'386 Unix Wars

[Buster Irby]

geoff at Veritas.COM (Geoffrey Leach) writes:

>My proposal is that product support should be provided free with the product.
>If this is felt to be too expensive, then the vendor should take a look at
>why its expensive.  If the reason is that the product has bugs, then the 
>vendor should do a better job of building the product in the first place.

Your point is well taken.  However, you seem to believe that the
only problems that people call support for are caused by the
vendor.  This is seldom the case in a high volume product.  A lot
of calls to support happen simply because a self styled expert
failed to RTFM.  Do you believe that vendors should provide free
support for self inflicted problems?

I do agree that free upgrades (read charges for copying and
shipping only) should be provided.  Also, there should be no
charges when reporting bugs.  I also believe that the user must
accept some responsibility as well.  I do not want to pay a
higher price for any product simply because some other people
refuse to RTFM.

-- 
Buster Irby  (buster!rli)