On Sunday 23 September 2001 11:08 am, James Mohr wrote:
By biggest problem with support being just help with "_getting_the_basic_system_functioning_" is that it misses upgrades completely. Both a co-worker and I had problems after upgrading. SuSE denied that their upgrade process was the problem and refused to help my co-worker.
In my case, the timestamp on /etc/fstab was in the middle of the upgrade and three entries for VFAT filesystems were changed from auto to noauto. I have used these filesystems for at least six months with VMWare and they have been automatically from the beginning. Although it makes sense that these aren't automounted during the install.
However, I reported this a a bug. SuSE support said the fstab was not touched during the upgrade and the support rep was "annoyed" that I was not "prepared to pay for the product although I am asking for support." Granted I was using my co-worker's copy and I even told them that, but I don't see a need to pay to report a bug. Further, the comment about being "annoyed" was completely unprofessional and the only response to the comment was that the "economic life of the company" depended on them deciding on what services to provide at what cost.
They seem to have forgotten that particularly in the Linux market, the "economic life of the company" depends more on customer loyalty. Being press, I have gotten free copies of SuSE since 5.x. This time I decided to save SuSE some money and use my co-worker's copy. Even through I also get Caldera and RedHat for free, my loyalty is still with SuSE.
I also manage the hotline for a company that develops software for online brokers and did tech support for several years, so I know all about decided who gets what support and at what price. However, it **seems** to me that SuSE listens more to the bean counters than their loyal supporters.
My loyalty hasn't changed because of this incident, as I know that one twit in support does not represent the whole company. Plus, most everyone else has been/is really helpful.
Alas customer loyalty isn't enough on its own (that said, I'm not sure that receiving free copies of SuSE counts as loyalty anyway). The Linux community also needs cash to sustain itself. Do you think that you're entitled to support that you haven't paid for? And were you really reporting a bug or just hoping they would fix _your_ problem for free? It's all to easy to say that this is a bug or that's a bug when things don't work out quite how you'd expect. Isn't it a bit arrogant to tell the _expert_ that they have a bug when you don't have the know how to explain what the cause is either? M BTW, I like the KMail keyboard shortcut to reply to list, "L". Good one Jon!