On Monday 26 January 2004 00:50, der.hans wrote: > Am 23. Jan, 2004 schw=E4tzte Craig White so: > > On Fri, 2004-01-23 at 13:52, der.hans wrote: > > > Am 23. Jan, 2004 schw=C3=A4tzte Ed Skinner so: > > > > rarely works out that way but, nonetheless, the threat is there a= nd, > > > > as a consequence, most sellers of commercial software products do= a > > > > mediocre to good job of post-sales support.) > > > > > > As you point out here, proprietary support does not mean you'll > > > actually get resolution... > > > > It is REALLY REALLY hard to get quality support on technical products > > and will continue to worsen as it has the past decade. ... Good points, and an excellent ("bad") example of where closed source= has=20 failed. And I dare say that many of us have experienced similar cases. I'm going to back-off one of my earlier statements but then try to=20 reframe it. Specifically, I'm going to retract my statement that companies prefe= r=20 closed source because they have the option of forcing the provider to giv= e=20 support. Obviously that is not always, or possibly even "frequently", the= =20 case. Der Hans's example is prime evidence of this. Motorola is what I wo= uld=20 consider to be a "big player" and if they can't force a supplier to provi= de=20 support, what hope does anyone else have? The resistance I think I see to open source, nonetheless, is tied to= the=20 issue of support. Perhaps at senior management levels the thought is "if = I=20 buy software from a company that owns that software, I can sue them if th= ey=20 screw up really bad but with open source, how can I sue the 'community'?" This is a FUD (Fear, Uncertainty and Dread) claim, of course, but ve= ry=20 difficult to counteract, and more so because it's a question that comes u= p in=20 the mind without any particular provocation from anyone else. In a sense, it is a fear of the unknown, or just plain a fear of cha= nge. As far as senior management in most businesses is concerned, FOSS is= a=20 new way of doing things. I'm sure some executives are thinking, "This ope= n=20 source sounds like a good idea, and Microsoft sure is costing us a huge=20 amount with no sign of improvement but, nonetheless, a bird in the hand m= ay=20 really be worth two in the bush. I think we'll stay with a known, but=20 bounded, solution rather than try something that may not, in the long run= ,=20 pan out on a larger scale." That, I think is the problem. FOSS is, to many, new. Using it is ask= ing=20 them to make a change, which always raises the blood pressure, and for ma= ny=20 it is a change in the infrastructure that is already working fairly well=20 (admittedly at prices that are bad now and getting worse, and for which=20 support is certainly less than ideal). Fortunately for us (FOSS advocates), a couple of "big players" are c= oming=20 over. IBM's advertisements for Linux are just so cool. Every time one of = them=20 comes on I just think, "Damn! It's really happening!!" This is fabulous, and IBM is but one example of the change beginning= to=20 happen. As FOSS advocates, one of the things we can do to help is to just ke= ep=20 "Linux" on people's minds. I wear my "Got Linux" baseball cap to the kid'= s=20 soccer games. And when the church secretary complains that her notebook i= s=20 freezing up during the PowerPoint presentation during the Sunday sermon, = I=20 calmly state that I use OpenOffice on Linux and have never had my system=20 freeze. My biggest fear is that, with all of Microsoft's clout, and with the= ways=20 in which our political system is influenced by richly-funded lobbyists, F= OSS=20 will get bull-dozed by the legislature. --=20 Ed Skinner, ed@flat5.net, http://www.flat5.net/