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Xref: sserve comp.os.386bsd.misc:4972 comp.os.linux.misc:33762 comp.os.os2.advocacy:75163 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!yarrina.connect.com.au!news.mira.net.au!news.netspace.net.au!serval.net.wsu.edu!netnews.nwnet.net!oracle.pnl.gov!osi-east2.es.net!lll-winken.llnl.gov!uwm.edu!news.alpha.net!news.mathworks.com!uunet!sunic!news.funet.fi!news.csc.fi!nokia.fi!ntc.nokia.com!netnews.ntc.nokia.com!ptaipale From: ptaipale@pc139_92.trs.ntc.nokia.com (Pekka J Taipale) Newsgroups: comp.os.386bsd.misc,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.os2.advocacy Subject: Re: Linux thoroughly insulted by Infoworld! Date: 19 Jan 1995 15:22:15 GMT Organization: Finns for Global Warming Lines: 67 Message-ID: <PTAIPALE.95Jan19172215@pc139_92.trs.ntc.nokia.com> References: <950116203411@lambada> <1995Jan18.214037.6088@cs.cornell.edu> <3fk4hi$iu8@solaris.cc.vt.edu> Reply-To: Pekka.Taipale@ntc.nokia.com NNTP-Posting-Host: pc139_92.trs.ntc.nokia.com In-reply-to: mmead@goof.com's message of 18 Jan 1995 22:25:54 GMT In article <3fk4hi$iu8@solaris.cc.vt.edu> mmead@goof.com (matthew c. mead) writes: > Catch a clue. You're in school, you have the time to play around with >it all you want. If you'd ever been in industry, you would know the need for >product support. Well, I'm in industry... >Can you call Linus and say, "My serial port isn't working >right. What do I do?" No. Well, I could (a local call, if Linus happened to be at home ;-) but there's no need to: I can post a message in news. I might get a quick, written answer, which is much better than a phone call anyway. I might mail Linus or someone who is responsible for the thing that I have problem with, but I try to avoid it. In general, however, if my serial port isn't working right, 99% of the time I can find the reason by reading documentation. >Can you call up Sun, or BSDI and do the same? Umm, yes, I guess, but that's an international call :-( Hope they have mail support as well; I don't believe they could be better supported in news than Linux is (though I must admit that I haven't followed Sun etc newsgroups lately). >Yes. Mission-critical applications need to have a supported OS. And for >industry, on the net, donated help is not an option. In practice, however, I don't trust that much the "support" I'm supposed to get by buying commercial software. First, for our applications at least, that support is usually only available if I buy maintenance and pay for it separately. I can buy maintenance for Linux as well (though, alas, my company does not not wish to do so, and I understand the motives somewhat: they have many enough maintenance contracts already, and I don't need no friendly maintenance for Linux because basically it works just fine the way it is). Second, sometimes I haven't been happy with the support I've got, even though it has been bought. The support persons may not know even as much I do. This is especially true for phone support for common applications, which is really meant for people who forget to close the drive bay and then wonder why the damn computer is broken again. And it's especially annoying for phone support, if they charge per minute of phone time, because then they have to pretend they are looking info in some papers even when it's a common question for which they know the answer offhand (worst examples are really hardware, like ICL PC's). Mail-based support is usually much better (perhaps the most stupid support persons don't know how to read mail, so they can't screw that up). Buying rather expensive comppercial software instead of using free software is a way for managers to protect their asses. "I tried my best, you see, I even decided to buy this product though it's expensive because I though it'd be worth it - it's not my fault". But the day of free software may come. Perhaps some day we'll use GNU C as a cross compiler for embedded systems, and the platform could be any of larger Unix workstations, Linux, OS/2 or Windows NT. I don't say you're entirely wrong, that would be dumb - there must be some good support as well. But the effects of purchased support seem to be somewhat exaggerated, and effects of donated support are underestimated. I have given out lots of support, and I think I've gotten back enough to warrant it for me. -- Pekka.Taipale@ntc.nokia.com