No more HP Patches on www.joecolantonio.com
I just received a cease and desist email from HP threatening legal action if I don't take down my HP patches section. As a result, I'll no longer be able to provide you with HP patches for any of their products. Going forward, if you need an HP patch you'll need to contact them directly at HP support: http://support.openview.hp.com/.
I have deleted my HP Downloads section and removed my HP Patches link from www.joecolantonio.com.
HP's support site stinks
I apologize for the fact that I'll no longer be able to help you with these issues. Good luck in dealing with HP support, which is notorious for its poor service and their user-UNfriendly support site.
Have I hit the big time?
I still haven't decided whether to by happy or annoyed about this --happy about the fact that HP thinks joecolantonio.com is big enough to threaten legal action against, or annoyed that they're dumb enough to get uptight about free assistance in getting their patches in the hands of the people that need them.
More Open Source Post on www.joecolantonio.com
Regardless, it's just another example of why I get HP QTP hate mail from people on a regular basis. It's also one more reason why I plan to focus my blog more on open-source tools like Selenium going forward.
Tell me what you think
Do you agree or disagree with this action by HP? Tell me what you think by leaving a comment below. Maybe if I get enough feedback in my favor HP will rethink this policy
HP's cease and desist email
Here is the email I received:
Dear Sir:
It has come to our attention that a website that you own and operate, http://www.joecolantonio.com,is making deliberate and unauthorized use of Hewlett-Packard Company's ("HP") copyrighted materials by offering a variety ofHP software patches, as shown by the following URLs:
http://www.joecolantonio.com/category/hp-patch/
http://www.joecolantonio.com/downloads
By posting this material on your website you are infringing HP's copyrights. HP requests that you remove this copyrighted material immediately and delete it from your website. Links to the authorized HP portals such as http://support.openview.hp.com/ must be used as the only method of offering HP copyrighted materials on your website in the future.
As one of the world's leading information technology companies, HP takes protection of its intellectual property rights very seriously and will consider pursuing further remedies to protect our intellectual property rights if necessary.
HP requests that you immediately cease offering HP's copyrighted materials for sale and that you send a written confirmation of your compliance with these requests to my attention at the email address below no later than March 20, 2013.
While we are hopeful that this matter can be resolved amicably, please know that if necessary we will not hesitate to assert our intellectual property rights. HP therefore reserves all rights to take further action.
{ 71 comments… read them below or add one }
They sound right (rightly called you Dear Sir!), but you were doing great work. Keep up with that, I am big admirer, and user of those patches!
We expect you will still guide us on the issues and how to receive these critical updates from sluggish HP service.
thanks again
abhishek
abhishekshinde007 » Thanks Abhishek! I will still post HP patch alerts but not the actual patch. Hopefully HP does not have a problem with this.
Sorry for my language but this is bullsh.. .
joecolantonio.com is the best adress if someone need help with HP tools. In times I needed help, joe’s site could help me more than the HP support!
Which by the way only answered: “Please re-install Service Test/QTP!”.
How often shall I re-install ST/QTP till HP get it, that this won’t fix any problems?
So:
HP you’ve had just eliminated your best pro bono support staff.
Philipp » Thanks Philipp! What really bothers me is that people who need the patches have already paid for the test tool. If there is a bug in HP tool and there is a fix available why would they not want to have those patches freely available to their customers by someone who is also giving free support for them?
Sorry to hear this, Joe. HP makes it way too hard to get support, and you were providing a great service. As frustrating as this letter is, I do see one reason to support their view, and that is piracy. Many people illegally use HP’s products. While these illegal users may be able to get the original software (which we all know will be full of bugs), those users will have a harder time getting the patches to make it work correctly. HP’s site is controlled by user accounts with maintenance agreements, whereas you made them freely available.
Don’t get me wrong… I love the fact that you made the patches available. Even going back to the Mercury days, I always thought we needed a better way of managing patches.
I also think that the legit users of your product should not be punished while trying to block piracy. Certain measures can be considered reasonable. I have protection on my own software to help curb piracy. When your actions create a nightmare for legitimate users, that indicates a company that has lost focus.
While I can understand that HP is simply enforcing their current position on software availability, I certainly do not agree with the position as a whole. They need to do better. As much as I have built a career around Mercury/HP products, I would love for them to get more competition from open source.
Boyd Patterson » Thanks Boyd for your thoughtful comments. I understand the need to protect intellectual property. I guess I’m just naive enough to think that people that have a tool like QTP or LoadRunner on their work machines have a legal licensed copy installed that they paid lots of money for and because of this would be entitled to patches that fix issues with that product.
