RE: IDEA:Offical Debian Support Team?
On Tue, 20 Apr 1999, Madel, Kurt wrote: I believe that support for Debian is very important and is something that should be investigated. However, I believe that it may be difficult to combat an over-commercialized distribution if you start pushing for professional 24X7 commercial support. The kind of support that corporate business requires is of the commercial variety. Actually, corporate business has resources in place to do INTERNAL support. The sort of telephone camp on hold support lines that have become what people think of as technical support are something that corporate business can do without if their internal support personnel have the tools they need to do their jobs without it. I believe that the so-called information revolution is going through its third phase. The first phase was when computers were large, rare, and expensive. The second phase started with the rise of the microcomputer and the introduction of the ISV. The third phase started with the rise of the Internet and the introduction of freeware of commercial quality and a substantial feature set. People keep talking about how Linux, and other freeware, are unsupported like what they get from Microsoft can be characterized as support. However, I view poor support as a problem of the second phase and as soon as we can escape second-phase thinking (such as I've got to have a toll-free telephone number that I can call to harass the vendor) the issue of support will simply disappear. After all, who needs support when you (or your hired expert) has the source? -- Jonathan Guthrie ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) Brokersys +281-895-8101 http://www.brokersys.com/ 12703 Veterans Memorial #106, Houston, TX 77014, USA
RE: IDEA:Offical Debian Support Team?
I believe that support for Debian is very important and is something that should be investigated. However, I believe that it may be difficult to combat an over-commercialized distribution if you start pushing for professional 24X7 commercial support. The kind of support that corporate business requires is of the commercial variety. List serves and news groups don't quite cut it for the corporate world. But I don't see any reason why the HP's or IBM's couldn't include Debian as one of the distributions they support. Kurt -Original Message- From: Person, Roderick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 1999 4:48 PM To: 'debian-user@lists.debian.org' Subject:IDEA:Offical Debian Support Team? Hey guys, I've noticed a lot of vendors jumping on the Linux bandwagon and and starting to offer support for thier system that run Linux. But, it seems that it is only for SUSE, Redhat, Caldera and TurboLinux. WHY NOT DEBIAN? Is it because we are not commercial? And if so, I propose a Debian support team. I love Linux and Debian and I want to see it grow and live. But, it seems that if only the commercial distro get support Debian my lose developers and disappear. This would sicken me! I believe Debian to be the best of the distros (I have used Redhat and Caldera). Although it not what I call pretty (graphic set install and adminastration), it is far more stable, flexible and all out better. This is something that concerns me and I would hate to see Debian lost because of not being commercial. Just thoughts. Any comments? Is this stupid or what? Rod -- Unsubscribe? mail -s unsubscribe [EMAIL PROTECTED] /dev/null
RE: IDEA:Offical Debian Support Team?
In [EMAIL PROTECTED], on 04/20/99 at 05:22 PM, Madel, Kurt [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: don't quite cut it for the corporate world. But I don't see any reason why the HP's or IBM's couldn't include Debian as one of the distributions they support. It would seem you have hit at least part of the problem (solution?) in this comment. Debian maintainers take an app/package and formulate Debian's version, yes? Yet Debian's goal is not to commercialize. But the support from the outside should reasonably be headed towards Linux, not a distribution. Does Debian send letters (official or otherwise) to these companies giving out the specifics of how to create a .deb, and doing that would be beneficial? (And is a free Debian CD packed in with the letter? :) (Oops ... 2 CD's these days) A well thought out, very carefully worded letter may go a long way towards helping Debian. These people aren't our enemies, after all. And choosing Debian hardly means a user won't buy that great app from a commercial vendor. Kenward -- --- Dr. Kenward Vaughan Professor of Chemistry Bakersfield College Bakersfield, CA 661-395-4011 [EMAIL PROTECTED] ---
Re: IDEA:Offical Debian Support Team?
I believe that support for Debian is very important and is something that should be investigated. However, I believe that it may be difficult to combat an over-commercialized distribution if you start pushing for professional 24X7 commercial support. The kind of support that corporate business requires is of the commercial variety. List serves and news groups don't quite cut it for the corporate world. But I don't see any reason why the HP's or IBM's couldn't include Debian as one of the distributions they support. Kurt There's one major reason. You can't have a free distro to be what you want it to be. If HP wants Red Hat to work on this or that, or 'help' Red Hat be more compatible on HP's machines than on Sun's, it's feasible for them to settle an agreement with Red Hat, SuSE gets less support from HP than Red Hat, and Sun's gets less advertised than HP's. Welcome to the corporate capitalism world. *sigh* -Original Message- From: Person, Roderick [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, April 20, 1999 4:48 PM To: 'debian-user@lists.debian.org' Subject: IDEA:Offical Debian Support Team? Hey guys, I've noticed a lot of vendors jumping on the Linux bandwagon and and starting to offer support for thier system that run Linux. But, it seems that it is only for SUSE, Redhat, Caldera and TurboLinux. WHY NOT DEBIAN? Is it because we are not commercial? And if so, I propose a Debian support team. I love Linux and Debian and I want to see it grow and live. But, it seems that if only the commercial distro get support Debian my lose developers and disappear. This would sicken me! I believe Debian to be the best of the distros (I have used Redhat and Caldera). Although it not what I call pretty (graphic set install and adminastration), it is far more stable, flexible and all out better. This is something that concerns me and I would hate to see Debian lost because of not being commercial. Just thoughts. Any comments? Is this stupid or what? This is far from stupid. It's not the first time someone mentions such a thing. (In fact I did a few months back =) First, the real problem with that, is that Debian is mainly maintained/worked on/anything by volunteer *progammers*. (Developers, coders, whatever you call it. Those who makes the .tar.gz that comes with the .dsc and .diff) And not many of them (dare I say not a single one fo them) is interested in giving 24h7d tech support to guys in a remote country. Second, Debian faces a few other troubles to enter the commercial world that leads today's world is resumed in the three statements that follow: Red Hat Linux was created so that the creator could earn more money. Same applies to SuSE, Caldera (could argue it's been created to hurt Microsoft.), TurboLinux, etc. Debian, Stampede, Slackware (not sure, ain't really knowledgeable about that one) have been created to answer their founders own personnal itch. HP, IBM, understands the two first statements better than the last one. And they knows how to make cash with Red Hat, how to get favors from them, how to influence Red Hat. Thirdly, let's say: HP creates an idea to earn more cash. If it can give more cash to Red Hat Software, it'll be in next's RHLinux. If it's not worth the megabytes it's saved on, it won't make it in Debian, and HP is losing money... Christian Lavoie [EMAIL PROTECTED] UIN: 947212
