[Ubuntu-US-CA] REVIEW: Quick Assessment of Canonical's Landscape Management tool for Ubuntu Infrastructures

[Kristian Erik Hermansen]

On 10/10/07, Martin Owens <doctormo at gmail.com> wrote:
> a) We're not made of money

Well, better to start being made of money now, rather than later [or never] :-)

> b) Bloody cheeky to ask you advocates who support your business for
> free to pay such a sum

You may be right, but Canonical does offer an opportunity to apply.  I
presume you already did this and are just waiting to hear back?

> c) I don't really want nor need support and our group is dedicated to
> handling a certain about of support internally.

I agree.  I hardly ever trust support people.  In fact, I really only
trust developers of the software.  I write code too, so it is very
hard to trust someone who hasn't written a project from scratch
themselves (or at least contributed to the design).  Support is always
that way.  You don't know the experience of the person on the other
end of the phone.  If you want something done, do it yourself.  But
buy support if you don't have time (like me) to fix something.  In all
seriousness, I wanted Ubuntu support so that I could bitch and moan
when something is not supported, like a printer or scanner.  Paying
customers are at the top of the priority queue in terms of getting new
hardware/features supported.  My first call was about an
enterprise-level device that Ubuntu does not support in it's default
configuration.  Hopefully it will be supported in gutsy+1 out of the
box with no config issues.  Basically, they said they would tell the
manufacturer to make the model available to them so that they could
make it work.  I don't have time or want to do that myself.  The CUPS
guys do that every day.  I don't want to learn their process.  So,
just pay the money out if you are like me...

> d) I want to look at the software as an education and comparison to
> benefit them as much as me.

Well, if you really want to know the product, just ask for the source
dude.  Maybe they will give it to you or maybe they won't.  Just as
you criticized me earlier for being an American who uses AMEX in my
corporation and won't budge, you must re-think your own position on
the matter...

> e) As you can tell I don't have a lot of faith in support call centers.

Fine.  Why don't you just work for Canonical then?  They are looking
to hire dude.  Then maybe you would trust at least one person over
there (cyclically, yourself) :-P

http://www.ubuntu.com/employment
-- 
Kristian Erik Hermansen