Who pays for the support account?

January 28, 2008 · Posted in Opinion

I was reading an article by Fábio Telles where he told the story of a client who was on hand with their ERP vendor because it did not support new versions of postgresql. The text is quite interesting and addresses the issue of support versus owner support "free."

The "free support" from my point of view, has roughly two connotations, one to support the free software provided by companies, which is paid, and the other, the "free support" provided in other forums and lists. Support "owner" would be the support provided by companies for proprietary solutions.

I do not mean to imply that one model is better than another, or make comparisons. Each model is suitable for their own niche, period. I'll just talk about a (among many) aspects of "support" lists and forums.

For starters, mailing list and forum, never had pretensions to be supported, or am I wrong? The goal of both is to be a space to exchange information, help, but not support. If either took this course because it was public and not fit the niche. Great.

I wonder: if companies charge for support, he probably has a cost. Then I ask myself: Who pays the costs of supporting "free"? Those guys are a list then bobões that support for free? If they are so good, why they do not charge for it?

Well, "there is no free beer." When a company hires an analyst or technical support service to provide you, the professional has a certain cost per hour. Of course, everyone who works in one way or another, end up charging a "value / time" for their work and / or time. Whenever an IT professional gives a hint in a forum or mailing list, the time it took from the wording used to submit the final, becomes investment. Even if the post is wrong, other people will fix it sooner or later. Thus, information flows both ways, back and forth. Whenever information about the investment value becomes.

From the standpoint of the IT professional, roughly speaking, every time I put something in a list or forum, I'm paying with my time and my value / hour for the support they give me the list. Whenever I use a tip from the list, I'm being client. Interestingly, in this context, who pays support is the one who gives support. In return, I get the list experience, expertise and prestige, which is used in the real world to enhance their careers.

And who does not put on the list? You are giving default?

Technically, no. Nobody is obliged to post anything, they are all volunteers, and I've heard a few reasons not to post, such as:

"Oh, I'm not so good to post." Or "I've answered the question, if I post will be redundant," among others. Actually both are valid, nothing like common sense. In my opinion it would be unethical only, not contributing with the intention of taking advantage, which ends up being shot in the foot, since the return never comes ...

Finally, support "free" is also paid, as paradoxical as it may seem. It is a small cost that adds tremendous value, but that does not relieve your company of having the list of expenses a competent professional, is a company specializing in support or their own IT staff.

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Comments

  • Luciana

    Regardless of the nature of the lists / forums, the 'post or not' just bumping into own human relations. When the desire to generate knowledge (interaction / confusion, blah, blah, blah ... anyway, will) stand out, people flow and the whole thing happens.
    It's do or not part of the whole.

  • Luciana

    Regardless of the nature of the lists / forums, the 'post or not' just bumping into own human relations. When the desire to generate knowledge (interaction / confusion, blah, blah, blah ... anyway, will) stand out, people flow and the whole thing happens.
    It's do or not part of the whole.

  • http://www.midstorm.org/ ~ telles Fábio Telles

    mailing list and forum, never had pretensions to be supported, or am I wrong?

    You are wrong. Many lists are created with the explicit purpose of supporting. If you look at the dozens of lists of the Debian project, for example, will see that a good portion is dedicated exclusively to support. International lists of PostgreSQL, serve mostly to media. When you have a community integral part, is common to separate lists of lists with support for other purposes such as internal organization, event, development, etc..

    See that there are also lists of very good support for proprietary software. I participate in Oracle lists that are excellent. The IRC channel on freenode.net Oracle is also excellent and has helped me out a big mess. The difference is that the list of Oracle I do not speak with the developers of Oracle. They have a confidentiality agreement where they can not talk about how the software actually works. Contact with the developers when you have a serious problem makes all the difference. You know the problems and limitations of the actual software. This makes a huge difference. When it starts to get a software to its limit, the direct contact with the developer is very valuable.

    Helping others is a matter of altruism in good part. See, we do this out of our working hours as well. And I'll tell you one thing ... get much with that directly. The fame and respect that one can hardly get put food on the table. The point is that a large, good quality free software brings direct benefits to all.

    Everything has a price on life, but if you care too much about it, you lose the most valuable things in life. Do not take seriously the financial issue when proposing to assist a user in a list, forum, IRC or on your blog. Just have fun, feel glad to be helping someone and not expect rewards or recognition of others.

    Hey, but I salute you! Your blog is very nice, congratulations on the job.
    [] S
    Fábio Telles

  • http://www.midstorm.org/ ~ telles Fábio Telles

    mailing list and forum, never had pretensions to be supported, or am I wrong?

    You are wrong. Many lists are created with the explicit purpose of supporting. If you look at the dozens of lists of the Debian project, for example, will see that a good portion is dedicated exclusively to support. International lists of PostgreSQL, serve mostly to media. When you have a community integral part, is common to separate lists of lists with support for other purposes such as internal organization, event, development, etc..

    See that there are also lists of very good support for proprietary software. I participate in Oracle lists that are excellent. The IRC channel on freenode.net Oracle is also excellent and has helped me out a big mess. The difference is that the list of Oracle I do not speak with the developers of Oracle. They have a confidentiality agreement where they can not talk about how the software actually works. Contact with the developers when you have a serious problem makes all the difference. You know the problems and limitations of the actual software. This makes a huge difference. When it starts to get a software to its limit, the direct contact with the developer is very valuable.

    Helping others is a matter of altruism in good part. See, we do this out of our working hours as well. And I'll tell you one thing ... get much with that directly. The fame and respect that one can hardly get put food on the table. The point is that a large, good quality free software brings direct benefits to all.

    Everything has a price on life, but if you care too much about it, you lose the most valuable things in life. Do not take seriously the financial issue when proposing to assist a user in a list, forum, IRC or on your blog. Just have fun, feel glad to be helping someone and not expect rewards or recognition of others.

    Hey, but I salute you! Your blog is very nice, congratulations on the job.
    [] S
    Fábio Telles

  • nigel

    Look my dear. Free Software does not give money to anyone, does not encourage business, not pay taxes, does not produce a source of wealth, in short, has no utility in the capitalist world in which we live.

    I think this wave just use the free effort of people who have no ideology to do the job of big companies like IBM.

    What I see is big companies using free labor to do their job and are earning lots of money at the expense of newly trained programmers that has no flag or religion, embracing an idea that eventually lying like this open-source philosophy.

    In short: they are using workforce of ignorant people to achieve their business objectives. And it's unfortunate that many people fall for that.

    If free software was the future of Linux would not be in the house of 1% of monopolizing the desktop.

  • nigel

    Look my dear. Free Software does not give money to anyone, does not encourage business, not pay taxes, does not produce a source of wealth, in short, has no utility in the capitalist world in which we live.

    I think this wave just use the free effort of people who have no ideology to do the job of big companies like IBM.

    What I see is big companies using free labor to do their job and are earning lots of money at the expense of newly trained programmers that has no flag or religion, embracing an idea that eventually lying like this open-source philosophy.

    In short: they are using workforce of ignorant people to achieve their business objectives. And it's unfortunate that many people fall for that.

    If free software was the future of Linux would not be in the house of 1% of monopolizing the desktop.

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