Mike Butler wrote:
>Hi,
> I was wondering if anybody out there has had any dealing with the RedHat
>Support system. I purchased RedHat 5.0 about three weeks ago and have had
>absolutley no luck getting them to honor their product support. I've done
>everything except drive to their head office and beat the snot out of
someone.
>Is it me or do they have a problem they should address?
>
>Just curious....
>
>Mike
>
Hi, Mike. What others have said here about the great helpfulness of this
list is right on. For example, I was having a problem running X on my
Toshiba 225CDS, and a list member (Luc) sent me a configuration file that
worked.
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.
I felt at the time that, despite the great people on this list, Red Hat was
behaving immorally and illegally. The legal aspect is simple enough:
support is advertised and paid for but is not delivered. The moral aspect
is, to me, more complicated and more troubling. If we care about the
concept of free software, we can't be happy at any company undermining it
by not providing the support promised. This is especially the case, it
seems to me, when we're dealing with a for-profit company like Red Hat.
This company seems to be focused on selling as much product as possible
(hence the recent drop in price), regardless of its ability to support what
it sells. (Unpaid) support on this list is then the safety valve that
allows RH to continue in this way. A deeply troubling consequence seems to
me inescapable: this fine list, by facilitating RH's current marketing
strategy, also undermines the free software concept.
What I did was return RH and get Caldera (the $55 version). Caldera
support seems to be substantially better than RH's, and I feel better
because, paradoxically, the oh-so-profit-minded Caldera advances the free
software concept.
Anyway, sorry to go on so much about this. Sorry, too, if this message
upsets anyone.
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