Xref: utzoo comp.protocols.appletalk:2003 news.misc:3033
Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!ucbvax!hoptoad!tim
From: tim@hoptoad.uucp (Tim Maroney)
Newsgroups: comp.protocols.appletalk,news.misc
Subject: Re: Cayman on the net
Message-ID: <7382@hoptoad.uucp>
Date: 20 May 89 19:29:33 GMT
References: <2877@cayman.COM> <7345@hoptoad.uucp> <2895@cayman.COM>
Reply-To: tim@hoptoad.UUCP (Tim Maroney)
Followup-To: news.misc
Organization: Eclectic Software, San Francisco
Lines: 35

In article <2895@cayman.COM> chris@cayman.COM (Chris North, Technical Support)
writes:
>  I was under the same impression as you and my posting was only in
>response to a number of requests asking for our address.  If the conscensus
>is that this announcement was inappropriate, then I apologize and I will
>certainly not let it happen again.

I don't know that there is a net consensus.  There was one about six or
seven years ago, and I haven't heard of a turnabout, but it may have
drifted to the other side by now.  I am redirecting discussion to
news.misc to determine whether there is now a consensus against paying
for other's commercial technical support e-mail.

To summarize for news.misc readers:  A company has stated its intent to
provide technical support over the network.  The last time I heard this
discussed, there was a very strong consensus against it; this was with
respect to Wollongong making a similar announcement in the early
1980's.  Many people expressed the unwillingness to pay for forwarding
these commercial messages.  In the light on the greatly increased
traffic, this may have changed, and I solicit comments from system
administrators in particular.  I personally think e-mail support is a
good idea, and I feel the earlier reluctance may have had more to do
with a lack of respect for the quality of Wollongong's products than
with a general policy.  In any case, this matter needs to be clarified.

>  I think one point to note however is that the net would not be paying
>for my company's tech support.  The person who is benefitting
>is the person who would have been making the long distance phone call to me.

Yes, people would be paying to forward support messages to you, and no
doubt from you as well.  This was what people objected to before.
-- 
Tim Maroney, Consultant, Eclectic Software, sun!hoptoad!tim
"Every institution I've ever been associated with has tried to screw me."
	-- Stephen Wolfram