The Wednesday 2004-04-14 at 09:35 -0700, Josh Berkus wrote:
Hopefully Novell will cure this. Novell has a history of reseller support that I hope they bring to SuSE.
I have never been a reseller, but I feel you may be right.
In the meantime, there are some easy, cheap things that SuSE could do to improve their online support for English-speaking users (and other languages as well!):
[ long ] I have two contrasting experiences; first the bad one. Remember SuSE 7.3? I bought the professional version, which I still have installed on my old computer. I was nicely surprised at the quality of the translation of the paper manuals to Spanish (previously I had bought the international version, which was cheaper). However, when I looked at the files of the same books, instead of Spanish, they were in German! It was funny, the headers for the html pages (next, previous, etc) were in Spanish; but the text itself, was in German. The same happened to the french version; and not only one book, but several: network_es, network_fr, qapl_fr, qconfig_es, qconfig_fr, suselinux-reference_es.rpm, suselinux-reference_fr.rpm... Support? Not covered by the free installation support. Feedback? It is unidirectional, no answer. Symposiums? Surprised face of the seller/reseller whoever. "I'll look it up; how can I contact you" - I'm still waiting, two years later... Nobody knows. Why was this never corrected? The files got a patch, because the pdf version was faulty: but I never saw the translation. Now the second experience, the good one. I bought SuSE 7.1 direct from SuSE, web form, express delivery, however it was called. At the time I was mostly at home, a training period for my company, a big one then; so I gave my home address. It seems there was a delay on the SuSE side of the delivery, about two weeks, because they were moving or something. They didn't email me warning of the delay. When the delivery man (UPS, I think) got to my home, I wasn't there, because my two weeks "strange hours job" had finished, and I wasn't there. He went away without even dropping a note at the mail box, and repeated the same procedure three days, finally returning the box to Germany! Flummoxed, knowing nothing (+/- three weeks "express" delivery"), I email (second time?). They responded immediately phoning me! I was astonished, an international phone call is expensive in Europe. They explained, resent. I emailed asking who was the delivery agent, and the expedition code, so that I could check on my end. I got the answer the next day, and when at the evening I went to the dispatch yard, the delivery man had already done the same thing two days again! Things explained, the chap in charge there is surprised that no note was left at my home, and offers to resend next morning to my job instead - I accept, and duly I get the box, with a nice T-shirt as a present. Very nice, I'm happy again :-) SuSE did their job - but late -, even phoned me twice - even if an email would have worked just as well. They failed at not giving an expedition date, company and code, so that the receiving end can be prepared. The "bad guys" were the transport agent people, who expecting a business address neglected to leave a "we have been here" note, or tried to contact me some other way (SuSE had my phone, for example). So... I'm aware they try to do their job as best as they can: I'm convinced of that, no doubt whatsoever. However, I would like perfection, and they have glitches and misperceptions (IMO)... specially where attention to the client should be. Because I buy a "Professional" version, I expect a bit of "professional" attention - else I would be buying a "Personal" version, or simply getting it by ftp somehow. Or they should rename it as "Home" version: but then it would be too expensive. The answer that "you should buy a business version" is not valid for me, I don't want that much attention or hand holding, nor that cost: something intermediate. But I would expect that reported bugs on a professional version be corrected, without waiting for the next version - for paying customers, of course: that's what I am. I would expect feedback to be bidirectional for us as well, just a "working on it/can't do/already solved" brief note. Or a biaxial thing, whatever. A simple list of known bugs/problem detected for packages - they surely have it, but private - would be terribly nice. As I said: what do I get for buying it that I couldn't get it by ftping? Install support (almost useless to me), very nice books, DVD/CDs, some commercial packages... yes, ok, fine. But I would like a bit more inexpensive "attention to customers", which in my part of the world is taken as granted when you name something as "professional".
1) add a search engine for the mailing list archives 2) open up the SDB so that volunteers can translate issues from German (and provide some infrastructure to support this)
Mmmm, that should be "payed". Mind, you haven't compared the English version to the Spanish, ein? You don't know what you have got :-p
3) support bug reporting (ala bugzilla, though hopefully using something else, like RT, Jira or Roundup) by the community.
Yes.
4) put a paid employee on this list to respond to questions and comments that don't get fielded peer-to-peer. If a tiny company like Win4Lin can do it, so can SuSE.
Yes! Well... looking at it from their side, that would be "support", and they want to get payed for it, and that is understandable. But I would like them to read the list "officially", because it is a magnificent feedback source. And answers questions like those we are posting on this thread. A "public relations" chap. And if a bug is reported, take note of it, don't wait for an "official" report to "feedback".
None of the above would cost very much and would make a world of difference to SuSE users in the US. If all-volunteer OSS projects can do it (and they do!) then certainly a capitalized company like SuSE can do it.
And outside of the US. I know the Spanish chap (R. Griman) is doing a good job, he has a better knowledge of the Spanish market. He has even asked us, on list, for feedback! :-) -- Cheers, Carlos Robinson