Re: Bugfix(59/8=APNIC), math jobs (was: JDEE/CGI/flashcards ...)

It seems that your view of open-source is very different from mine.

Robert Maas, see http://tinyurl.com/uh3t writes:

> I dare you to find *any* commercial
> vendor who offers such rapid bug fixes, much less anyone offering
> totally free software who offers such rapid bug fixes.

Well, I do, sometimes. And I've witnessed other people do the
same thing, lots of times. A user posts a bug report on a mailing
list, and within an hour it is fixed, I mean.
It is the case in the open source world I live.

> Hmmm, nearly
> everyone who posts open-source and other free software, provides
> customer support *only* to paying customers, and a pay rate in the
> range of $50-150 per hour for consulting. But I'm a nice guy who not
> only provides free usage of some of my software but even free customer
> support!

Everyone I know who's working on his/her own open-source project
provides some degree of user support for totally free. It's
because less bugs or better usability makes the software better,
which itself is a reward. Of course those guys are using their
spare time to fix things, so they can't respond to all requests
from users, but usually they try their best to accomodate users'
needs. I've never heard of any open-source guy who charge for
fixing a simple bug.

You may be referring to the companies that provide support
for charge, but they're not majority of open-source developers.
And more importantly, there's a reason that they charge.
Remember, people pay money for what they want. There are
people who want a guaranteed support, no the "best-effort" one,
and thus they pay for it.

I charge when a customer asks me to solve their own specific
problem. They don't usually care whether I use open source
or proprietary software. They pay for the solution. I often
use OSS for such projects. It's cheaper for them, and it makes
my OSS more "battle-proven", so both parties gain.
I know some companies that provides similar services, that is,
build a custom system with open-source software and charge for it.
It is not the same thing as charging a simple customer support
like fixing a trivial bug. Indeed, providing simple best-effort
user support for free improves both customer satisfaction
and the quality of the software.

.

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