[Gllug] Cost of RedHat vs Ubuntu desktop support

[Peter Corlett]

On Tue, Jul 07, 2009 at 02:01:49PM +0100, Joel Bernstein wrote:
[...]
> I'd appreciate feedback from RHEL licensees who've reported bugs to RH
> support and had them resolved by backporting upstream fixes. In my eyes
> this is a fragile process. I distrust it. Richard Jones argued eloquently
> (if perhaps with bias) that RH have ISO-standard quality control processes
> and provide a serious and stable bed to deploy in production. I'm
> interested to know how others view this process as consumers of it.

Here's some feedback, from three professional system administrators:

[elided] wrote:
> [elided] is of the opinion:
 > On 2009-04-12, [elided] wrote:
>>> 	How can you disparage RedCrap's support like that? I love their
>>> support, especially after a few months of bouncing back and forth, and
>>> them finally admitting that what I reported was a bug, and that they've
>>> replicated the bug, and then asking me to test the fix (without having
>>> tested it themselves in their lab). I went - WTF is wrong with you?! and
>>> quit my job, so never did know what happened after that.
>>
>> I was particularly impressed by the sheer value that they deliver over
>> "community support". I mean, I always wanted the vendor to tell me "We
>> can't fix it, but you have the source - so please send us a patch when
>> you come up with a fix."
>
> Not to turn this into a DSW or anything, but I can top that -- I worked up a
> patch and fixed the problem.  Submitted it to them, and their responses
> were:
> 
> * "Does this patch fix the problem you reported?"  (No, of course it doesn't
>   -- I'm in the habit of submitting patches to bug reports that I know don't
>   fix the problem...)
> 
> * "Have you submitted this patch upstream?"  (No, upstream has dropped
>   support for this version, and at any rate, *you're* the ones we're paying
>   to deal with upstream; if I've got to deal with upstream directly, what
>   are you taking our money for?)
> 
> * "Can you send us the sysreport and a pile of other irrelevant info?"
>   (WTF?  You got all that info before, when we reported the bug initially,
>   and you spectacularly ignored it all, why would we want to send it to you
>   so you can ignore it again?)
> 
> * "Upstream has dropped support for this version, so we can't help you"
>   (Say fucking *what*?  You ship this version, and you purport to provide
>   support for what you ship, so I don't give a blind flying fuck what
>   upstream's doing)
> 
> * "The release of RHEL you're using will be going out of support in the
>   future, so we're not going to apply your patch"  (I kind of expect support
>   for the product we're paying for as long as it's supported.  It's not as
>   though you don't charge us for support right through to the end of the
>   support period, so why aren't we getting anything in return?)
> 
> In the end, we've given up and are just running the patched version locally,
> and that's our general policy now at work.  I submit the patches I produce
> for our RHEL systems to Debian now (after verifying that the problem exists
> there too, of course), and they deal with passing the patch upstream.  Yes,
> that's right -- an all-volunteer distribution does a better job of dealing
> with bugs, patches, and upstreams than the company we're paying a big chunk
> of money to.  I'll bet Red Hat has more people, and they've got less stuff
> to support, too.  Tossers.
[...]

Would the Red Hat shills on this list like to comment on why Red Hat was
apparently going out of their way to avoid providing support to these paying
customer?

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