jimr@maths.su.oz.au (Jim Richardson) (08/15/90)
Here is the promised LaTeX version of the Open Letter. It was produced by Steve Hamm (hamm@austoto.sps.mot.com): many thanks, Steve. I've made a few alterations. It differs in several minor ways from the final plain text form of the Open Letter, which appeared as article <1990Aug1.014631.4721@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU>. The punctuation and capitalization have been improved slightly: in particular, "HP/UX" has been corrected to "HP-UX", "SUN" to "Sun", "ftp" to "FTP", and a comma has been inserted before "say monthly" in Request 2(b). The word order has been reversed at the end of Request 3(e) to make /domain_examples/tcp/gated fit on a line. Note the comments about style option files at the beginning of the LaTeX file itself. The deadline for signatures is Thursday 16 August. But please send any late ones in anyway, direct to me at netpower@maths.su.oz.au, and I'll incorporate them in the final list provided they arrive before I post it. There were over 50 at last count. Once the signatures are out, I hope everyone will send copies of the letter and the signature list to appropriate people in HP. (If you haven't got LaTeX, you can use the plain text version. I hope to make that, plus this version and the PostScript output, available for FTP soon: I've nearly got ftpd sorted out.) -- Jim Richardson Department of Pure Mathematics, University of Sydney, NSW 2006, Australia Internet: jimr@maths.su.oz.au Phone: +61 2 692 2232 FAX: +61 2 692 4534 -------------------------------- cut here ------------------------------ #! /bin/sh # This is a shell archive. Remove anything before this line, then unpack # it by saving it into a file and typing "sh file". To overwrite existing # files, type "sh file -c". You can also feed this as standard input via # unshar, or by typing "sh <file", e.g.. If this archive is complete, you # will see the following message at the end: # "End of shell archive." # Contents: Open_Letter.tex # Wrapped by jimr@maths.su.oz.au on Wed Aug 15 21:33:54 1990 PATH=/bin:/usr/bin:/usr/ucb ; export PATH if test -f 'Open_Letter.tex' -a "${1}" != "-c" ; then echo shar: Will not clobber existing file \"'Open_Letter.tex'\" else echo shar: Extracting \"'Open_Letter.tex'\" \(22449 characters\) sed "s/^X//" >'Open_Letter.tex' <<'END_OF_FILE' X\documentstyle[fancyheadings,12pt]{article} X X%% \documentstyle[fancyheadings,a4,12pt]{article} X%% X%% For A4 paper, you may wish to add style option a4. This reduces the X%% result from 10 pages to 9. In this case you may also want to offset X%% the output vertically about 2.5 centimetres downwards at the dvi-to-ps X%% stage. Unfortunately a4wide, while reducing the pagecount further to 8, X%% makes the footnote spacing unnacceptably bad. X%% X%% You may also wish to add option twoside, depending on how you're going X%% to staple the pages together. X%% X%% If you don't have the relevant options files, they are available by X%% anonymous FTP from sun.soe.clarkson.edu, in directory pub/latex-style. X%% Australian ACSnet sites only can also fetchfile from yallara.cs.rmit.oz.au. X X\pagestyle{fancyplain} X\lhead[\fancyplain{}{\bf\thepage}]{\fancyplain{}{\bf 1 August 1990}} X\rhead[\fancyplain{}{\bf Open Letter to HP}]{\fancyplain{}{\bf\thepage}} X\setlength{\footrulewidth}{0pt} X\cfoot{} X\addtolength{\headheight}{5pt} X\addtolength{\footskip}{5pt} X X\renewcommand{\theenumi}{\alph{enumi}} X\renewcommand{\labelenumi}{\alph{enumi})} X X\newcommand{\USENET}{{\sc Usenet}} X X\newcommand{\ngp}[1]{{\tt #1}} X\newcommand{\CSA}{\ngp{comp.sys.apollo}} X\newcommand{\CSHP}{\ngp{comp.sys.hp}} X\newcommand{\prog}[1]{{\tt #1}} X X\title{{\bf Open Letter to HP}\\[3mm] Hewlett-Packard, Apollo customers, and the Internet} X\author{} X\date{1 August, 1990} X X\begin{document} X X\maketitle X X\section*{Background: The Internet and Usenet} X The ``Internet'' is a very large computer network using the TCP/IP protocols and extending over much of the world. Among the services it provides are electronic mail, file transfer via the FTP protocol, and ``network news'', a conferencing system somewhat akin to the internal HP notes groups. X Network news is divided up into more than a thousand ``newsgroups'', each covering a different discussion area. The computers within and beyond the Internet which carry network news, the data links between those computers, and the community of people who read the news, are collectively known as \USENET. In mid--1990, the number of machines receiving \USENET\ articles was estimated at over 26,000 and the total number of people who read some articles at X1,109,000 \footnote{Reference: ``\USENET\ readership summary report for Jun 90'', Brian Reid (reid@decwrl.DEC.COM), article $<$1990Jul2.154231.28843@wrl.dec.com$>$ in Usenet newsgroup news.lists, 2 July 1990.