of value that will make an App Store impress customers if at the same time you outsource and slash the cost of the vetting process. Doing that may actually get you less than the level of confidence customers might feel from free online reviews.
An App Store doesn’t succeed just because it’s there. It needs Apps that are safe, powerful, productive, high quality – that really work.
-Noel
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Furthermore, quality updates for 7 & 8.1 have went in the toilet over the last year and a half as well, so does that (by extension according to your post) mean that those are “the same garbage that was released in 2009 and 2012”, respectfully?
They backported telemetry to 8.1 and 7, then eliminated testers for the patches for 7 and 8.1 as well. It doesn’t seem to be working if the quality of updates has been, as you say, in the toilet!
Telemetry, regardless of its purpose, must be approved by the owner of the machine. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. If voluntary telemetry is not going to produce enough data, then it is time to find another strategy.
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Automated tools have to be properly configured by someone who knows what they are doing. Otherwise it is ‘garbage-in; garbage-0ut’. The problem is not having enough competent human testers oversee the process and looking for the problem areas that are getting missed. The state of affairs indicates telemetry is not or can not be used to assess problems and generate valid testing plans to verify the problems are fixed.
For one thing, you don’t have to even think about when or for how long to set these deferrals, delays, or what have you. No need to worry about the 30 days or 365 days or whatever — you simply do it when you’re good and ready. No need to plan it out.
I don’t plan out anything. My systems don’t update automatically, and when I check for updates, I’m not seeing recently-released feature or quality updates. I update when the DEFCON has improved, same as I used to do. I had GP set to defer FU’s for 365 days and QU’s for 30 days; I’ve since changed those to 120 and 14, respectively (as for the most part, I think those are safe enough figures to pad things out and let the dust settle, without being overly dodgy).
These are precisely the sorts of scenarios that I had in mind when I wrote about not needing to fiddle with any of this stuff (I’d use a stronger word, but the forum rules wouldn’t allow it 😉 ) in Windows versions prior to 10. You report using Group Policy initially to defer feature updates for 365 days, and quality updates for 30 days; and then going back in to change these settings to 120 days and 14 days.
In Windows 8, 7, and Vista, I don’t need to ponder how far out or close in to set these waiting periods: I simply download the precise updates I want (and no others) when I’m good and ready.
Of course, Microsoft is now agglomerating each month’s patches into a single download, which is why I am in Group B. It’s more work to download them by hand than via Windows Update as used to be the case, but bottom line the fact remains that I don’t need to map out when to download updates. It’s a bit more work (no thanks to Microsoft), but I retain as much flexibility as ever with respect to patching.
Furthermore, in Windows 8 and earlier I don’t need to have a Windows edition that includes the Group Policy Editor in order to enjoy this level of choice and flexibility… or to live without those condescending “we’re making Windows better for you” patch installation screens. 🙂
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There is one thing I still don’t understand about AI the way it is presented like it is magic. Sure, AI/telemetry can see that all laptops with a specific combination of whatever crash, but how can it see bugs that users can see but that can’t be automatically identified as bugs?
Suppose for example a new drive appear in the My PC explorer window for what is supposed to be a hidden partition and now Windows tell you you lack space for it? How does AI detects that and how does it detect it as a problem? If you have no tester, you can’t see this kind of thing, just like you can’t see your Image Editor didn’t convert exactly the way it should from a picture file format to another until humans see this red line when using the resulting file in another program and report it. When my Windows 10 computer has video glitches and Word doesn’t refresh right, how does AI understands this? I don’t think it does because AI doesn’t know what is a problem like this and I am really not sure it can.
So you are left with having humans needed as guinea pigs and that is unfair to people at home whose computers are all identified as non mission critical by the fact they bought a PC that comes with Windows Home. Fair game to break anything on their computer so that others have a safer experience? Don’t tell me you need to buy Pro, nobody that buys a computer and doesn’t even know what runs on it should expect to have that kind of risk instead of having a more profesionnal, stable experience. They should come with a warning that this PC might not work as expected, even less than other PCs.
Maybe Insiders are there for the human aspect of the debugging, but they probably don’t cover enough scenarios. This model is broken. It just doesn’t work and I don’t think anybody can seriously argue that things have been better with patching for even the supposedly stable because no new features is coming to it Windows 7 that was quite stable before this mess. If it was only Windows 10, we could discuss pace of change and other WaaS nonsense, but Windows 7 is the example of something that was working really well that got broken with no other explanation than we don’t need testers no more.
I just hope Microsoft doesn’t think they can have a Store that verifies the security of apps using only AI.
It is not because you use fancy words for algorithms that computer science underwent a revolution and AI is suddenly some magic that can play the role of a human. There is a huge difference between identifying patterns faster than humans and actually understanding something. AI doesn’t use computers, humans do.
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I recall a situation a year or two back where a Windows 10 update flat broke some aspect of an employee connecting inside a company network to a company server. Why did this happen? I imagined at the time it was because very few insiders if any were testing in that environment.
A home user simply isn’t going to stress an OS the way a business user will. “Going on Facebook” just isn’t the same as building a big software source set into executable code or accessing a SQL server or moving gigabytes of data around.
The one bright spot is that computer gaming does stress at least some parts of a system pretty well, and gamers don’t like being thrown out of their games, so failures will be noted.
-Noel
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Often they would recommend, with obvious lack of discrimination, something only remotely, or irrelevantly, related to my previous purchases or viewings.
Indeed. My favorite example is when I once had my adblocker disabled for testing and I went to Youtube… I often watch aviation videos, and I guess I hadn’t cleared cookies since I’d seen a few videos, so it was able to match the interest to me. Knowing of my interest in aviation, it served me with an ad for Airbus.
It’s definitely related to the videos I watched, but I am not going to be buying any airliners anytime soon.
I put the adblocker back on and cleared cookies, of course, and my IP address changes quite often, being dynamically assigned by my ISP, so it will be a good deal harder to associate that interest with me now.
The point is, if that’s the best that their AI (written by the best and brightest working for Google) can come up with, it’s not great. Of course, I am deliberately not feeding them much info to go on, but it seems particularly clumsy to think someone watching a video about (anything) has any interest or ability in purchasing what he saw in the video, particularly if the object(s) in question have a starting price of 75 million dollars.
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An alternative interpretation of the event you describe is that Google is secretly testing on people that look for things with their help, an AI so advanced that, from the little you have offered as personal information, it has figured out that the odds are very high that one day, soon, you’ll be fabulously rich (and no longer bothering to visit us proles at Woody’s — you’ll have flunkies and gofers to do it for you). And that, because you can, you’ll be looking to buy your own executive airliner. Definitely to be called “Ascaris 1.” The AI already knows all that about you, even if you don’t.
Full disclosure here: I am not that AI.
Ex-Windows user (Win. 98, XP, 7); since mid-2017 using also macOS. Presently on Monterey 12.15 & sometimes running also Linux (Mint).
MacBook Pro circa mid-2015, 15" display, with 16GB 1600 GHz DDR3 RAM, 1 TB SSD, a Haswell architecture Intel CPU with 4 Cores and 8 Threads model i7-4870HQ @ 2.50GHz.
Intel Iris Pro GPU with Built-in Bus, VRAM 1.5 GB, Display 2880 x 1800 Retina, 24-Bit color.
macOS Monterey; browsers: Waterfox "Current", Vivaldi and (now and then) Chrome; security apps. Intego AV1 user thanked author for this post.
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