From: tzs@stein2.u.washington.edu (Tim Smith) Subject: Re: NT vs Linux (was: Re: truth or dare) Date: 8 Jul 1993 10:04:51 GMT
ajayshah@almaak.usc.edu (Ajay Shah) writes:
>rgallen@muug.mb.ca (Rennie Allen) writes:
>
>>Deployment, of a major mission critical system for our company, I can call
>>somebody up and have that bug fixed in 24 hours ? Who do I call ?
>
>Companies like Cygnus. There are now a dozen (?) companies
>supporting Linux.
I have trouble believing that there is *any* operating system for which
someone provides 24 hour bug fixes, unless the operating system is small
enough to have been formally proved to be correct (e.g., it has no bugs).
For example, how would anyone who claims 24 hour bug fixes handle
a call like this:
"When I have a lot of users accessing my file server continuously,
the machine locks up after 8 to 10 hours. It just completely
freezes--I can't get any response on any terminals, and I can't
get into the kernel debugger [I'm being nice and assuming an OS
with a kernel debugger]. All disk activity stops, as does all
network activity. The light on the NUM LOCK key won't even work."
I suspect that this kind of bug is the reason that some companies promise
a 24 hour *response* rather than a 24 hour *fix*.
-- "Pope moved that we strike from the State's brief and appendix a selection from the Year Book of 1484 written in Medieval Latin and references thereto. The State provided no translation and conceded a total lack of knowledge of what it meant. The motion is granted" 396 A.2d 1054 --Tim Smith