*BSD News Article 3440


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Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel!munnari.oz.au!uunet!unislc!erc
From: erc@unislc.uucp (Ed Carp)
Subject: Re: USL's Pieper profiled in UNIXWorld (selections)
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL4
References: <Aug09.201214.62367@yuma.ACNS.ColoState.EDU>
Message-ID: <1992Aug10.225757.139@unislc.uucp>
Organization: Unisys Corporation SLC
Date: Mon, 10 Aug 1992 22:57:57 GMT
Lines: 30

barnesdo@CS.ColoState.EDU (douglas barnes) writes:

: Let's ask Bill and Linus what kind of support they might provide for a
: cool $3 mil... I bet it would be a damned sight better than what
: we're getting now, and the product would be better to begin with.

There's lots of folks working on linux (me being one of them) that would
dearly love to get paid for what we are doing for free - simply because
linux is available, and we can play with it - and what good is playing
with it if you can't fix the bugs? :)

: In the case of AT&T/USL, I'm sure that they spend far more than 2/3 or 8/9
: on irrelevant overhead. That's just the point. They, like the saurian
: companies studied in MMM are bogged down in tar. The companies that will
: succeed in the future are the ones who can reduce the b.s. while delivering
: products and services of high quality at low cost. This may be by striking
: a middle road between the bloated monoliths and the user-supported 
: software, but it could also emerge as a pay-for-service outgrowth of 
: user-supported software.

Look at Cygnus Support.  Those guys are making big $$$, and there's plenty of
room out there for good support organizations.  Why?  Because most companies
look at support as something they *have* to do, and so don't do it very well.
Treating support people like shit doesn't help them, like expecting them to
produce "piecemeal". :(
-- 
Ed Carp, N7EKG     erc@apple.com                801/538-0177
"This is the final task I will ever give you, and it  goes  on  forever.   Act
happy, feel happy, be happy, without a reason in the world. Then you can love,
and do what you will."           -- Dan Millman, "Way Of The Peaceful Warrior"