From owner-freebsd-hackers Tue Jun 1 10: 2:59 1999 Delivered-To: freebsd-hackers@freebsd.org Received: from etinc.com (et-gw.etinc.com [207.252.1.2]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 6149B14EEE for ; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 10:02:50 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from dennis@etinc.com) Received: from dbsys (dbsys.etinc.com [207.252.1.18]) by etinc.com (8.9.3/8.9.3) with SMTP id NAA24073; Tue, 1 Jun 1999 13:03:33 -0400 (EDT) Message-Id: <199906011703.NAA24073@etinc.com> X-Sender: dennis@etinc.com X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 4.0 Date: Tue, 01 Jun 1999 11:59:16 -0400 To: Jaye Mathisen From: Dennis Subject: Re: xl driver for 3Com Cc: hackers@freebsd.org In-Reply-To: References: <199905302150.OAA12070@dingo.cdrom.com> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-hackers@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG At 08:06 PM 5/30/99 -0700, you wrote: > >It is kind of interesting that now the shoe is on the other foot... > >A few months ago I purchased some sync cards from ET, and had some (and am >still having) trouble getting them to work consistently. > >When I emailed their support dept for help, I got a few curt non-helpful >replies, then a message about how if I didn't understand every nuance of >HDLC, and couldn't read the debugging output of his cards/software, then >I was (my interpratation, not his words exactly) not worth of his effort, >nor his company's products. You had the cards connected back to back, which is not a normal configuratoin. > >I have offered access to the boxes for the trivially repeatable problem I >am having, in order so that he can improve his product, but the answer so >far is "Try a new version of the software". The shotgun approach to tech >support. Because your problem has been fixed, I believe. Your constantly email and simply said "it doesnt work"...if you do it correctly it works, and I cannot debug a back-to-back config for you. > >It is no wonder that he does not invest effort in helping the 3com driver >work better, he is unwilling to work with a customer with a significant >dollar amount invested in his boards make *his* product better, why would >he be worried about improving others product, he has little interest in >improving his own. We have thousands of boards installed....making them work back to back in a non-standard configuration does not make the product *better*, particularly when working with someone who cant provide useful info on *why* it doesnt work. I wish I could stop what I was doing every time someone had a problem, but I dont have that kind of time. > >Which is too bad, because when it works, it (the ET board) works just >great. When it doesn't, don't ask ET for help. What you get is a lot of >talking down, what you don't get is real help. I told you that we fixed something recently that sounded like the problem you were having...did you try it, or is it too much trouble? I cant debug old versions of software. If you are not using the latest version then you MUST upgrade to get proper support. We cant spend hours debugging problems that have already been fixed. It took you 2 weeks to find provide any useful information. When someone calls and says "it doesnt work" there is not much I can do. Next time try calling on the phone when you are in front of the machine instead of emailing snippits of useless info. Of course now that you've publically badmouthed us Im sure your requests well get very high priority :-) Dennis To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message