THE OPEN SOURCE: Expand your infobase - Support staff struggling to answer questions about open-source products should try a Net search.(Column)

EVERY ONCE in a while, I get a message from someone who says "We had such-and-such problem under Linux. We called our vendor support line. They suggested a couple things that did not help. They said they would look at it, but they could not find an answer. We can't implement unless we can get this solution!"

There are a couple of problems here. First, if these accounts are accurate, it would appear that some companies supporting Linux are using an old methodology that assumes that all answers will be found in an in-house infobase or internal engineering organization.

Any support organization running that way is long overdue for an overhaul. Software that was …