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From: jbotz@mtholyoke.edu (Jurgen Botz)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.pc-clone.32bit,comp.unix.bsd,comp.windows.x.i386unix,biz.sco.general
Subject: Re: SCO market share
Date: 21 Dec 1993 17:27:19 GMT
Organization: Mount Holyoke College
Lines: 28
Message-ID: <2f7bln$1nk@slab.mtholyoke.edu>
References: <2efuku$4vj@rhombus.cs.jhu.edu> <9312170856.aa01663@fags.stonewall.demon.co.uk> <2f4spb$lcq@slab.mtholyoke.edu> <sheldon.756429162@pv141b.vincent.iastate.edu>
NNTP-Posting-Host: orixa.mtholyoke.edu

In article <sheldon.756429162@pv141b.vincent.iastate.edu>,
Steve Sheldon <sheldon@iastate.edu> wrote:
> Considering these resellers are very likely the same types of people as
>your third-party contract support company, I see no way in which you can
>claim they are going to offer better support.  Perhaps different support,
>but not necessarily better.

1) They are not the same people.  The third-party support companies tend
to be smaller outfits of highly motivated, talented individuals.  This
makes a big difference... the "resellers" and the large systems vendors
have a harder time attracting talent, and it is a well-known fact
in the Software Engineering business that "When a programmer is good,
he is very, very good, but when he is bad, he is horrid" (Sackman, Ericson,
and Grant, 1968, in a study that showed that the difference between the
best and worst software engineers when comparing individuals with the
same amount of experience, is generally a factor of over an order of
magnitude, along both the code-quality and programmer-time-efficiency
axes.  This study has been corroborated many times since.)

2) The very fact that the OS is free improves the quality of support,
as the professional support people can draw upon the collective wisdom
of the community (and do).  When source is publicly available more bugs
are found and squashed, more bad design decissions are criticized early
on in the process, etc., etc.
-- 
Jurgen Botz, jbotz@mtholyoke.edu | ``Accountability is the price of openness''
South Hadley, MA, USA            | - Daniel Geer