From: elrond@studio.disney.com (Root System Account)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix
Subject: Re: Legalities of making PTFs available for ftp?
Date: 27 Jan 1993 17:10:49 GMT
Organization: The Walt Disney Company
NNTP-Posting-Host: lorien.sat.disney.com
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  I think that the base PROBLEM is the lack of connection (at least
in my mind, and I suspect in the minds of many admins out there)
between a PTF and the problem that it fixes!  Sometimes when I 
call in with a problem they ship my a patch tape with several PTFs
on it (the fix for my problem and any prereqs for the fix) and
sometimes I get this tape with hundreds of PTFs on it (which 
looks remarkably like an upgrade)!?!  

  For example, since we have several different AIX machines around 
running all kinds of different software with slightly different 
network setups, we have been known to run into several different 
problems all at once.  In this case I was experiencing problems 
with BOTH Ethernet AND Tokenring (yup, the Ethernet driver on the 
BRAND NEW 340 was bad, and we were suffering from "the XID problem" 
on tokenring too).  I called AIX support and they offered to send me
both fixes.  Great, I thought, I'll get all these network problems
taken care of at once!  Well the next day I got a box from IBM
defect support containing 80 (no, that's not a mistake, eight zero)
diskettes!  As it turns out, they shipped me 3.2.3 on DISKETTE since
I had failed to mention that I would prefer a single 8mm tape to
80 disks!  I called back and asked that they ship me things on
8mm tape, and the next day I got that and installed my "fixes".
So guess what?  Of course, something ELSE was now broken, and I
had to order ANOTHER PTF.  Why couldn't they have just shipped me
the fixes for the problems that I HAD rather than all of 3.2.3??

Right now what I want is a stable system that doesn't require
CONSTANT attention from me.  Frankly, with the explosion of Unix systems
here and just two of us in Tech. Support to handle all of them, I don't
have the time to spend! We have a lot of Suns here too, and frankly, I
don't have to install NEARLY as many patches on them as I do on the IBM
boxes.  Right now, a 970, 3 560s, and a couple of 340s are taking up
almost ALL of my time.  This is just plain unacceptable. We need a stable
OS and if IBM can't produce one, we may just end up having to find another
vendor who can.

Basically, what I would suggest is that IBM simply put together the
fixes related to the problem, and put those someplace where we can
download them.  What we REALLY be slick, would be a system where I
can log into, search through a database of problem reports where I
can see the ACTUAL PROBLEM REPORT ITSELF IN FULL and if I find a 
problem that sounds like it might be what I'm experiencing and there
is a fix for it, to be able to download that fix (and all the prereqs
that go with it).  It would also be nice if I could submit problem reports
via the system, and check the status of a problem report. If I submit
a problem report with a critical status, then bells and whistles should
go off in defect support, and someone should call me back.  There should
also be a way for me to download additional materials that might be
required to help defect support analyze the problem. There are a number
of other vendors that offer this kind of service, and I think that in
the long run, it would save IBM money. But that's not my concern, my
concern, as I mentioned above, is getting a working stable, and low 
maintenance OS for my users and right now, that's NOT AIX.

--
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* Joerg Hallbauer           |Internet: joerg@studio.disney.com            *
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Newsgroups: comp.unix.aix