I was not profiting from posting these patches but simply trying to help HP users resolve their issues as quickly as possible. Maybe HP will add a big PATCH option in all their products that would be smart enough to know if the software was legal and automatically display all the valid patches with a direct download link available.
We can only dream! HP obviously cares more about their bottom line than their customers. Their current practices are evidence of that.
What a shame, is 100 times easier to get the patches from here, it’s a nightmare to navigate HP’s site. Bad, bad HP.
just another reason to be excited about our groups transition off of QC and QTP. feels good.
Tony » HA – HI Tony what product are you transitioning to?
Can’t tell you who I am or potentially jeopardize my job…
I’m annoyed by the statement “HP requests that you immediately cease offering HP’s copyrighted materials for sale”. Uh…. I don’t see anything being sold on this site. WTF? Anyway, There are plenty of HP partners out there that provide sales and support for HP products, and their support is exponentially better than HP’s. I encourage you to find one and dump your HP contracts.
Cant Tell » Thanks you! I know, that line really annoyed me !!
That bites… HP wshould realize that people/groups like you help spread the usage of there tool. Mercury Tools and now QTP grew because of the ability for uses like us to be able to chat and find solutions. Next they might go after any and all forums that mention their name. As Joe has mentioned, dont be a fanboy of any tool. Sooner or later a tool loses its luster while CEOs get big heads and forget who grew their company indirectly. The want us users to pay for their help, this free help needs to end. To me, this is a sign to start cionsidering other products before HP continues down the road of self implossion.
Mike » So true Mike – I don’t remember Mercury being this bad
I wish HP would fix their problems before attempting to make the world go to their limited support site. I am in their site everyday (when it is up and running) and providing feedback but it is too little too late.
this is vvvv bad news for us….
I disagree with this action by HP
Joe,
I’m sorry to hear this – I’ve learned more about actually using (strugglling with) QTP and QA from your site than anything from HP itself, and it was great to know from your posts when a new patch was ready and relevant to me. Thanks for the great insights you’ve provided on the HP tools. Now just shake it off, shake it off… and keep going with your great insights. Besides, I’ve been meaning to learn Selenium…
April » Thanks April – as long as HP legal does not threaten me with any other action I will continue to post my patch alerts info without the actually patch.
I would hope you could still keep a list of HP failures deserving patches – as knowledge repository resource.
(I don’t think that will violate their IP rights)
Maybe the list will irritate them so much that they will decide to fix some of these once in a while…
We will be more than happy to promote updates of such list via Twitter, LinkedIn and any other resource at hand – for the benefit of the WW testing community.
@halperinko – Kobi Halperin » HI Kobi – thats what I’m hoping. I will continue to post my patch updates without the actually patch.
BTW – That’s a good reason to switch to other ALM tools such as the Free XStudio by http://www.xqual.com .
Used it for couple of years – and it is a very good alternative – covering from Req – Tests – Bugs – Automation control of most frameworks some project management, document management and more.
It receives frequent updates, and its developers are much more responsive
@halperinko – Kobi Halperin
So sorry to hear of this stupidity.
Maybe if enough people switch to a competitive product they will begin to live up to the “innovation” part of their brand.
For the next 6 months whenever we need a patch, instead of going through the maze that is HP Support Portal, just email your account rep at HP, and KEEP Emailing them – Every Day, Twice a Day.
Include this Canned Statement::
“We need the latest patch for our licensed QTP/UFT software and after hours of searching, we cannot find it on HP’s Support Portal. We were able to download it from Joe Colantonio’s website in the past however HP’s legal department has disallowed this valuable alternative. Please supply us with the DIRECT links to the latest patches.”
Let’s see how long it takes before they get ticked off. Account Rep’s HATE being bombarded with requests that don’t involve the opportunity for commision.
John » HA – how cool whould that be. Good suggestion John!
This is nuts, you help people use the HP software!! Currently replacing our QTP test suite with a new suite using Selenium so hope to see more Selenium tips on your site anyway.
Chris » Thanks Chris – I’m glad I’m not the only one that thinks this is nuts.
With the kind of money their support costs, there should be no reason we should have to go anywhere else to get our fixes for THEIR software. While I understand they are doing this to protect their bottom line (since you need a support contract to access their patches), they really need to look at this and think to themselves “Are we taking care of our customers?” I’ve had 3 support tickets in the last year that have gone many, many months without a fix, finally closing one after the year mark when we decided to go with other software that would actually work.
