[ale] Tech support

[Jeff Hubbs]

Chris -

There is actually another line of reasoning you could pull out that might
dry the wet blankets.

Your "free support online" response, while correct, probably would not have
made a very good impression becaus their mindset equates "free" to
"worthless."  The responses you're getting along the lines of Red Hat,
LinuxCare, etc. are much better.

However, one argument I've seen made is that because Linux is free (in the
free-speech sense),  the source is freely available, any one aspect of it
can be examined and prodded in as much depth as you're able to stand, and
you can almost always find people who know your point of interest a heck of
a lot better than you do, your IT staff gets a heck of a lot *smarter.*

Before I started working with Linux nearly all the time, I was working with
NT all the time, and I had this nagging problem with NT where if you ran
into a snag - I mean, ran smack dab into a BUG involving NT itself or a
device driver - you really had very little recourse available to you, tech
support contract or no.  The simple fact of the matter is that if you had
that kind of problem where you had to 100% fall over to the vendor to help
you, you were essentially SOL until  the problem got fixed IF the problem
got fixed, regardless of whether you reported the bug or not.  You were
essentially abandoned and help might arrive or it might not.  

On the other hand, if you run into a problem like that with Linux, if you
have enough kung fu, you can likely FIND the ORIGINAL AUTHOR of a device
driver and HELP HIM debug it.  Or, you can debug it yourself and submit the
patch backward in Linus' general direction.

As an IT manager/integrator/implementor, I was starting to feel like I had
kind of taken NT about as far as it could be taken, but with Linux, I really
have the solid impression that I personally can take it as far as my skill
and knowledge will allow me.  The corollary is that whenever I'm frustrated
with what I can't do in Linux, for the most part, the only limitation is me
- *my* knowledge, *my* determination, *my* resourcefulness.  I therefore
expand what I can do by expanding myself in those areas.  

Another approach would be to emphasize not so much that Linux is essentially
free (as in beer) but rather that the costs don't scale.  1000 NT
Workstation licenses and NT client access licenses will set your outfit back
by about $280K, plus something like $600-800 per NT server license, of which
1000 users might need 5-8 depending on layout (if the clients are Win98/95
instead of NT, the per-seat cost would drop to probably around $100 but your
mgt has probably grown accustomed to about $70-75 of that as a hidden cost
associated with each desktop).  If it all were done in Linux, all that cost
would go away.  What kind of Linux for-pay tech support could get bought for
that chunk of change?  What kind of hardcore Linux geek could you hire?  

- Jeff


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Chris Champness [mailto:cchampness at csihq.com]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 09, 2000 1:43 PM
> To: ale at ale.org
> Subject: [ale] Tech support
> 
> 
> A colleague who works for a (very) large engineering 
> corporation made a
> remark to me the other day when the topic of Linux came up.  He said
> that in his organization the idea of running Linux comes up 
> from time to
> time, but the wet blankets always say "Yeah, but where are 
> you going to
> get tech support?".  My response was that there is a lot of 
> free support
> online.  This list is certainly one source.  However, I would like to
> send him a list of several good resources.  Any suggestions?
> TIA
> Chris
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