Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 19:45:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Julian Elischer <julian@whistle.com> To: FreeBSD Chat <chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Cc: FreeBSD Questions <questions@FreeBSD.ORG>, FreeBSD Hackers <hackers@FreeBSD.ORG>, newbies@freebie.lemis.com Subject: Re: SPAM: Commercial support for FreeBSD Message-ID: <Pine.BSF.3.95.980411194143.4937B-100000@current1.whistle.com> In-Reply-To: <19980411144425.64484@freebie.lemis.com>
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I've been thinking of doing this myself for a couple of years.
But I've had too much 'real FreeBSD work' to push too hard on the idea.
julian (E)
On Sat, 11 Apr 1998, Greg Lehey wrote:
> 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
>
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