}. X Two of the newsgroups carry discussions among users of Apollo and HP computers: these groups are called \CSA\ and \CSHP. It is estimated that in June 1990, these groups respectively had 27,000 and 23,000 readers worldwide (with an unknown amount of overlap); in that month, there were 166 articles totaling 250 kilobytes in \CSA, and 215 articles totaling 323 kilobytes in \CSHP\ \footnote{Reference: ``\USENET\ Readership report for Jun 90'', Brian Reid, article $<$1990Jul2.154323.29469\@wrl.dec.com$>$ in group news.lists, 2 July 1990.}. X Many but by no means all of the machines connected to the Internet are in educational or research institutions. Numerous large and small commercial and industrial customers of HP also have Internet access. X X X\section*{Recent discussions in \CSA} X In June and July 1990, a discussion took place in \CSA\ on safe methods for distributing information about security bugs to system administrators. This led on, first, to comments on the difficulty many Apollo sites have experienced in obtaining copies of patch tapes from HP, and thence to wide-ranging criticisms of other aspects of HP's services to its customers. Many Apollo system managers and users who had become increasingly frustrated with HP's unresponsiveness began to realize that their problem or their site or their national HP office was not an isolated case: Apollo customers all over the world felt they were encountering similar difficulties. X The tone of the discussions was by no means all negative. Many people say: X X\begin{center} X{\bf I love my Apollo, BUT ...} X\end{center} X X Aspects of Apollos and Domain/OS that received particular praise included: token ring; the intuitive, object-oriented, ``automagically'' networked file system; ACLs (access control lists --- though these seem to be a matter of taste); the Display Manager; DDE (Domain Distributed Debugger); dynamic swap space instead of a permanently reserved partition; ability to run both BSD and SysV Unix simultaneously. X There were also many favorable comments on superhuman {\it unofficial} efforts to help customers by many individual HP staff, including those who are already willing to post news articles on \USENET. X X X\section*{The big BUT: customer service problems} X Unfortunately, many Apollo users have formed the impression that Apollo support has become the poor relation within HP. While customers with HP hardware seem not unhappy with service (at least, not vocally so), large numbers of Apollo customers are very dissatisfied. We feel that the problems are not the fault of the hard-working Apollo support staff such as do exist: the cause instead lies in insufficient {\em numbers} of such staff, and inadequate resource provision to enable them to carry out their functions, combined with corporate over-caution which hinders experiments with new approaches. X It might be argued, as far as educational customers are concerned, that a lesser standard of service is appropriate, given the discount levels such customers receive and the low levels of support contract they generally choose. But this would be to ignore the fact that many of us feel we are not even receiving the modest level of support for which we have contracted. Moreover, at least some of us are reasonably sophisticated system administrators, able to deal with most manual-reference questions ourselves, only referring {\em really} knotty questions to HP for advice, and sometimes able to provide solutions that HP has not discovered itself. Remember too that while educational institutions may not have enormous buying power themselves, the students who use their machines will be the next generation of computer purchasers in industry and commerce. X Here are some of the service problems which have been discussed among readers of \CSA: X X\begin{itemize} X\item security issues, such as the open initial protections on Domain/OS directories and dangerous utilities, daemons' need for unprotected directories, absence of restrictions normally present in certain Unix system control tools, and downright bugs affecting security (details are deliberately omitted here!); the most serious worries are the absence of any kind of ``security alert bulletin'' by which HP could rapidly notify Apollo sites of security bugs and fixes as they are found, and --- at least until very recently --- apparent lack of any attempt whatever to provide such notification; X X\item although every Domain/OS manual solicits APRs (Apollo Product Reports) in the introductory ``Problems, Questions and Suggestions'' section, and although the on-line manual page for the \prog{mkapr} utility gives an Internet electronic mail address for APR submission and states ``Customer Services will acknowledge all product reports received'', the reality is that APRs are not an effective way of reporting problems: the email addresses often bounce; when email is successful, and when