I've always found rock-paper-scissors to be a pretty useful impasse-resolver.
Not at work, though.

Also, I'm not certain Frank still works for the SR team... I know he used to and that he jumped ship due to unreconcilable differences, but I don't remember reading if/when he came back into the fold. So if he's still on the out, he has no power at all to enact a change to the FAQ or Errata

frank was a freelancer. most (probably all, actually) of the people who write stuff for catalyst's SR4 section are freelancers. they have no ability whatsoever to influence their work directly after it has gone in to catalyst. they can make suggestions, point out errors, etc, but they cannot just edit their work directly.

likewise, they don't work for catalyst, and they therefore have no access to the catalyst website, and cannot (for example) issue errata or provide answers to FAQs on said website. they can, however, (apparently) make statements about how they intended it to be on dumpshock

as far as when frank will be writing for catalyst again, i believe he can be quoted (several times) as saying never. it's not just the difference of opinion (he thinks the matrix rules should be shot repeatedly, buried, and then launched into space, preferrably in the general direction of the Sun. catalyst thinks they should avoid contradicting the core book as much as possible, and that they should therefore stick with the existing matrix rules and expand on them).

basically, frank is currently in school to become a doctor. that kinda takes a lot of time. in fact, you could say that it takes up so much time that there's no fragging way they're going to manage to write much of anything for an RPG company. and i rather expect that when he's done medical school he just might want to, you know, actually be a doctor, as opposed to an RPG freelancer. but that's just speculation

Jaid hit the points exactly and succinctly.

I was there for when the chapter of Street Magic. I specifically argued against the copy/paste and the results are confusing and unfortunate. But it didn't get fixed before printing. Oh well. I don't work for or with them any more and don't have any special line of communication to Rob. Well, I do, but it's more like if I send Peter or Rob an email I actually get a reply and crap like that. But it's not anything official any more. And it never will be again.

As to what's holding up an errata, it goes like this:

• It is Catalyst policy to issue errata simultaneously with new printings of books in order to avoid conflicting and partial errata that cause confusion in other systems.
• Street Magic was printed by FanPro, not Catalyst. And so it's more legally complex than it sounds to make a new printing of that book.

So I can tell them that the Ally service is list is fucked. I told them that when it first crept in as an editing error. But I can't actually make a new printing of Street Magic happen. And I can't make sure that Peter actually remembers to fix it when a new printing happens. I couldn't get Peter to remember to fix it the first time the book got printed if you'll recall.

-Frank

Frank why would an ally spirit be unable to do something an unbound/bound spirit can ?

It's only bound spirits that can do it.

I think it's because a single service allows a bound spirit to sustain one spell for (Force) Combat rounds.

An unlimited number of spells for an unlimited amount of time is a slight power jump....

TBH I always thought the Spell Sustaining Spirit ability sucked.

Say you bind a Force 6 spirit with 2 services, that costs you 3000 Nuyen and gets you 36 seconds of spell sustaining.

Sustaining Foci are suddenly starting to look reeeealll cheap...

There aren't any bound or unbound spirits that can takeover the sustaining of all your spells forever without cost. Hell, there aren't any spirits that can take over all of your spells. Period. A Water Elemental can sustain an Illusion spell for a few seconds. A Work Loa can sustain a Manipulation spell for a few seconds. But there is nothing on any plane of existence that can grab control of all your Illusion and Manipulation spells and sustain them for weeks.

Spell Sustaining and Spell Binding are both crappy services that are almost never used. What they do is negate a -2 die penalty. Spell Sustaining negates that penalty for a few seconds per service. Spell Binding does it for a few days, but kills off one of your bound spirits. In either case it is highly situational in that it can only be used to negate the -2 penalty caused by sustaining a spell for which the spirit is attuned.

Allies aren't attuned to any spell category. For the purposes of Aid Study and Aid Sorcery they are attuned to every category. But for purposes of Spell Sustaining and Spell Binding they don't have a spell category. And that's quite deliberate. Having an Ally use Spell Binding would be extremely lame. It kills the spirit's Force. Ally Force, unlike any other Bound Spirit, costs actual Karma. To spend 8 Karma to negate a -2 penalty for a day is absurd. You'd never do that. On the flip side, Spell Sustaining for an Ally would be totally broken because Allies have no limit to their number of services. And while the service to effect ratio of Spell Sustaining is crap - the fact remains that negating an unlimited number of -2 penalties for an unlimited number of consecutive intervals of a few seconds is just like getting infinite spell sustaining forever - which is very specifically not something that any Spirit is able to do.

-Frank