'386 Unix Wars

[Thomas Hoberg]

In article <1991Jan02.081223.21793 at kithrup.COM>, sef at kithrup.COM (Sean
Eric Fagan) writes:
|> 
|> Do you expect the person you buy your car from to provide "support"
|> indefinitely?  Do you go up to mechanics and ask them detailed questions
|> about what's wrong with your car?  Do you give them the keys to the car and
|> ask them to find out what's wrong and fix it?  This is, is a lot of ways,
|> quite close to the problem with software, since a large part of the cost is
|> diagnosis.
With a car I can usually detect if not repair the problem myself, even it is a
problem that has come built into the car at manufacture. If there is a problem
I can't fix, I can chose the mechanic, on the base of competence, price and 
workload. There is no secret knowledge about the car that's available to the
mechanic only and that he is prohibited to tell me about. Yes I do expect him
to provide support indefinetely or for about 10-20 years, after an initial
warranty period of one year or more. Yes, I do ask my mechanic detailed 
questions about my cars problems and the way he intends to solve them. If I
don't get satisfactory answers, I take it somewhere else. If he doesn't solve
the problems or if he charges an unreasonable amount of money for the fix, or
if he actually induces an other problem I am willing to take him into court,
where I can have independent experts testifying on my behalf. I have some
expertise with cars and I have some with Unix and computer hardware. A lot of
times with Unix I have been quite sure about the source of a problem and I
could and even would have fixed it myself, even if I think that it's not really
my responsability and that the vendor should have fixed it for me. Instead I am
confronted with fools and spend hours with them  before they realize, that I
got a problem they can't handle and call in the 'knowledgable' guys. With 
software I might never get to talk to those guys and my messages might get to
them garbled beyond recognition. Even if they get there, they might ask me to
trade my '88 model X in for a '90 model X.1beta at $$$$ with sound conditioning
and recolorable seats even though the '88 model X needed only a change of sparc
plugs.
|> ...
|> For the people who are running into
|> problems all the time, well, they should pay for the time they're using.
|>
Actually I think it's the other way around. A software company that sells me
a faulty piece of software should pay for the time I lost tracking down and
reporting the problem as well as in some cases for consequential dammage.
Software companies that don't provide free bug fixes and don't listen to the
experts in the field shoot themselves in the foot *and* hurt a lot of innocent
people beside. It is they, who will spur increasing interest in the gospel of
Richard Stallman and the FSF and thus bring about the end of software mono-
polies and an end to profits never 'earned'.
|>
|> This is known as capitalism.
|>
Yes indeed, it is, even though the post industrial age might even make
good old capitalism obsolete...
|>
|> -- 
|> Sean Eric Fagan  | "I made the universe, but please don't blame me for it;
|> sef at kithrup.COM  |  I had a bellyache at the time."
|> -----------------+           -- The Turtle (Stephen King, _It_)
|> Any opinions expressed are my own, and generally unpopular with others.
----
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