APRs are submitted by more traditional means, acknowledgements are often not received (especially for APRs from outside the US); substantive responses to APRs never appear, or turn up after months or years; even then the responses often fail to solve the original problem; X X\item unsuitability of telephone support for more technical questions (e.g., bug reports involving tracebacks): while telephone support can be excellent for simple questions and for new or naive users, an electronic mail service with fast turn-around would be preferred by many experienced programmers and system managers, could provide as effective a shield for back-room HP support staff as the telephone service, and would more effectively handle time-zone difference problems for customers outside the US; X X\item long delays in delivery of software and hardware, e.g., NFS for SR10.2.p and third-party sourced products like tape drives and Mathematica --- perhaps made worse for non--US customers by poor communications between HP local and head offices; X X\item perceived failure of procedures for timely automatic delivery of software upgrades to customers with maintenance contracts; X X\item difficulties in finding out what bugs are known and what patches are available; X X\item difficulty and delays in obtaining patch tapes, even in cases where it was apparent that a particular patch might be relevant to an operating system bug which was causing problems at a particular site --- as noted above, such delays are very dangerous in the case of security-relevant patches; X X\item ``closed'' policy on HP modifications to publicly available software: for example, HP has changed the FTP daemon \prog{ftpd} to handle Apollo filetypes, but has not released the source changes, so that they cannot be incorporated into an enhanced version of \prog{ftpd} independently developed by Sam Shen at Berkeley which permits anonymous FTP without the need for the \prog{chroot} system call (missing from Domain/OS). X X\end{itemize} X A problem in the development rather than service area which has attracted much comment is HP's reluctance to incorporate such well-known tools as perl and GNU Emacs into its own operating system releases. X In the next three sections, we present three requests to HP the granting of which we feel would go a long way towards solving the problems described above. X X X\section*{Resource allocation within HP} X X\begin{quote} X{\bf Request 1}: Hewlett-Packard should urgently take whatever policy decisions and actions are necessary to ensure that the Apollo Systems Division has resources available to it for support operations which are proportional to those provided on the HP side. Personnel levels and organization in the Apollo Division support sector need to be reviewed and improved. X\end{quote} X It is clear from the complaints of Apollo users discussed above, contrasted with the apparent relative happiness of HP--UX customers, that either Apollo Division support resources available per customer are smaller than those for HP--UX, or the resources in the Apollo Division are not being deployed effectively X enough to satisfy customers' perceptions of their need for support. X We will not presume to advise HP on the managerial details involved in implementing Request 1. The brevity and simplicity of this section should be taken as emphasizing our belief in the importance of this request and its clear justification on grounds of equity. X X X\section*{Use of the Internet} X The Internet already allows users to support each other technically --- not to mention in terms of morale. Although this certainly means great savings to HP, it happens {\em in spite of} HP, not {\em in cooperation with} HP. X We propose that HP take steps to provide better services to its customers on the Internet by using the Internet in an {\em organized and official} way. We believe that this will not only benefit users, but will increase efficiency and feedback and reduce duplication for HP as well. X X\begin{quote} X{\bf Request 2}: We would like HP to set up an {\bf Internet Liaison Unit}, with sufficient staff, resources and authority to carry out the following operations: X X\begin{enumerate} X\item Organize and oversee a new, effective system whereby APRs (and their HP--UX counterpart) can be submitted by electronic mail, acknowledged by return email, and then answered by email within a reasonable time X--- say two months. If a longer time is required, a progress report should be sent, say monthly. X X\item Arrange for a mail gateway between the Internet and internal HP mail, or publicize any such gateway already in existence, so that customers on the Internet can conveniently communicate with their local service people as an optional alternative to telephone service. X(The gateway could have a filter or alias mechanism so that other internal HP staff would not be