Hi,

hmm. Just to make this a bit clearer:
It was not claimed that 9.50.UC7 is GA. Nevertheless I do not doubt
that Gaurav's statement is correct in the meaning that the described
problem does no longer reproduce in the code currently in development.

Now such a situation leaves you as customer with several options
and possible outcomes:

a) you wait for the release that has the problem fixed to become GA.

b) you open a "Case" with IBM Informix Tech Support to report the
problem and ultimately get the problem fixed:

- If you are right, the problem will be diagnosed as existing in your
version. Most probably, as Gaurav already determined, the
problem does not exist in the version currently in development.
This opens more possibilities:
- you can assert your business impact to Tech Support and they
will try to figure out, what fixed the problem and get you a
so called patch port, i.e. a patched version of your 9.40.UC5,
usually with just this one problem fixed.
- of course a patch port may not be possible for several reasons,
e.g. the fix cannot be applied to an earlier version because it
would
involve backporting too many source code changes (which
could provoke other, even more severe problems). Or it simply
is not possible to determine what actually fixed the problem.
As this is labour intensive work, you should state the impact
of the problem on your business. This is what Tech Support
would negotiate with you.

- If your problem cannot be (easily) reproduced in your version
by Tech Support, they will try to figure out together with you, what
the problem is. E.g influence of configuration or settings that at
first sight seem unrelated, but are responsible for the problem.

If the problem finally is reproducible, then it may also turn out to
exist in the latest development version, even though at first it
was not reproducible with the little info available (e.g. from your
e-mail). In this case it will usually first be fixed in the
development
version and then a backport of the fix to a patch port version
might be considered - see above.

- If you are wrong, then Tech Support will help you to fix whatever
caused your problem (maybe environment setting, etc.).

This is only a rough overview of how things in general work.
I hope it explains the discrepancy between your and Gaurav's findings
and ways to adress such situations. Also it might give you a better feel
for the use of a contract with Tech Support ...

Regards,
Martin
--
Martin Fuerderer
IBM Informix Development Munich, Germany
Data Management Solutions

Ben Thompson <ben@nomonitorsoftspam.com> wrote on 07.01.2005 10:04:39:
> Fnu Gaurav wrote:
> > Hi,
> >
> > 9.40.UC7 on Solaris
> >
> > create database checkdb;
> > create table tab1(case int);
> > create table tab2(ref int);
> >
> > I did a dbexport, dropped the database and did dbimport. No problems.
I=
> > do
> > not believe that such problem can be platform specific so it would be
f=
> > are
> > to say that the problem has been fixed in latest version.
>
> Well that's good news. I did not know UC7 was out. How do others find
> out when a new release is out? I tested on SuSE 9.0 running IDS
9.40.UC5.
>
> Ben.

sending to informix-list

Thanks for the explanation of how support works, it's quite similar to
the way we work here. We do have support contracts for all our customers
with Open PSL. As I could work around the problem I decided to leave it
but it being fixed would be nice.

The question I was trying to get to the bottom of was "is there a
mechanism, for example a web site to check or an e-mail list, that
allows you to easily find out when IDS patches are released and what is
fixed?".

Ben.

Ask Kathryn Sylvester.

"Ben Thompson" <ben@nomonitorsoftspam.com> wrote in message
news:10ttc81as4ojva1@corp.supernews.com...
> Thanks for the explanation of how support works, it's quite similar to the
> way we work here. We do have support contracts for all our customers with
> Open PSL. As I could work around the problem I decided to leave it but it
> being fixed would be nice.
>
> The question I was trying to get to the bottom of was "is there a
> mechanism, for example a web site to check or an e-mail list, that allows
> you to easily find out when IDS patches are released and what is fixed?".
>
> Ben.