[Info-vax] Should Oracle buy OpenVMS?

[Arne Vajhøj]

Bill Gunshannon wrote:
> In article <49ee7686$0$90263$14726298 at news.sunsite.dk>,
> 	Arne Vajhøj <arne at vajhoej.dk> writes:
>> Richard B. Gilbert wrote:
>>> JF Mezei wrote:
>>>> But the question is whether outfits like RedHat, IBM etc can provide
>>>> comparale Linux support for much less than what Sun charges for Solaris
>>>> suport or whether they are all more or less the same.
>>> Assuming a level playing field; e.g. employing U.S. citizens working in 
>>> the U.S. of A. the cost of providing support is going to depend strongly 
>>> on the quality of the product and its documentation.
>> The official documentation of Linux is not that good. I am sure it is
>> way below Solaris standard.
> 
> So is the OS, but that doesn't stop people from flocking to it.  Isn't
> it amazing what marketing can do?

I would say that it is not surprising that low cost, lots of software
and lots of skilled people makes a platform look atrractive.

>> But access to the source code, millions of web pages with info
>> and millions of users willing to answer questions in usenet/web forums
>> make up for the lacks in documentation.
> 
> Which is great, if you actually trust that they know what they are talking
> about.  Strange model to bet one's business on.

Not really.

There are so much more information that are so much more uptodate
than paper and CD docs.

In general the info on the web is about as good as traditional docs,
but for IT related stuff the web is better.

Strange but true.

Arne