From: "Tony Ingenoso" 

"Adam Flinton"  wrote in message
news:429d7a82{at}w3.nls.net...
> Tony Ingenoso wrote:
> > Bits don't rot.
>
> Indeed but support agreements do.
>
> & if the product is proprietary...no possibility of further fixes....but
> if the product is OSS.....

You'll get about the same level of "support".

Have you seen how the Linux kernel group treats bug reports by people not
in "the club"?  Might as well be talking to a wall.  The process
is about the same as MS too - first, distain for suggesting there may be a
bug, then blame the user, then blame the hardware, then blame your
configuration, then suggest a bunch of irrelevant config twiddles, etc...

Want support from a distro vendor?  Oh, now its no longer "free"
- have your CC whipped out and ready.

Free is free until you need support, then its no longer free.  If you built
a non-stock distro kernel and want support on that you're going to pay
through the nose for it.

If you've got a real problem, will a Linux distro vendor darken the skies
with developers sent on-site?  If they will, it ain't gonna be for free I
assure you of that.

If you want to keep running an old version of Windows and are willing to
cough up the support bucks to have MS maintain your own source tree, I'm
sure MS would oblige.  IBM certainly does.  There's a lot of customer
specific support trees for defunct products that customers want to keep
running.

Public support dates aren't related to anything you contract for seperately.

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