cjd posted at 2:47PM Sat, 12 March 2016 - #4260645

I thought the old Daz bug tracker was a great way to collect user input, and for users to work together to resolve or investigate issues. That was efficient in my opinion.

Obviously, the old bug tracker did not work for Daz for some reason. But when it was working, speaking for myself anyway, I thought it was really great. In fact I think they were one of the few software developers that had direct interaction to user feedback.

I agree totally with these points! From a customer's perspective, the old "Mantis" bug tracker was easily the best web feature that Daz ever had. I and others have asked Daz reps why it was discontinued, but the answers are never specific.

Now I'd like to get something off my chest that most likely can't be discussed in the Daz forum without being deleted.

/begin venting/

I have my own theory as to why the bug tracker is gone, but based only on my personal observations I could be all wet.

My thought is this: As Daz's management went through changes, the new people in charge didn't like the open nature of the bug tracker. The very things that made it useful to the customers worried the managers.

• An open bug list that customers could search to see if their bug was already reported, and any progress being made.
• A method for customers to collaborate in a meaningful way by adding troubleshooting info in a single location.
• A method for customers to collaborate directly with the developers to solve bugs.

Of these features, I think that the bug tracker was discontinued because;

One - it exposed all of the unresolved bugs that existed for years without resolution.

And two - it allowed the developers to directly communicate with the customers.

I have never seen any of the actual software developers post in the forums (only "Quality Assurance", and web support people), and I suspect that they are discouraged from doing so.

I also noticed, toward the last days of the bug tracker, that many of the developers who had been the most proactive in solving problems with the customers, were vanishing from the tracker's users list. While the issues that they were working on remained posted, the developer names that the issues were assigned to changed to a generic "user0001" (or something similar). I suspect that many developers were being laid off and the bug tracker was exposing this.

Nowadays Daz is almost completely locked-down, with only a select few "DAZ_" spokespeople in the forums. And those people will rarely answer a direct question or engage in a real dialog (they seem to prefer to make Pronouncements, then vanish back into the woodwork. The forum moderators are more accessible, but since they are not Daz employees, are usually as much in the dark as are the customers.

Having followed Carrara over from Eovia, where the company's CEO and developers would regularly chat with customers on their forum, I really miss the old days.

Due to the company's present opacity, and its history of sloth (we all know what "DAZ soon" means), it's almost impossible to predict Carrara's future. So, I'll just continue to use it until it no longer functions on my OS of choice.

/end venting/