Unix Bugs vs. VMS bugs

[Henry Spencer]

> I run VMS. One of the reasons I prefer VMS to Unix is because VMS
> is much easier to maintain. In essence, I don't do any maintainence
> because DEC does it all for me at a fixed rate.

> ... With VMS the longest you have to remain in uncharted 
> territory is until the next Software Dispatch comes out. This
> at least tells you what the known bugs are so you don't have
> to replicate someone else's work. Then, every 3 or 4 months you
> receive an update that fixes the known bugs. ...

This assumes that (a) you can get DEC to agree that problem X really is
a bug, and (b) you can get them to fix it.  From what I hear from my
friends using VMS, neither of these assumptions is necessarily true.

Having DEC do all your software maintenance has the obvious advantage
that you don't have to do the work.  It has the obvious disadvantage
that you can't do the work even if you want to and need to.  Your degree
of satisfaction is clearly a function of how responsive DEC is, and you
have no input in deciding that.  Since you run VMS, you have no viable
alternative if you come to dislike their service; they know this.
-- 
				Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
				{allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry