Am 23. Jan, 2004 schw=E4tzte Ed Skinner so:

>      The higher degree of difficulty comes from the absence of enforceabl=
e
> support. By "enforceable" I mean that if I buy a commercial product, I ca=
n
> expect a high level of support and, if it is not provided, the supplier c=
an
> reasonably expect to be sued into bankrupcy. (In practice, of course, it

Enforceable support is almost completely dependent on contract law and
paying for the support. As you know, Monta Vista will sell you support if
you pay for Hard Hat. Red Hat, SuSE and Mandrake will all gladly sell you
support. Red Hat might be the only one of those 3 that has embedded support=
=2E

There are other companies in that space, but you know it better than I do :=
).

> rarely works out that way but, nonetheless, the threat is there and, as a
> consequence, most sellers of commercial software products do a mediocre t=
o
> good job of post-sales support.)

As you point out here, proprietary support does not mean you'll actually ge=
t
resolution...

>      FOSS support, on the other hand, comes by mutual consent. Answers to
> problems can't be ensured by intimidation or litigation. Indeed, commerci=
al

That's one form of support. That form is also available for proprietary
software, though it's usually limited due to the nature of proprietary
software.

If you need commercial support pay for commercial support.

At work we're purchasing several new GNU/Linux boxen. We will be paying for
commercial support for those servers.

ciao,

der.hans
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