From: Victor Duchovni (no email)
Date: Sun Aug 01 2004 - 12:24:44 EDT
On Sun, Aug 01, 2004 at 01:07:35PM -0300, Leonardo Rodrigues Magalh?es wrote:
> If you wanna use free and open source solutions, you just cant complain that
> much.
>
It is really the *free* part that matters here, you can buy commercial
support for OSS, and have all kinds of support expectations (met or
otherwise).
When the software is free, the roles change, and the user has to be
polite to the author who is giving the software away for free. The
author's reward is pride in their craft and the joy of making something
useful to others. If the software is to be useful to others, the user
is not expected to abstain from "constructive criticism", but:
- The user must be rational and polite even when the developer is
direct and does not take the time to polish his responses with the
usual social graces (it is just not possible to do that and get any
work done). The better the question the better the answers.
Users who routinely feel someone owes them something and constantly
take offense get added to "kill files" (* see footnote).
With commercial support you don't get to the developers at all, the
people who are polite to you are (with due respect) trained novices at a
call centre. There are a lot more of them than developers and they get
to have the luxury of being polite (though often not actually helpful,
and sometimes not polite anyway).
- The user reads the documentation and asks *specific* questions,
or highlights a specific section of the documentation that is not clear.
It is a waste of time to repeat endlessly on the list material already
in the documentation or already found in the list archives. If something
is not clear, explain which specific sections of the documentation
you find confusing, what you understand them to mean and what problem
you are trying to solve. Someone will likely point out the error of
your ways.
--
Viktor.
*) I have a little list, and they'll none of them be missed! :-)
Gilbert & Sullivan: "The Mikado".
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