[EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: > > Dear Debian Users, > > [Quoting SCO] 1. Linux has no technical support or maintenance. > > I am instituting a 24/7 commercial email support desk for
Huzzah! The more commercial support the better.. It's strange, but corporations just don't think they're getting anything worth while unless they're paying through the nose for it. > [Quoting SCO] 2.Linux has no defined strategy for the future. > As far as I understood it, Linux has always had an unspoken dedication to the users. To be the BEST operating system out there doesn't sound like too bad of a game plan to me. But I suppose it needs to be fluffed for management-sludge-brains to understand it more clearly.. or at least to point to and say in effect "This statement of purpose weighs more than any other I've ever seen.. this is definitely a good system." (Don't think I'm kidding either.. this is almost to the letter the way things are done.) > > [Quoting SCO] 3.Most Important, can your company accept that its viability > as a business depends heavily on a freeware product maintained by a small > number of people on an essentially volunteer basis? > First off, where do they get "small number"??! Now I KNOW this is a joke. Anyone have the last known official estimate for the sum total of Linux users? The only difference between commercial support and volunteer support is that you can sue the pants off of someone who you've made a contract with if they fail to hold up their end. The fact remains.. if something does go wrong, either way the system's screwed, no amount of money you can pay can fix a problem. Only a strong team of skilled and knowledged individuals who understand the intrinsic details of the underlying system can solve the problem. What I'm trying to convey is that .. Just because you've payed for support doesn't solve the problem any faster or at all for that matter, and in the case of commercial support you'll be dealing with out-sourced technical assistance and you may not get to the original developers for weeks, even months (if at all). (Climbing up THAT chain of command can be a nightmare... and I speak from experience having had an INTERNAL vantage point on this.) I'll bet you any amount of money that the same is true for SCO. (In daily practice we've dealt with several of these problems.. all the same.. "Well we don't have support for that at this time.. perhaps later..." or "We're working on it right now..." Only to wait 4 months for vaporware...or vaporpatch as the case may be.) On a more productive note (shedding some of my rage at the audacity of SCO to publish such nonsense, and the fact that I HATE their BASTARD, BACKWARD OS with all my BEING.. eh hem). I would emphasize the fact that when requesting support for Linux, 9 out of 10 times (with a serious problem) you are getting help DIRECTLY from the developer responsible for that piece of the operating system, and not some hired warm-body who only knows what he's been taught in their (often inadequate) training courses. This list can attest to that fact. I requested assistance with my 3c509 card, nothing was working. I contacted Donald Becker personaly, and I immediately got HELP. Within 24 hours I got a response with critical information that helped me find and solve my problem. Could I have gotten that with WinBlows 95 or NT? No. (Not without spending a fortune for Mission Critical assistance and then waiting 2 weeks while they tripped over each other in their incompetancy.) And you're not going to find it in any other commercial Unix either. PERIOD. The difference? We CARE about our OS. The success of our Linux community rests on a devotion to something in which we believe and NOT because we're trying to turn a buck. If there's a problem with the system it's like a problem with our health, and immediate action is taken to cure the illness. Corporations like SCO would rather wait for the illness to become an epidemic before taking the first steps toward action. > [Quoting SCO] 4.Of course, there is a challenging aspect to Linux. Just > imagine all of the fun you get when you encounter a bug and debug the kernel > yourself. This is an out and out insult. Their system is no different than any other. Say you find a problem with their kernel? What then? Call 'em up. Tell them your problem. Dick around for about a week or two until you finally drill into their skulls that you AREN'T a moron and that there is a REAL concern. Then wait a few MORE weeks while several lackies waste your time on telephone debugging sessions, until FINALLY it gets back to the man in charge of that particular piece o' kernel. With the Linux way we cut out about 3-4 weeks, a bottle of aspirin, and a mean case of cauliflower ear from being on the phone for hours on end. > > Obviously, the commercial support organization I am forming will address this. > Commercial support will prove that Linux is more than just a flash in the pan operation, and that we REALLY are serious about providing the BEST possible operating system available. But let's not forget Linus's "World Domination 101" directive. Applications, applications, applications! Perhaps some of this capitol accrued through commercial tech support could fund development projects to stock Linux with high quality business-ware that could loosen the grip of the Evil Empire on office productivity markets. We all KNOW that if we can get in THAT door, we've got 'em. > I think it's nice when a company takes their time to isolate all of your > problems and point them out so neatly so that you can work on them. > I reproduce the entirety of SCO's nice letter below. > It sounds more like a company flailing and moaning in its final throws of death, but I agree with everything you've said. They've tried to step into OUR court now, and by doing so they've made a BIG mistake. The only thing that we really lack in order to impress corporations of the validity of Linux is true-blue commercial technical support. They need to feel comfortable knowing that if something goes wrong they have a contractual agreement which entitles them to immediate "level 1 priority" support. (I speak from experience.. I'm fighting a slow war with my company to prove to them that Linux is every bit as viable (if not more so) than Solaris, AIX, BSDi, etc, etc, etc.) With a commercial support option, I'd have a very large gun to fight with indeed. -- Wintermute -- TO UNSUBSCRIBE FROM THIS MAILING LIST: e-mail the word "unsubscribe" to [EMAIL PROTECTED] . Trouble? e-mail to [EMAIL PROTECTED] .