The only reason I stay sane in my job is because of people like you that contribute their time, knowledge, and experiences. If I had to rely on HP for the help that I get from people like you, I would have went nuts long ago. Thanks Joe!!!
Chad H » Thanks Chad – as long as HP legal doesn’t harass me for anything else I hope to continue to help my fellow HP automation engineers.
Chad H,
I started using a HP partner for support just to get better support over the years. I have had better results with partners than standard HP support.
Are there any that you recommend?
I suppose its not proper to list who our HP partner but if you want a recommendation email me. We have had great luck with our support both on patch updates plus getting answers. If they can’t figure something out they escalate it to HP and work with you and HP to find the solution.
I would love to get your email, but don’t know how to get it without having to post it here (don’t want to get any spam of course).
Joe,
Sorry to hear about this. But you appear to be U.S. based and the legal hounds were let loose on you. Which was stupid because you are not “selling” the patches, just making them available in a easy to find location.
But this is HP and they have been doing stupid things for years, especially with the Mercury tools since acquisition. What I suggest is that you just put links to the support site locations for those patches.
After that when people get redirected then the HP Support site insanity can begin. But at least you provided the service, for free, and are trying to help HP and its customers. If they (HP) cannot handle that then just list the patch name and we will figure it out from there.
Thanks for all your help. This site is great.
Regards,
Jim
Jim Hazen » Thanks Jim – in the past I’ve tried to just point people to HP’s patch section but some people just find HP patch site unusable. Hopefully this will change if more people try to use it
I have never seen anything as bad as their support site. I’m in agreement with the others singing your praises and thank you for helping me out. I’m a one man shop, so spending hours trying to find things on that stupid support site is killer.
Greg Encke » Thanks Greg – I hope HP changes their mind but I doubt it.
Hi Joe,
I am hoping you are well. How is everything and your job ?I am sorry to hear that. It was so easy to find patches from your website. Now, we have to struggle with HP’s “SUCKS” site to get all these patches.
Regards,
Shahid
I really don’t understand this reaction. With this site it was quit easy to be informed about new patches and browser support.
Also it’s a good ideabase i liked to used. I absolutley don’t know how to get informed in future about usefull updates?
Hope HP is able to see the benefits of this page.
Regards from Germany.
Klaus » I agree Klaus – HP’s support model is still stuck in 1990′s.
Joe,
I’m sorry to hear that HP did this.
I believe your site and ease of patch access was superior to thiers.
If they were smart, they would have offered you assistance and paid you for your help as their own support is a nightmare, and pretty much useless.
I too have been using Selenium lately, and I think when someone creates a front end for it that handles the page elements and locators, etc (like a object repo, or GUI Map, etc…)… better, based on the sheer amount of browsers it supports and Operating systems, it may make it easy enough to use to really give HP a stab in their finances.
Besides all of that, I want you to know that people like me, and many others, really apprecaited the help you gave and are sorry that HP is to dumb to understand that in making HP easier to find support for, you made them look better.
Thank you for all you do,
Trevor
Trevor » Thanks Trevor – I appreciate your support!
Hi Joe,
I’ve been a long-time follower of your blog, and I get very turned off by the closed mindset of organizations like HP that ship software. I understand that they pay developers to build and maintain QTP, LR, QC, and all other apps they build, but I don’t really see how you’re infringing on anything. To me, if anything, you’re promoting their product by blogging about it and providing a means for people to attain fixes.
I’m a proponent of open source, so maybe I’m bias, but I feel you should spend more of your time blogging about tools like Selenium, WatiN, Watir, and so forth. Open source communities certainly like the free support. I am pretty sure that QTP is no longer the market leader in test automation. They are one of them, but not the only one. Their domination is ending. This is what I observed in the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant. Their tool only runs on Windows, relies on old technologies like ActiveX and uses a non-object oriented language for its scripting interface.
I’d love to see more on using Selenium with C# using the Visual Studio IDE. QTP is far too overpriced for its functionality these days, IMHO.
In any case, great blog!
–Jason
Jason » Thanks Jason – I just accepted a new position in my company for a team that uses Visual Studio,C# and Selenium so I do plan on blogging more on things I find working in that environment. Glad you like my blog!
It’s just an automated form letter generated by info gathered by some kind of a bot. I doubt seriously that any human eyes at HP actually looked at and approved of sending that email.
That being said, everything you said about HP is true.
I would love it if you devote your time to Selenium. After nearly 20 years with Mercury/HP I’m divorcing them and hooking up with my new guy, Selenium.
