On 8/23/19 1:59 AM, Kai Köhne wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: Interest <interest-boun...@qt-project.org> On Behalf Of Roland
Hughes
[...]
The way our "support" was explained to me by our boss was this (it might be
different for every negotiation):
"If we have trouble with installation of the development software,
configuration of the development environment or cross compiling for the
target system we can call and get help right away. If we find a bug we have to
file a bug report and get in the queue with everyone else."
That's not true (unless "everyone else" means all people with the same support
level). The people in Qt support will also try to directly provide you with a patch
and/or workaround, if possible. Also the internal development teams in the Qt Company
will prioritize bugs coming from commercial customers. That's why it's actually advised
to file a bug through Qt Support, or at least inform Qt Support that you filed a bug in
JIRA if you are a commercial customer.
Prioritize != Ride Bug to Extinction
At some point I expect "that guy again" to chime in here about the
REGRESSION bugs he filed which have been rotting for years. Their bits
may have turned to dust by now.
I always have trouble communicating this to people who have never worked
with real computers. They have no concept of what real sev-level support
is. They believe throwing bugs into JIRA and watching them age like
Bourbon is "support." It can't even buy a ticket to watch real support
happen.
My first IT job was a midnight computer operator at Airfone, Inc. They
put credit card telephones in airplanes long before anyone had cell
phones. They were dead broke from building all of the ground stations
and installing the phones we had installed. Had even missed payroll so
we were all working for free. The only bill which was religiously paid
was our sev-level support contract with DEC.
It was about 11:30 at night when we had a major outage. I forget what it
was. I called the systems analyst who had me boot/load the Colorado
software on the system console. Then phone in to the Colorado voice
support line.
I was on the phone with Colorado when I had to set the phone down to
sign for someone with the security guard. The person I had to sign in
was from DEC support. Colorado had dispatched them from a regional
office once their diagnostics firmware identified the problem area from
the OPCOM and AUDIT logs.
He stayed until some time after 4a.m. We were fully functional when he left.
I wasn't on-site for this one but worked with the individual who was. He
used to love telling me this story.
When Oracle first introduced RAC it was an even bigger hand polished
turd than QML. I know that is difficult to wrap one's mind around if
you've been exposed to QML, but, there it is.
Oracle convinced a major downstate heavy equipment manufacturer to roll
out a new critical system based on Oracle RAC on some flavor of *nix
instead of basing it on the already proven RDB running on OpenVMS.
The only OS then or now which well and truly clusters is OpenVMS.
Everything else claims whatever sad and pathetic thing they are capable
of, clustering. It's as night and day different as real support and
filing a JIRA ticket.
This system was production critical when it went online. The database
was completely corrupted multiple times. I'm told Oracle had an entire
team on-site for weeks, all as part of the support contract.
Big companies are willing to take big chances on unproven technologies
when they can get sev-level support. "Filing a ticket" isn't sev-level
support. When there is no written promise that however many bodies
necessary will be allocated 100%, even on-site 100% when needed, all as
part of the support contract, it isn't sev-level support.
Here's another one I was on-site for.
Payroll conversion project at Quaker Oats. They were kicking ADP to the
curb and bringing payroll in-house with PeopleSoft. All of the mills and
plants were still running Cyborg payroll. The feed from Cyborg had to
create a different file for transmission to PeopleSoft at the corporate
office. At the time Cyborg was 1970s style COBOL using the card format
with line numbers and it was distributed in source. They also had their
own "4GL" called Generator which was supposed to be platform independent
but used COBOL underneath.
Someone, whom I can only assume is either the worst human being ever or
the most unfortunate one, worked at one of the east coast pet food
factories. The exact number escapes me. I can't remember if it was 25 or
27 wage garnishments they had, just that it was north of 20 and one more
than the Cyborg payroll system could handle. It crashed payroll. Factory
workers tend to live paycheck to paycheck and nobody was getting paid
until that bug was fixed.
Cyborg sent the head or one of the head/lead developers to our office.
He patched the software with us sitting there. We compiled it, tested
it, and payroll happened at the plant. The checks were about an hour
late, if I recall correctly, but everyone got paid, even the person with
20+ garnishments who caused the problem.
Sev-level support is a universe unto its own. Once you work in such an
environment it becomes difficult to call what exists in the PC world
support.
Oh, for those who don't live in America or a country which allows wage
garnishment, when you don't pay a debt you are legally obligated to pay,
people/companies take you to court to collect and the court awards them
a garnishment of your wages. There are different state and municipality
laws about just how much a person has to be left, but everything above
that amount goes into the garnishment pool and there is another set of
rules as to how the pool is divided up when a person has more than one
wage garnishment.
This last story stuck with me because the person would have had far more
income if they quit work and went on welfare, but they still chose to
show up for work every day knowing they could earn more just sitting at
home.
--
Roland Hughes, President
Logikal Solutions
(630)-205-1593 (cell)
http://www.theminimumyouneedtoknow.com
http://www.infiniteexposure.net
http://www.johnsmith-book.com
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