Kit
Many thanks - I have only just caught up with this thread and
appreciate your comments.
Robert Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Red Hat Software Inc. Phone: +1-919-547-0012 Fax: +1-919-547-0024
4201 Research Commons Suite 100, 79 TW Alexander Dr., Research Triangle Park,
NC 27709, USA
On 18 May, Kit Cosper wrote:
> [...]
>>
>> I'm not defending them! But, I can understand their position. They're
>> selling their distribution for a very reasonalble -- i.e., low -- price,
>> and they're entitled to make a good living. So they sell support.
>>
>> Yes, the docs are a bit thin in places. But, I'd bet that's because we
>> all have slightly different configurations and problems. If they are very
>> smart, they'll monitor this list and see if there are specific installation
>> problems which they could document better.
>>
> A couple of quick notes. As former keeper of the RH Installation
> Guide (4.0 was the end of my tenure at Red Hat) and (most) all things
> support-related, I can offer a bit of a different slant on things. Not
> to defend or offend anyone, but simply to try and enlighten.
>
> -It's difficult to write a manual for something that you can do in your
> sleep. The current manual is light-years beyond what I helped produce.
> Still, the myriad possibilities for configurations are mind-boggling.
> You just can't cover everything. The current keeper is a much better
> scribe than I will ever be and I'm sure he will keep working to make the
> manual as good as it can get. Given what he had to work with he has already
> done amazing things.
>
> -Support is not a simple task. No matter how much you see and do there
> is always something so wild and esoteric that it takes a bit of head bashing
> (your own, against the nearest wall) to see the problem sometimes. There
> are questions that come in so shrouded in minutia that you forget to take
> a step back and refocus. There are other things that appear blatantly
> obvious but aren't. Then there are times that the support system belches
> and a message gets sent to /dev/null. When the workload gets high things
> slow down. All of this can combine to make things look really bad for
> some folks. For most all runs well.
>
> -In my day Faxen were the bane of my existence. Don't know about now,
> but may well be the case today. I could deal with 8-10 email messages
> in the time it took to respond to a single fax. Applixware may have
> improved that over time. :-)
>
> -If you have a sales/upgrade question try [EMAIL PROTECTED] (I assume
> that's still a valid address) they can get the answers to you much
> quicker and more accurate than the support folks. Support folks are
> probably going to forward them there anyway, and this keeps them
> from having to deal with non-support inquiries.
>
> -They are listening, and everyone I know at Red Hat (most, but not all
> these days) wants to provide the best product, support and service that
> they can. But they're only human, and we all make mistakes from time to
> time.
>
> Back to the sidelines...
--
Robert Hart [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Red Hat Software Inc. Phone: +1-919-547-0012 Fax: +1-919-547-0024
4201 Research Commons Suite 100, 79 TW Alexander Dr., Research Triangle Park,
NC 27709, USA
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