Support matters

[Howard Leadmon]

In article <1519 at ddsw1.UUCP>, learn at ddsw1.UUCP (William Vajk) writes:
> 
> In October or so of last year, I purchased an upgrade, and the serial 
> drivers were still not fixed. When I phoned to complain, the first 
> question was "do you have a support contract ?"

 Well I really have to believe that the serial port problems with Uport 286
must be dependant on various hardware combinations, and here is why I say this.
When Uport released the 1.3.6 version of V/AT I purchased it and installed it
on a 130meg Compaq Deskpro-386, and in this configuration I added a Digicom/8
(eight port dumb card). This was hooked up as a four user system, and running
all the terminals plus one Hayes 2400 modem I NEVER experienced the serial
problems that many on the net talk about (and yes it has been run under load).
Over time the machine has been upgraded to the 2.2 V/AT release, and still NO
PROBLEMS have occoured. So am I just LUCKY, or dosen't the Deskpro/386 have
the problems the rest of you experience. Also as a side note, I ran an AT (286)
clone that was sporting the CHIPS set and a standard AT serial/parallel card
from an original IBM AT, this machine also exibited NO SERIAL problem under
the 2.2 release of Uport, but the machine was only in service for a month 
since it was replaced with a 386 system and Uport V/386 which runs even better.


> One of my beefs with uport, and I've stated this time and again in this
> newsgroup, is that support is never supposed to mean paying a publisher
> to cover their tracks for screwups. Support is supposed to mean helping
> a customer lacking information or experience to use the product. I've
> never once requested _support_ from your firm. For many months I have
> asked uport to fix the product.

 Well I will agreee with you on the statement made above, and Uport should NOT
charge anybody the cost os a support contract when all they want are bugs 
reported/fixed in the original release that was shipped to them. For this 
reason I too have only purchased the UPDATE service, since due to my years
of UNIX experience I really don't require hand holding...

> A closing thought or few.
> 
> If uport were an automobile manufacturer, they'd have been in bankruptcy
> a long time ago because of recalls to which the automotive industry
> is subject. It is the sort of thing that uport is doing that might well
> establish textbook cases for fraud in software publishing, and attendant
> personal liability for corporate officers in this industry.
> 
> Bill (fix the product) Vajk                                 learn at igloo

 OK Bill, I can see where a lot of people have been upset with Uport, and at
times I have been iritated with them myself, but let's give John a chance to
work on improving!! I have talked to John Ploucher several times over the 
past couple weeks, and I really believe he is making a sincere effort to help
the masses, but that takes time. If you were put in his position and really
wanted to make a difference, could you do it over night ?? I doubt it, and
for that reason I am willing to sit back and give John some breating room, and
then maby after some time if the horrible problems exist (not that I really
have many problems with Uport) then you can get fired up at John. From what
I have seen and heard from John in the past several weeks, I am impressed with
his effort, and if more people will give him a chance to help I believe you
will also be impressed..

[Flames to /dev/null]


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