JenaMarie » LOL – Thanks JenaMarie!
No doubt QTP will die ….
It worked until the automater tester were also the manual tester…
days gone now see QTP’s day are few with these preventive tactics…
Congratulation Joe, I read somewhere that …. “if people start talking about you….it means you are growing…..” so take it in a lighter note.
and that HP mail I feel funny… I dont think they providing solution quickly…. I have experienced that couple of time.
You Rock..
Cheers,
Lokesh K
Lokesh » HA – thanks Lokesh!
Wow, Joe, you are in the Big League! How can someone in the minors threaten “One of the world’s leading information technology companies”
I will still visit your website often. HP could learn a thing from you about website design and straightforward information distribution.
thanks, Joe!
~Laura S.
Laura S. » Thanks Laura!!
Hey Joe, now start sending patches as hard copy through courier by taking some money from people in need. (or we can run this as MAFIA type ensuring not to be caught by HP… )
You are going great.. Keep it up…
regards,
hemant
Hemant K. Kulkarni » LOL – I like mafia style
When HP acquired Mercury, it was NOT the best action for the course of the test tools. Although the tools have been getting upgrades, it’s more because their sales/marketing machine is pushing it out as a part of this ALM movement. But it’s also this machine which is sending that ugly worded email to JoeColantonio.com with NO regard that they are negatively impacting their LOYAL user base. Also, it’s that whole “big brother” crap happening, no consideration that it’s sites like this, and people like us that pave for the tools success. Even though they releases a bug-filled, unstable 11.5 UFT, we still hold it up high knowing it has some good. But the business machine that is HP does not hold up its users with bad support and the discourtesy of what was done to Joe. Shame on HP… no different than the toner scams they have going on, but on a software level. I think Open Source is starting to look real good about know!
The reason why HP are so uptight about people offering free support and access to the patches we all need, is that it discourages people from using their often slow (and sometimes inept) support service. This would eat into revenue from maintenance contracts which we pay a fortune for yet receive often dire ‘service’ from. We all know the ground hogs day like struggle through the first line engineers, who believe the problem will magically go away if they stick to their crib sheet of solutions (which we know better than they do I think after years of dealing with them), before we get to the more knowledgeable higher tier engineering staff, who often are able to solve the issues or get to the root of them anyway quite effectively. For gods sake HP sort out your support, or let others get on with helping your frustrated customers. I have been a customer for 10 years and the service has only gotten worse under HP. Keep up the good work Joe.
David Mathieson » Good points! Thanks David
Hey Joe, HP might have a point regarding the distribution of their patches because why would someone use their patches if they do not have licensed copies of their software? And if they are licenses and have a SAID, then they should have access to the support website to download the files.
As an HP UFT and LoadRunner user, your website is one of my main sources of information that i refer back to on regular basis and downloading patches from here releases the tension from having to go to HP Support’s website, but i guess i can live with that as long as you don’t change your mind about keeping to blog about HP related stuff and patches.
Note to HP:
1) UPDATE your support website
2) Your outsourced Chinese customer support sucks!
Samer Al Khoury » Thanks Samer! I will continue to post HP related stuff but I’m also going to also start adding more post on open source tools like Selenium. Cheers~Joe
Hi Joe,
I’m not surprised, I’ve made my view on HP’s “support” pretty clearly in other posts. HP bought this product line so they could say to potential customers considering IBM, “Hey! We have automated testing, too! See?” Otherwise they don’t give a damn.
I’m really liking the SmartBear product line.
Dave
Ok, first a disclaimer, I work for HP. Having said that though, I would say I agree with HP, in the fact that there should be one official place where patches are available. Your site can point to where at HP these official patches are available. Your site is exellent and a great source of info on QTP (now UFT). I would hope that HP would support you and vice versa, that way everyone who uses these products wins. And seriously, a title with “Hp Sucks” in the title is really not professional, I’d expect more from you.
John Morand » Hi John – I’m sorry if the title offended you, but it was meant to be provocative. In my experience, a blog post title that capture the reader’s attention usually gets lots of clicks, shares, and comments. If the post hadn’t had that title, I’m betting you might have missed it and wouldn’t have bothered to leave a comment!
As I have said, I understand both sides of this issue, but am trying to draw attention to the fact that there’s something wrong with HP’s current patch distribution process — and that there are a bunch of HP test tool users that are very unhappy.
That’s why I’m glad there are people like you who work for HP and are aware of the situation and can hopefully help to fix it from the inside.
