Commercial support

[Shachar Shemesh]

Andrew Bartlett wrote:

>I think it is worthwhile to expand on the Samba Team's experience with
>commercial support lists.
>
>The primary experience is that such lists much be maintained, and
>current.  For many years, our list was unmaintained, but over the last
>year we have had a new website maintainer, and at least companies that
>don't reply to e-mail are removed.  
>  
>
Hmm, similar to my "refresh once a year" idea.

Who's in charge of making sure that the companies do still answer email?

>We do not 'vet' our list, and we don't try to rank the providers.  This
>avoids a number of issues (how would you rank them?), and this is a
>policy I support.  
>  
>
I guess the reason both Andreas and myself think it is a good idea to 
rank them has to do with the maturity of wine vs. Samba. While it is 
true that both Andreas and myself believe that our companies should be 
ranked high (and, at least for me, I also think that the company Andreas 
work for should be rated high, and even higher), it is also because we 
believe that this measurement is actually relevant to the service we sell.

I am yet to encounter a program that "just works" on wine. Even if there 
are, they still enjoy a large amount of customizing and adapting. As 
such, there should be an advantage to companies that know how to do 
that. Almost all wine hacking done for clients are generally useful. 
Lingnu once produced a whole DLL due to a specific client support need 
(Unicows). This means that the people best situated to know who is who 
are the people who receive the patches. While I don't think other 
companies should not be listed at all, but the potential customers 
should be able to tell them apart.

>We have a broad list of providers in many localities, and this does
>provide us a place to point users in need of paid help.  I don't think
>it draws away from the 'top tier' providers, who distinguish themselves
>in the way they always have - by being relevant to their customers, and
>competing on their own best merits.
>  
>
I guess neither Andreas nor myself see the way you can provide 
commercial support for Wine if you can't hack it. I would love to hear 
from such companies, though, what is their typical support scenario. 
Maybe it's me who is deluded here.

>Andrew Bartlett
>  
>
          Shachar

-- 
Shachar Shemesh
Lingnu Open Source Consulting ltd.
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