I've kept my mouth shut as long as I can... Hopefully we can let this die
now...
>Are you telling me that you believe the people capable of fixing a
>problem with, say, virtual memory handling or SMP in, say, Unixware,
>SCO 3.2.x or even SCO OS5 still work there? And even if they do that
>they are in a position to be allocated to a support problem without
>weeks, if not months, of polictally maneouvering and job rescheduling?
>The same arguments apply to the commercial side. The real question
>is, do the right people have the source and can they be bought at
>short enough order to fix your problem in a timely fashion?
>
Well, having source code isn't the solution to everything. The *right*
people don't have time to fix everything, and the wrong people are dangerous.
Besides, its not that hard to get Solaris source code, last time I checked,
they were giving it to schools.
And you can find a lot of stuff *without* source. Take a look at Panic!
from sun, good book...
>Many companies see support as a junior job. Many companies use it to
>train new people on their products. This is not unreasonable as 90% of
>support calls are easily close by someone who knows how to use an
>index in a manual. Getting support and getting to knowledgable
>developers is not the same.
if 90% of your reported problems are simple, why waste the time of your
most valuabe people? As long as serious issues get escalated to the people
that can fix them, this is good. But even if you are asking a stupid
question, it's still nice to get an answer :)
>> 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.
>
>From where you are, maybe not...
>
It would be nice if there were something more authoratitive and centralized
for the work that is done on linux. linuxHQ was fine, but a better
database, with a permanent home, would be great. If only I had the time
>> 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.
If I get ONE patch that fixes my problem, I'm a happy guy. If there are
ten, its unlikely that I will complain.
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