Date: Fri, 21 Apr 1995 22:08:39 -0500 (CDT) From: Joe Grosch <joeg@interaccess.com> To: jkh@freefall.cdrom.com (Jordan K. Hubbard) Cc: current@FreeBSD.org Subject: Re: A Scenario for FreeBSD Commercial Support Message-ID: <199504220308.WAA09867@psycfrnd.interaccess.com> In-Reply-To: <24265.798506089@freefall.cdrom.com> from "Jordan K. Hubbard" at Apr 21, 95 04:14:49 pm
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> >> Are the folks in FreeBSD agreeable to a regular 13 week release schedule, >> if the `grunt work' is offloaded onto paid help ? (We'd need 13 week releases >> to fund proper support) >> Would FreeBSD worry about geting over dependent on WC Inc ? > >I don't much like this idea. It would essentially require the users >to upgrade whether they liked it or not every 4 months if they wished >to remain on the tech support rolls. What happens to the corporate >shop who runs 2.3 for 7 months and likes it just fine, then they one >day have a problem they can't solve with their own techs and they call >us. "Sorry, you're out of date. You need to upgrade your entire shop >and fix what isn't broken before we'll help you with your problem." > Agree. One of the first rules I learned in this trade is never to upgrade the OS durning a project unless the upgrade fixes a number of very bad bugs, i.e. the kernel panics several times a day. Forcing clients to upgrade when it's convenient for us or because we have a new release is not going to endear us to them. >The rule doesn't mean anything if you don't generally enforce it, and >in this case you're depriving a good customer of one silly question >just because their release of 2.3 worked _too well_ up to now! > >If someone is going to pay for tech support, I'd rather it be the >FreeBSD Project, Inc. Then it could be done on a much more standard >"U want it, U pay for it." kind of support contract basis. It's like >insurance - most people don't mind paying for first level support if >it only costs a few hundred bucks a year whether they use it actively >or not. They know it's always there. > At the risk of sounding like a heretic, might I recommend we try what the FSF does, provide a list of consultants and/or companys that will support FreeBSD for a fee. This list would not be an endorsement by FreeBSD Inc, or FooBar Inc, or what ever we are calling our organazation. These would just be people know to us. >I'm not sure WC itself is in the market for selling tech support, even >though it's been talked about. "We make CDROMS" is what Jack tells me >on a regular basis whenever some tangental business model is >mentioned. > Josef -- Josef Grosch | joeg@truenorth.org | "Laugh while you can, monkey boy." finger for my | - Buckaroo Banzai - public PGP key |
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