Messages in this thread | | | Date | Tue, 30 Sep 1997 10:02:23 -0400 (EDT) | From | Norbert Veber <> | Subject | Re: Linux (free s/w) support |
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On Tue, 30 Sep 1997, Darren Reed wrote:
> In some mail I received from Darin Johnson, sie wrote > [...] > > Ah, but Sun, and *many* other commercial companies, will NOT > > necessarily help you. You get NO guarantees. And you most certainly > > That's if you don't have a support contract. > > [...] > > With Linux, you know who the authors are, and can email them directly, > > or contract with any of the hundreds or thousands of developers to fix > > the problems. > > Are you telling me that hundreds, if not thousands of people have contributed > code to the Linux kernel ? How many of them could fix a problem with (say) > virtual memory or debug an obscure SMP problem ? The weight of numbers maybe > comforting, but expertise in any particular part may be limited to a handful > of people. > > > With commercial companies, you have to go through a > > poorly staffed and poorly trained customer support department, and > > have no alternative to hire someone else to fix the problems. > > Whereas with Linux, you have people doing customer support who have never > been trained for support roles, probably scoff at it even being suggested > that they do any sort of training and can even be hostile in response if > it suits them. > > A good example of why _NOT_ to choose Linux (from a support point of view) > is the lack of any problem tracking such as GNATS (well at least not to my > knowledge - I asked Alan if there was any database of interesting problems > reported, to which he said he had no knowledge of which I'm implying means > a lack of this. There's also an absence of any reference to PR's in email > on the linux-kernel mailling list...). Even FreeBSD/OpenBSD/NetBSD use > GNATS for tracking problems. > > You might have lots of people but there is no sense of co-ordination or > any sort of organisation of those people for problem resolution and nor > is there any central management of problems. An example of how this can > be a problem is if I post a problem and get 10 different patches to fix > the same thing. Each patch is different because nobody knows what the > other did and there is no tracking of what anyone is doing/has done - > unless they happen to cc an email list or others. > > Basically, Linux is supported by anarchy. Is that what you want to sell > to management ? >
I'm really getting sick of this shit, if you prefer sun over linux, go use it, get the fuck off this mailing list and stop bothering us.
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