Commercial support

[Shachar Shemesh]

David Gümbel wrote:

>I cannot say I am convinced this is a good rule to follow. First of all, 
>maybe I got things wrong at wineconf, but I remember something like "anyone 
>who wants to be listed there should be" being the last statement I heard in 
>the lecture room.
>  
>
I'm actually in favor of this. I too think that having as many companies 
listed would be a good thing.

>While it seems to me that the selection by code contribution as proposed 
>would not be quite feasible (what exactly is a non-trivial patch?), I also 
>think that there is a lot more to Wine than just code, starting from 
>documentation, including stuff like donations, helping out on wine-users, 
>or training (commercial or not) are important, too, and won't directly bring 
>any code into the project - which does not make these things less valuable 
>IMHO.
>  
>
I agree, but I was really thinking about a different thing. Wine 
deployment based on existing solutions is different than a deployment 
that can actually change wine to solve problems. My suggestion was based 
on the assumption that a client would care to know that. I do think that 
everyone should be listed, though.

>So I'd suggest listing anyone who can prove he has contributed to Wine in 
>whatever way - making a donation, having contributed code, whatever - , and 
>let the customers decide whom to select for their particular problem.
>  
>
Agreed. I don't even mind listing EVERYONE, whether or not they 
contributed anything at all. My token monetary donation idea was based 
on past experience, where making a list too easy to include you and too 
easy to stay on it means that it becomes obsolete, and therefor not 
useful. We tried to run a list of consultants supporting Linux in 
Israel, and nobody uses it any more, for precisely that reason. Making a 
token donation once a year eliminates this problem (though it creates 
other problems, such as actually collecting the money). If, instead of 
money donation, we merely ask each company to reaffirm it belongs in the 
list once a year, that would work as well.

>That said, I definetly think we could allow code contributors a sentence or 
>two of space that describes their area of expertise in Wine (i.e. what part 
>they contributed to), as this is certainly valuable information for 
>customers, and good advertising for those companies. 
>  
>
Yep, that is definitely one way to do it.

>Cheers,
>
>David
>  
>
          Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd.
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