Who pays the account holder?

January 28, 2008 · Posted in Opinion

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

The "free support" from my point of view, is roughly two connotations, one of the free software support, provided by companies, which is paid, and the other the "free support" provided in forums and mailing lists too. 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 talk about just one (among many) aspects of "support" on lists and forums.

For starters, mailing lists and forum, never had pretensions of being supported, or am I wrong? The goal of both is to be a space for exchange of information helps, but does not support. If either taken the way it is because public and had adapted itself to the niche. Great.

I wonder: if the 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 wimps who support free? If they are so good, why did not they charge for it?

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

From the standpoint of the IT professional, roughly, every time I put something in a list or forum, I'm paying with my time and my hourly rate for support that the list gives me. Whenever I use a tip from the list, I'm being client. Interestingly, in this context, who pays support is what gives the holder. 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? Is giving default?

Technically, no. Nobody is obliged to post anything, they are all volunteers, and I've heard some reasons for not posting, 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, whereas the return never comes ...

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

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Comments

  • 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 free only uses the efforts of people who have no ideologies to do work for large companies like IBM.

    What I see is big business using free labor to do their job, and earning lots of money at the expense of newly trained programmers that has no flag or religion, you end up embracing a false idea how this open-source philosophy.

    In short: they are using workforce of ignorant people to achieve their business objectives. It is a pity that many people fall for that.

    If free software was the future Linux would not be at around 1% of monopolizing the desktop.
  • mailing list and forum, never had pretensions of being 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 support. When you have a community grant, is common to separate the lists to support lists for other purposes such as internal organization, events, development, etc..

    See also exist that support lists very good for proprietary software. I participate lists of Oracle that are excellent. The IRC channel at Oracle freenode.net 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 at Oracle. They have a confidentiality agreement where they can not talk about how the software actually work. The contact with the developers when you have a serious problem makes all the difference. You know the problems and limitations of the actual software. That makes a huge difference. When it begins to take 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 it out in our working hours as well. And I'll tell you one thing ... get much from it directly. The fame and respect that we can acquire hardly put food on the table. The point is that a large, good quality free software bring 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 very seriously the financial issue when it proposes 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
    Fabio Telles
  • Luciana
    Regardless of the nature of the lists / forums, the 'post or not' just stumbled in their own relationships. When the desire to generate knowledge (interaction / confounding, blah, blah, blah ... well, will) stand out, people flow and the whole thing happens.
    It's do or not part of the whole.
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