[comp.archives] [apollo...] Re: Netpower: encourage HP to improve customer services

wjw@eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen) (07/07/90)

Archive-name: apollo-patch-info/06-Jul-90
Original-posting-by: wjw@eb.ele.tue.nl (Willem Jan Withagen)
Original-subject: Re: Netpower: encourage HP to improve customer services
Archive-site: eba.eb.ele.tue.nl [131.155.2.25]
Archive-directory: /pub/apollo
Reposted-by: emv@math.lsa.umich.edu (Edward Vielmetti)

In article <1990Jul6.015817.23710@metro.ucc.su.OZ.AU> jimr@maths.su.oz.au (Jim Richardson) writes:
>In a number of recent articles in comp.sys.apollo, people have expressed their
>dissatisfaction with many aspects of HP's customer services, in particular
>with HP's attitude to security.

Well I'm going to leave the rest of the article out. And make some remarks on
the service I've been getting from Apollo lately.

It has always been tedious to get anything out of Apollo before the merge 
with HP. No only two weeks ago, after the posting of patches by Brian Quintro
and some asking around with our Apollo-office in Holland, they (Apollo) are
going to mail patches to all larger sites. (Our group is not a large site,
the Univeristy is, so I'll be distributing it)

The point is: I was able to tell them what was there, and after some urging
   they were willing to do the proper thing.

This thread of news is already going on for a while, and I've been Emailing
with : Mike Zeleznik (zeleznik@cs.utah.edu) and the following is the lasted
in our private thread: (He called some people at HP)

.   Turns out that HP used to, and still probably does, publish booklets
.   every 3 or 4 months with known problems.  They were categorized reasonably
.   well (though I didn't see a great index, there was at least a reasonable
.   table of contents) and each ended with indication of the status (usually
.   "fixed in next release", but others too).  

.   The point is that they DID publish known bugs, and now that Apollo is part
.   of them, they should do the same; ESPECIALLY since Apollo already has the
.   mothly patch tape procedure already in progress.  
.   
.  Michael Zeleznik              Computer Science Dept.
.                                University of Utah
.  zeleznik@cs.utah.edu          Salt Lake City, UT  84112
.                                (801) 581-5617

From my experience and the above text my conclusion was that Apollo is trying
to improve it's performance in this area. And perhaps we should give them to
more time to get things proper organised.
Perhaps even an offical statement from Apollo would be wise, it would certainly
be welcome.
My problem is: I'm willing to do things like setting up FTP and creating a 
		summary with patches. BUT that should be Apollo's work.
		It's takes a lot of time, and perhaps even aggravates people
		at HP.
	And how about those poor sods, not connected to the Internet. Our Univ.
	got hooked up only a few months ago. And then not everyone us Usenet
	going on his site.

The last thing I would like to stress in this TOO LONG article is:
-	I'm still in favour of exposing every BUG and/or FEATURE in the system,
	(perhaps a little less loud on security breaks) and let as much people
	know as is possible. 

So this is my 2 penny's in this discussion,

	Willem Jan Withagen               

NOTE: I'll put the patchtape info file in our anonymous ftp, for those who
      missed the posting of it.
      FTP: eba.eb.ele.tue.nl (131.155.2.25) in pub/apollo/patchinfo.Z

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