From owner-freebsd-questions Fri Apr 10 22:14:43 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id WAA20067 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Fri, 10 Apr 1998 22:14:43 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from allegro.lemis.com (allegro.lemis.com [192.109.197.134]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id WAA20024; Fri, 10 Apr 1998 22:14:28 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from grog@lemis.com) Received: from freebie.lemis.com (freebie.lemis.com [192.109.197.137]) by allegro.lemis.com (8.8.7/8.8.5) with ESMTP id OAA20364; Sat, 11 Apr 1998 14:44:26 +0930 (CST) Received: (from grog@localhost) by freebie.lemis.com (8.8.8/8.8.7) id OAA18805; Sat, 11 Apr 1998 14:44:25 +0930 (CST) (envelope-from grog) Message-ID: <19980411144425.64484@freebie.lemis.com> Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 14:44:25 +0930 From: Greg Lehey To: FreeBSD Questions , FreeBSD Hackers , newbies@freebie.lemis.com, FreeBSD Chat Subject: SPAM: Commercial support for FreeBSD Reply-To: FreeBSD Chat Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii X-Mailer: Mutt 0.89i WWW-Home-Page: http://www.lemis.com/~grog Organization: LEMIS, PO Box 460, Echunga SA 5153, Australia Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-41-739-7062 Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG Sorry for the spam. This will be the only message I send to these lists--please respect the Reply-To: header and follow up either to chat@FreeBSD.org or supporters@nanyang-computer.com. One of the points raised in the recent flurry of messages about more visibility for FreeBSD is the question of support. We've discussed this at length before, but somehow the discussions gradually sickered away and we were no closer to a solution. A company I do a lot of work for, Nan Yang Computer Services Ltd., is interested in providing commercial support for FreeBSD. They're a *very* low-profile company in England, and they'll expect to be involved mainly in the billing. This means that the people they're looking for have to do just about everything else themselves, more like consultants than employees. With this background, I'd like to solicit discussion on the subject. I've set up a mailing list supporters@nanyang-computer.com. Sign up in the traditional manner: send mail to majordomo@nanyang-computer.com with the text 'subscribe supporters' in the message body. My intention at this stage is to discuss to following topics: 1. How to set up a world-wide commercial support organization for FreeBSD. One of the things that I expect to be of great advantage is that the people involved will be accessible via the Internet, so it should be possible to provide 24x7 coverage. In keeping with Nan Yang's low-key image, I don't envisage any commercial premises for the support people: they will all be located wherever it suits them. 2. What support to offer. The obvious choices are: - first-level user support ("how do I attach an image to a mail reply?") - defect support ("My machine just said "panic: not enough foos" and rebooted. What do I do?"). - programming support ("I've just updated my Yoyodyne frobulator to the new, improved YYD-64. Can you write a driver for me, please?") - Education. This is by no means an exhaustive list. 3. What to charge. 4. How to sell the concept to potential customers. I've copied -questions and -newbies on this message. I don't expect many of the people on those lists to want to join in, but you could be concerned that this might mean the end of free support on the -questions list. I don't think you need to be worried. I suspect it *will* change things on the list, but I don't see any reason to expect that it will make things worse. I'd prefer that as much of the discussion as possible happens on supporters@nanyang-computer.com (it's a no-obligation signup :-). If, for some reason, you don't want to do that, please follow up in FreeBSD-chat. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers finger grog@lemis.com for PGP public key To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message