On Tue, 19 May 1998, Samuel R. Kaufman wrote:
> Having said that, I, too, was terribly disappointed at the quality of
> support from Red Hat-the-company. As I mentioned some months ago, one
> typically BUYS free software to get personalized support. As I understand
> it, this is central to the free software/GPL concept as discussed in
> several GNU documents. There were lots of reasons provided at the time -
> especially by a Red Hat employee - for why support was inadequate. Some of
> these reasons now reappear.
It's true--at least it was 1 1/2 yrs ago: Red Hat's support is not so
hot, and why is a mystery. You hire some Red Hat veterans, and they read
and answer e-mails from people who know less than they do. Maybe they
can't get good people to take the job, which I know I would never want.
In that case perhaps they should just do it like office-kitchen duty, and
make all their regular employees who possess the skills put in a few hours
a week, or something. I don't know.
However, people do not pay for free/open software to get personalized
support from the vendor; they pay for it because downloading it is a pain.
Typically.
I'd like to see what the GNU project published that made you think
commercial support for free/open software is central to the free software
concept. I've never heard such a thing, and I certainly don't agree.
When the GNU project discusses the selling of free software, all they
say is along the lines of "have at it". The notion that Red Hat
undermines the concept of free software is just silly. They may break
some distribution rules according to the average GNU zealot by packaging
Red Hat with MetroX, BRU, and xv, but please.
--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--=--
Greg Fall
[EMAIL PROTECTED], [EMAIL PROTECTED]
http://www-personal.engin.umich.edu/~gmfall
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