On Wednesday 12 January 2005 09:53, Kevin Donnelly wrote:
On Wednesday 12 Jan 2005 00:22, Bruce Marshall wrote:
So you're saying that if SuSE *says* it is going to give you 90 days of install support when you purchase 9.2 Pro, that they then don't have to provide it???
I think Josephine's point is that it's more difficult to give full support on everything to private users, because they are likely to have more heterogeneous systems than company users. Certainly, SUSE gives support to those who purchase the boxes, but only on certain areas - for that reason. Company users are likely to have older, company-wide PCs with fewer hardware add-ons, and the company will have entered into a longer-term support relationship. Moreover, in many cases, the queries may be mediated through the company's IT person, who may already have dealt with the more obvious issues. So it's probably easier to get a handle on what the problem may be than with a query from a private user, some of whose problems may actually be due to the fact that he is completely new to Linux.
However, the issue is that the free support is only for installation issue on a single machine. You don't get support to help you connect Samba to Win98, NT and XP, for example. You don't get help figuring out why the system works fine for three months and then freezes. That's what paid support does and yes, you are right that the company's IT person probably mediates and get through the basics before calling support. However, I am talking about a case where I cannot even get the software installed. Note software for which I paid money. Suse 9.0 works. Suse 9.2 doesn't. Formatting as an ext2fs works, an ext3fs doesn't (nor does reiser). Something support has not addressed.
Where do you start? As some of the queries on this list show, it can sometimes take some intricate work to tease out a specific issue. It's just not practical to do more than the basics for that user - I suppose about £10 of the box price goes to support, and that would pay for, what - 15 minutes? I tend not to waste time (theirs or mine) with Support - you're more likely to get a sensible answer from one of these lists, or googling. The things that can't be solved that way, I put up with until the next release, which at least (unlike proprietary software) is fairly frequent. And if I really couldn't stand SUSE any more, I could use another Linux distro (which again isn't really possible with proprietary software).
What I read there is that support should stop working after about 15 minutes (more or less). If Suse support considers it a waste of their time, then they shouldn't offer it. Drop the price of the software accordingly and then expect people to pay for support. If I don't like it,I can go elsewhere, "which again isn't really possible with proprietary software". They took my money (indirectly) and are contractually obligated to provide "professional" support. In my opinion that has not been done to the fullest extent it *should* be. If Suse decides not to provide this service in the future, more than likely I won't switch even if RedHat were to continue offering it. However, from the end-users perspective, how does Linux differ from Windows? I cannot get it installed and the support the vendor gives me does not address the problem (let alone solve it). Yes, it was/is probably more sensible to google or the list. Why then is this service offered? Personally, I think it is bad for their reputation to ask money for a service and then say you need to go somewhere else for that service. regards, jimmo -- --------------------------------------- "Be more concerned with your character than with your reputation. Your character is what you really are while your reputation is merely what others think you are." -- John Wooden --------------------------------------- Be sure to visit the Linux Tutorial: http://www.linux-tutorial.info --------------------------------------- NOTE: All messages sent to me in response to my posts to newsgroups or forums are subject to reposting.