bothered with mail from outside if they did not want it.) X X\item Monitor the \CSA\ and \CSHP\ \USENET\ newsgroups, and where appropriate arrange for responses to be provided from relevant experts within HP. It would also be very worthwhile to organize and maintain periodic news postings containing answers to frequently asked questions. X X\end{enumerate} X\end{quote} X A further task for the unit would be to set up a public archive accessible from the Internet. We feel that this is important --- and perhaps controversial --- enough to be stated as a separate request with a detailed explanation. X X X\section*{A public archive} X X\begin{quote} X{\bf Request 3}: HP should establish a public archive on a new or existing company machine connected to the Internet, to make customer support materials available via FTP. The archive should be operated by the Internet Liaison Unit, and should include at least the following: X X\begin{enumerate} X\item an index of the latest version numbers of all supported software, and which operating system versions they work under; X X\item a regularly updated index of known bugs, e.g., a list of APRs, perhaps similar to an on-line version of the {\it HP--UX Software Release/Status Bulletin} series, with workarounds if available; X X\item release notes for all current and beta versions of all supported software (note that this would cover some bug reports; it would also encourage customers to obtain upgraded versions); X X\item a complete set of all current patches, say in compressed wbak or X\prog{tar A} format, with release notes (see caveats about security and major patches below); X X\item source of HP modifications to generally available programs such as X\prog{ftpd} and \prog{sendmail}: this would allow us to keep those programs up to date, enhance them, and send them back to HP (\prog{/domain\_examples/tcp/gated} is a good start in this direction). X\end{enumerate} X\end{quote} X Note that the archive would be {\em public}, so available to all Internet users instead of being restricted to service contract holders. There are rival precedents for this. Sun maintains a public archive of patches for FTP from the Internet host uunet.uu.net. Apple has an extensive archive of development materials, including system software, sample code, technical notes and documentation, for FTP from apple.com, and apparently there are plans to expand this service. HP's own recent offering of a supported X11R4 server for HP--UX via FTP from hpcvaaz.hp.com is a useful first step. X A public archive, available to all members of the Internet, is probably necessary because of prohibition by the National Science Foundation and other funding bodies on use of the Internet for commercial gain. X Such a service to all owners of HP equipment would probably not reduce the number who take out service contracts appreciably: a contract would still be needed to obtain software upgrades, and this is probably the greatest incentive for a contract at most sites. (There would be no expectation that HP would continue to support obsolete versions of software through patches or bug lists in the archive.) Furthermore, the existence of a public archive would demonstrate HP's commitment to its customers and to high standards, and would represent a major enhancement to the attractiveness of HP products. X Our request for a public archive is not a novel one: see the column X``The Inside Track: On HP--UX patches'' by Dave Taylor in {\it The HP Chronicle} of May 1990 for a persuasive argument in favor of such an archive from an HP--UX point of view. X X X\section*{Two caveats about patches} X Patches which address security problems should be included in the archive if this can be done without causing security problems in itself. System managers of machines connected to the Internet must be particularly conscious of security questions, and have great interest in receiving security-related patches as rapidly as possible. However, security-patch release notes should never include any details of the problems which they aim to correct: such details can themselves lead to breaches of security at unpatched sites. The release notes should simply state that the patch in question is security-related and urgent. A brief \USENET\ news item should announce the addition of each new security patch to the archive. X Also note that some patches such as \prog{/sau*/domain\_os} may be so substantial as to amount to de facto upgrades, and might need to be excluded from a public archive. Excluded patches should be distributed by traditional means, but much more effectively and rapidly than at present. X X X\section*{Benefits of using the Internet} X Of course, the existence of support facilities on the Internet would not reduce HP's traditional obligations to its service-contract customers, especially those without Internet connections (although