Hi Joe,
Just saw your story about the HP patches. This sucks. I have been a QTP/BPT guy for many years. Especially during the past several years (the HP years), your site was the only good resource for getting patches and information on them. Should have been sending our HP support fees to you.
I saw your comment about moving to Selenium. Agreed with the move to open source. We are making the same move — slow move because of the number of assets we have with QPT/BPT and the fact that we still have some legacy applications to support. I saw one reference to WATIR in the comments. Even though WATIR is not as popular as Selenium, I have found it to be more comfortable fit after years with QTP — better API in my opinion. And the Webdriver project supports both Selenium and WATIR. I am making the same general move as you, but with WATIR.
Anyway, enjoy the move to open source and thanks for the QTP help you gave…Bob
Bob Jones » Hi Bob – I agree some people love Watir. At some point going to take a deeper dive using it and try to write a post that does a pro/con vs Selenium. Anything you can share with us about Watir would be great!
Hi Joe,
the fact that I can no longer download patches from you is one big outrage! I work in big international IT company and for years we mostly use HP for test automation purposes. Everybody here tells us how much it sucks to go and try to look for something on HP site. Usually it is damn slow and user unfriendly. In fact… those guys should first test their own web site at the first place since it is testing and testing tools their offer. Also you need to register in order to logged in and there is another problem – you need to use some kind of stupid ID. You cannot have your own login ID as a visitor and download patches. You need to be already paying customer. But what if we share this ID throughout group inside company… or I need to download something and cannot remember this ID…
… simply you need to go through all this bureaucracy to get one lousy patch.
And the fact that they made you remove easy way for all of us to get what we need easily is just another spit to the face. They talk about “intelectual property”…. I am saying “intelectualy property … my ass!!”.
I am already working on new framework for testComplete and my colleague to selenium and we do my best to change the flow of using HP tools monopoly in our company. One thing is the price which is very high for all HP tools, but second thing is that despite these costs you do not get appropriate reliability and user friendliness. And that is not coming from guy who has just now bad mood… I am working with HP QTP/UFT for 6-7 years and since it was taken from Mercury Interactive it is slowly going to hell! New versions just look good but inside it the same at best. Right now, UFT is crashing for me more than well-patched QTP before…
Lukas Krupa » Thanks Lukas! – I still do not trust UFT 11.5 for production code so I’m not surprised that you are having issues with it. Please let us know what you come up with for you’re testcomplete and selenium frameworks ~Cheers
I was going to use this site for all our HP downloads. Now I will have to rely solely on HP site for the patches.
Abhijeet » Sorry – it even stinks for me since I always need to setup and help other people on my global team. It use to be so easy to just point them to my download section.
Joe,
Trying to be optimistic, I’m hoping that this is because HP wants to revamp its support and is trying to drive everyone to their site for support. Although I have a hard time buying this with all of the third party support vendors. That and as you and many others have mentioned, it’s near impossible to navigate their web site. I’ve gone to links that took me to pages with new logos (branding) and then seen the same old page up too which makes me wonder when HP is going to standardize their web pages to some extent and clean up all of the old and broken links.
Quality of HP products (Testing tools) are going down day by day. My Personal Experience is Mercury was far better than HP. Now days everybody can see how many patches are released after software launch, One example – You can see performance difference between QTP 9.0 (mercury) and QTP 9.2 (HP). QTP 9.0 was far better in performance.
Hi
Here is an example of the service you get from HP…
http://performancetestersdiary.wordpress.com/2013/05/02/transferring-a-loadrunner-license-to-another-machine/
Peter E » OMG – this is so bad that it’s funny. Unfortunately I think most of us feel your pain. I think HP should include stress balls with all their products
QTP is loosing its edge to a slew of other test automation tools. Ranorex, TestStudio, TestComplete etc which are much cheaper than QTP. I witnessed the decline of Silktest and it hand changed 3 vendor hands and still struggling to get a toe-hold in automation industry.
I can see the similar tactics being used by Segue/Borland is being used by Mercury Interactive/HP. Having tight control over HP forums, Knowledge Base etc will not help the tool to establish its user adoption.
QTP some how survived because many automation developers like you, have created content helpful for automation testers and there by helped QTP being relevant in the market. But with this tight control, HP will not succeed in beating other automation tools, which are adopting more liberal stance.
Also I can visibly see Selenium projects are picking up in new engagements and QTP is getting sidelined by the clients especially if it is a web application.
Final nail into QTP coffin is not so far!!! (adding to existing HP woes)