Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 14:44:25 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: FreeBSD Questions <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>, FreeBSD Hackers <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>, newbies@freebie.lemis.com, FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: SPAM: Commercial support for FreeBSD Message-ID: <19980411144425.64484@freebie.lemis.com>
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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
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