Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!caen!uflorida!gatech!usenet.ins.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery
From: allbery@NCoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.sysv386
Subject: Re: Mach from mt Xinu
Message-ID: <1991Mar16.204946.18947@NCoast.ORG>
Date: 16 Mar 91 20:49:46 GMT
References: <23510@well.sf.ca.us> <1991Mar9.192526.2572@rwwa.COM> <1991Mar11.225205.13658@kithrup.COM>
Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.ORG (Brandon S. Allbery KB8JRR)
Followup-To: comp.unix.sysv386
Organization: North Coast Public Access Un*x (ncoast)
Lines: 33

As quoted from <1991Mar11.225205.13658@kithrup.COM> by sef@kithrup.COM (Sean Eric Fagan):
+---------------
| A lot of the questions support people at SCO get, I gather, are hand-holding
| type of things.  Things like "How do I remove a file beginning with a '-'?"
| "How do I do <such and such>?"  most of which are available either in the
| manual, the release notes, or by some thinking.  Guess what:  having people
| answer the phones costs *lots* of money, especially when the questions are
| stupid.  That is one of the main reasons vendors charge money for support;
| the charges do *not* cover the times when the questions do require some
| serious insight and research into the product.
+---------------

No argument.  Aside from the fact that having to staff for this can make it
real hard to get support for *real* problems (i.e. the current problem with
ISC).  Back when I was evaluating the then-new Informix-SQL 1.10, I had to go
through a number of levels of idiots who were convinced I was typing in
illegal SQL statements before I got one who understood that the fact the
example in the manual was causing SQL to dump core was in fact a bug.

+---------------
| But, hey, it seems as if a lot of people reading this group want something
| free, so I'll probably get flamed (again).
+---------------

Undoubtedly.  But recall my previous message in this group (90% of posts...).
It's not worth worrying about.

++Brandon
-- 
Me: Brandon S. Allbery			    Ham: KB8JRR on 40m, 10m when time
Internet: allbery@NCoast.ORG		      permits; also 2m, 220, 440, 1200
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