Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!rsiatl!jgd From: jgd@Dixie.Com (John G. DeArmond) Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386 Subject: Re: Unix Support or lack thereof (long) Keywords: sco unix interactive wars Message-ID: <5640@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> Date: 5 Jan 91 03:56:10 GMT References: <5553@rsiatl.Dixie.Com> <1990Dec30.193929.16181@kithrup.COM> <1629@gandalf.littlei.UUCP> Organization: Rapid Deployment Systems (making go-fast things and things that-go fast) Lines: 86 dar@max.intel.com (dar) writes: > [Deleted commentary on how ISC & SCO UNIX support stinks > relative to support from WordPerfect for their DOS package.] >I just can't let this one go by ... The whole point is that UNIX is >phenomenally more complex *in its potential uses* than even a complex >word processing system like WP. The cost of support is not in >development [even so, it's misleading to state that "90% of UNIX >comes complete from AT&T ... the sheer maintenance, version control, >repackaging, publishing and so on for over 60MB of source is difficult >enough even if you don't change one line. To change 10% makes it >a very major deal]. >The cost of support is driven up nearly exponentially (actually, the >factorial) as the number of degrees of freedom in usage and capability >goes up. Running a single program in a hermetically sealed environment, >like WP on DOS, is a fairly straightforward support task. UNIX has >hundreds of utilities, many of which are as complex, or more so, than WP. >Supporting UNIX means supporting each of those utilities in possible >permutations with multiple simultaneous users. Just being a system >administrator in UNIX is a major, major support issue. Picking a printer >file from WP just doesn't compare. I fully disagree with these statements. By your definition, a C compiler product would be inpossible to support since there are infinite degrees of freedom of usage. Rubbish. From the tone, I gather that you've never supported a large DOS product and probably have not supported a large Unix product. I've done both. Though a percentage of the support problems in the unix environment may be of the "RTFM" genre, I'd bet a majority concern bogosities in the documentation and/or the system. Fully documenting init, getty and uucp and the idiosyncrasies of the termio implementation to the extent ISC has the lp facility would eliminate many of the problems. Having the install and/or kernel startup code test hardware and issue error messages for incompatable hardware would solve more. Though DOS support may look simple on the outside ("Why, it's only a program loader, after all" I've heard many unix people say.) I can assure you that the combination of X different hardware combinations plus Y different versions of DOS plus Z different TSRs and drivers and networks makes Unix support pale in comparison. Try it sometime. But not to belabor the point. You want to talk about programming tools? Good. Take a quick glance through "The C Users' Journal" or "Dr. Dobbs". Over and over are the words "Free Source", "Free Support", "800 number" and in some cases, "Free upgrades". That's what it takes to be a player in the DOS world right now. I hope that becomes what it takes to play in the Unix world before long. What it will take is for someone to perceive a market for a quality Unix product and provide it. We'll flock in droves. As to the claim that DOS products involve less development or documentation than Unix, I just gotta laugh. I look at my Unix shelf and my DOS shelf and compare what documentation comes with ISC (minus the LPI and X stuff that I don't use) and compare it to, say, the docs with Turbo C professional, which I bought at the discount software place for $149. Turbo C wins. If I set the Microsoft Word documentation beside the TC stuff (still less than $500 worth of product) there is no contest. The only way we'll ever get what we want is to demand it and to speak with out pocketbooks. Speak out long and loud. And recommend the product with the best support to your clients. After all, we've heard all these arguments before way back when. I can remember when it was fashionable to say that CP/M support was too expensive to give away. I can remember outrageous prices for buggy software. I can remember when documentation consisted of partial listings reproduced from DecWriter output. (Couldn't print the WHOLE listing; after all, that's a trade secret) I can remember when people said "There's no demand for a Pascal Compiler. After all, users are not programmers." Then along comes Boreland and spoils all the fun with a $49 Pascal compiler with good documentation and support. The rest is history. I just wonder how obscure Unix would remain if someone offered a $399 or $499 Unix complete, with documentation and no unbundling and tagged on a non-toll free support number? I just wonder if the Boreland Effect would reoccur. John -- John De Armond, WD4OQC | "Purveyors of speed to the Trade" (tm) Rapid Deployment System, Inc. | Home of the Nidgets (tm) Marietta, Ga | "To be engaged in opposing wrong offers but {emory,uunet}!rsiatl!jgd | a slender guarantee of being right."