Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!cbmvax!grr
From: grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.ultrix
Subject: Re: ultrix 3.0 tty patch
Message-ID: <7298@cbmvax.UUCP>
Date: 13 Jul 89 15:34:09 GMT
References: <7270@cbmvax.UUCP> <1214@gvgpsa.GVG.TEK.COM>
Reply-To: grr@cbmvax.UUCP (George Robbins)
Organization: Commodore Technology, West Chester, PA
Lines: 66

In article <1214@gvgpsa.GVG.TEK.COM> davew@gvgpsa.gvg.tek.com (David C. White) writes:
> 
> How does one go about getting patches from the Support Center?  The
> last time I was talking to them about a problem they mentioned a patch
> tape that I should have and when I asked how to get it, I was told to
> talk to my sales rep.  I tried that and both of the DEC sales reps that
> I deal with coudn't find any reference at all to any patch tape.  I
> also see that a lot of people are running 3.1 now.  Our software is
> under contract, but 3.1 still hasn't shown up yet.  What gives?

Assuming you you have a software maintenance contract, you just ask the
support center for a copy of the "current patch tape".  I've done this
a couple of times without any problems.  It may help if you can represent
that you actually have one problems the tape is alleged to fix.

One of the real problems I see with the Support Center/DSIN setup is there
is no obvious way to find out that there is a patch tape or a new patch
tape for a particular release.

Problems with the current DEC software support mechanism:

1) Known problems are not reliably posted to DSIN.  Any support center
   inquiry that doesn't resolve to "known problem" or "user error"
   should show up.

2) No announcements are made of the availability of patch tapes

3) DSIN does not give you any way to scan for "new" problems or observe
   all the problems for a given product.  The only user mechanism is
   a selective keyword search, which means you can only find a problem
   if you can guess the right keyword.

4) There is no detailed description of changes / bugs fixed in new releases.

5) Even trivial problems described in the release notes don't get fixed
   until the next release.  There should be a patch tape so the user can
   if need be fix any of the problems described in the release notes, short
   of catch-22 messes.

6) DEC is failing its responsibility to advise users about security
   problems.  If you install 3.0 today, you install a grossly insecure
   system and unless you ask DEC point-blank about security problems
   you'd never know that you have a problem or what to fix.

A large part of system administration / maintenance task is resolving user
vs system problems.  Doing a effective job requires knowing about the system
problems either before they are encountered or before you spend a lot of
time trying to define and document them.

When there is a large enough base of installed software, it turns out that
almost all problems are known by the time you encounter them, and thus almost
all the time you spend internally on problem definition and resolution is
wasted.  Avoiding this waste of time is mostly a matter of having access to an
adequate problem database.

I don't see what's really so hard about this.  DEC seems quite proud of
a system that follows the forms of a software support mechanism, but
doesn't deliver what the customer is paying for.  IBM has an excellent
problem search and retrieval system (mostly used by their software
support engineers).  Sun has a highly variable support function but at
least manages to clearly document bugs changes and fixes and deliver
this to the user.
-- 
George Robbins - now working for,	uucp: {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr
but no way officially representing	arpa: cbmvax!grr@uunet.uu.net
Commodore, Engineering Department	fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)