it could be possible for such customers to gain access by other means, for example, dial-up UUCP --- however unsatisfactory this method would be considered by Internet users). But we believe that rapid and efficient dissemination of information via the Internet would {\em save} HP money by cutting out duplicated effort. X XFor example, many of the more routine questions at present addressed to the telephone service hotlines would be avoided if systems administrators had on-line FTP and/or \USENET\ access to answers to frequently asked questions and information such as usage tips and bug workarounds. This would free HP telephone service and other support resources which could be applied to more rapid or deeper investigation of unusual problems and subtler bugs. X Distribution of patches by FTP should be much cheaper and more efficient than copying and physically distributing patch tapes. X HP would enhance its competitiveness by providing public services on the Internet as other companies do already. Apart from the FTP archives mentioned above, note these examples: IBM employees frequently post articles answering queries in \USENET\ newsgroups such as \ngp{comp.unix.aix} and X\ngp{comp.sys.ibm.pc.rt}, in many cases without even a disclaimer; Wolfram Research accepts bug reports and provides technical support for Mathematica via electronic mail; Adobe Systems solicits input via electronic mail from users and developers on desired capabilities in new printer driver software \footnote{Reference: X``New PostScript Printer Driver for Macintosh from Adobe Systems'', article $<$4394\@adobe.UUCP$>$ in newsgroups comp.lang.postscript et al, X24 July 1990.}. X The existence of a large community of HP machine users, programmers, and systems administrators that HP could communicate with would foster a ``global village'' style of interaction. This interaction would benefit both parties by the dissemination of valuable first-hand information between the actual users and HP engineers and management. This information could be used to improve planning for the needs of the user community and the priorities of HP, and would also promote better customer-vendor relationships. The result would be increased sales and more widespread acceptance of HP machines. X More efficient support from HP for academic and research customers through network connections would be a step in the direction of the microeconomic reform and the closer ties between industry and academia for which government and business are calling world-wide. X We believe that our Requests 2 and 3 can be satisfied by HP in accordance with commercialism guidelines applying on the major publicly funded networks. If it transpires that network use by HP of the kind we are requesting requires justification under the guidelines, then we will be happy to collaborate with HP in preparing a case for submission to the relevant network authorities. X X X\section*{Disclaimer} X This document was written collectively, and while all signatories support its aims and general thrust, not everyone is necessarily in complete agreement on the details of all points. The views expressed are those of individuals, and do not in general represent official policy of the institutions or companies of which the signatories are members. (This should not be taken as a license to discount those views, however: in the long run the individual views of computer users and system managers tend to affect or even determine institutional computing policy and purchasing decisions.) X X X\section*{Conclusion} X X We applaud the naming of HP's latest major computer line as the ``HP {\bf Apollo} X9000 Series 400'', and note with approval that the sales literature gives Domain/OS equal weight to HP--UX, and the Apollo DN10000 as much prominence as the HP Model 635. As Apollo users we are pleased to see this concrete illustration of HP's commitment to the continuation and flourishing of a strong Apollo Systems Division. X The slogan for the new HP Apollo machines describes them as the ``first workstations to combine the innovation of Apollo with the quality and reliability of HP''. We believe that at present your company's customer services combine the conservatism of HP with the organizational haphazardness of Apollo; if this perception continues, then all your other efforts may be in vain. X We hope that Hewlett-Packard will accept this critique in the same positive spirit with which we have prepared it, and will act quickly to fulfill our three requests. Individual replies are not expected: indeed, we will know that we have been heard when we see a response from HP as a news article in X\CSA\ on the \USENET. X X\end{document} END_OF_FILE if test 22449 -ne `wc -c <'Open_Letter.tex'`; then echo shar: \"'Open_Letter.tex'\" unpacked with wrong size! fi # end of 'Open_Letter.tex' fi echo shar: End of shell archive. exit 0 --