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posted by janrinok on Wednesday June 03 2015, @08:04AM   Printer-friendly
from the support-costs-versus-business-output dept.

My organization recently deployed about 60 servers running Oracle Linux. I have worn a few different hats (SW Engineer, Systems Administration, Help Desk) over about 12 years of computing experience, and I have only ever had to use tech support for an Linux OS related problem once, and it was related to converting Red Hat classic subscriptions to the new subscription manager. I have developed software using C, C++, and Python. I have also resolved problems with open source software by downloading the source, fixing bugs, recompiling, and finally submitting the fix upstream.

Other than having someone to yell at, is there any benefit to paying for support? Would be better to just set aside some cash to pay a consultant if there is something I can't figure out myself?


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  • (Score: 2, Insightful) by anubi on Wednesday June 03 2015, @08:41AM

    by anubi (2828) on Wednesday June 03 2015, @08:41AM (#191503) Journal

    I agree.

    Sometimes its just worth a helluva lot to have someone to talk to when something goes awry.

    Someone who knows what you are talking about and will take the time to talk to you.

    Sure, you can handle most of the stuff that comes your way, but there is always the time you are stumped and need help - right then - in the worst way.

    That is not the time to be phoning up your buddy, while your buddy's wife has other plans for the evening.

    Been there, done that, way too many times. The wife will trump me everytime.

    Personally, I believe paid support is the future of working with open-source software.

    You are free to fix it on your own. Just like you are supposedly free to do your own house maintenance, but if you need expert help, its only proper that the expert be remunerated for his effort. And if you want him on call, I would think it advantageous to both of you to work that out in advance with some sort of retainer agreement.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by VLM on Wednesday June 03 2015, @11:39AM

    by VLM (445) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday June 03 2015, @11:39AM (#191534)

    Personally, I believe paid support is the future of working with open-source software.

    Unfortunately my past three employers have been of the opinion they're paying me for that support, its like "part of the deal".

    My experience with professional help is incredibly mixed. A decade ago cisco TAC was staffed by router gods, at least the higher level support was awesome. One problem is they want to work with someone around their level, so I had all the certs and knew the details of "my" routers very well, but if my boss got a call he'd really have no idea what to say. Even if they try to walk him thru logging in and running "show tech", he'd be like "login? how?". Needless to say by corporate policy, people of that level didn't get the AAA equivalent of the enable password, in some cases not even log in access at all, so if they wanted him to do anything, he couldn't anyway.

    With internal support the main effect of having a formal support and escalation structure for not only the vmware cluster but also the NAS and the network groups, is a very formalized and efficient finger pointing activity. Something like this was in a frustrating internal support ticket some time ago "G#d Fu#king D#amnit I know you don't support Linux why the #ell would I contact network support for help with linux, I'm trying to tell you when I traceroute to (very obscure far away internal resource many timezones away) after four of YOUR router hops I enter a routing loop because hop 3 and hop 4 both think the destination addrs is best reached by the other guy and god only knows what the reverse routes look like and no I don't want to talk to cluster support even though the traceroute is from a clustered machine and I get the same result from traceroutes on all the clustered linux boxes, the clustered freebsd boxes, and my legacy windows desktop, its just I only cut and pasted the linux traceroute into the ticket ugh you people suck" and its like that no matter which department you contact. Honestly when a guy who knows what he's doing has to fight that hard against a supposed allied help desk, you know if I got hit by a truck my boss would be totally lost so its not like a support contract would help. I mean, whats a paid consultant supposed to do better, use stronger swear words?

    I guess a shorter version is if they paid (you) to run it full time, if "they" need support you can't provide, its probably not possible to provide support and/or would take so long it would be faster to just await your return or the hiring of a new sysadmin or dev or op. On the other hand, I have found non-technical MBA types absolutely love the idea of a support contract because they don't understand the technical issues that make it wasted money and time, so they incorrectly think it reduces risk, also it makes open source much more expensive which makes the odds of getting tickets to the ball game from the Oracle salesdroid go up dramatically. Also non-technical MBAs don't understand EULAs and some are dumb enough to think if software doesn't work they have someone to go after, as if that is legally possible under most EULAs LOL. They think its like buying a car, with strong lemon / consumer protection laws, LOL.

    • (Score: 4, Interesting) by Phoenix666 on Wednesday June 03 2015, @04:10PM

      by Phoenix666 (552) on Wednesday June 03 2015, @04:10PM (#191650) Journal

      You have written the definitive post on this subject. You hit the nail on the head. This is why I love Soylent: people who know what they're talking about cutting through bullshit and saying things plainly.

      --
      Washington DC delenda est.
    • (Score: 1) by Dr Spin on Wednesday June 03 2015, @07:09PM

      by Dr Spin (5239) on Wednesday June 03 2015, @07:09PM (#191729)
      whats a paid consultant supposed to do better, use stronger swear words?

      This, a thousand times this!

      --
      Warning: Opening your mouth may invalidate your brain!