From owner-freebsd-chat Sat Apr 11 19:57:23 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id TAA00657 for freebsd-chat-outgoing; Sat, 11 Apr 1998 19:57:23 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from alpo.whistle.com (alpo.whistle.com [207.76.204.38]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id TAA00605; Sat, 11 Apr 1998 19:57:15 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from julian@whistle.com) Received: (from daemon@localhost) by alpo.whistle.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) id TAA25209; Sat, 11 Apr 1998 19:50:56 -0700 (PDT) Received: from current1.whistle.com(207.76.205.22) via SMTP by alpo.whistle.com, id smtpd025207; Sun Apr 12 02:50:46 1998 Date: Sat, 11 Apr 1998 19:45:40 -0700 (PDT) From: Julian Elischer To: FreeBSD Chat cc: FreeBSD Questions , FreeBSD Hackers , newbies@freebie.lemis.com Subject: Re: SPAM: Commercial support for FreeBSD In-Reply-To: <19980411144425.64484@freebie.lemis.com> Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org 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 > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-hackers" in the body of the message > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message