🚀 go-pugleaf

Perhaps this will make my original question a little clearer:

In article <3485@airs.com>, ian@airs.com (Ian Lance Taylor) writes...
>dc@stars.gsfc.nasa.gov (Dave Cottingham) writes:
>>For free software, if you make the patches freely
>>available, how do you design your service so as to avoid having each
>>patch paid for entirely by the customer that asked for it?
> 
>1) Have support contracts.

What I'm asking is, what would the contract say?

>or
> 
>2) Why do you have to?  What's wrong with having the person who needs
>the fix pay for it?  If it really bothers them that everybody else
>will get the patch for free, let them hire somebody else (yes, they
>could do this, provided they did not distribute the result).

If the fix or enhancement is of limited usefulness, then it makes sense
to have whoever wants it pay for it.  In fact, the free software approach
is clearly beneficial to people in this situation, since they get to
choose who does the work without shelling out for a pricey source license.

But it is also common that a fix is of very general usefulness.  It
is certainly possible for one person to pay someone by the hour to do this
kind of work, but this is not very attractive compared to the current
method which spreads the cost over a large number of people.

I think what business-type customers want is a support service with the
following features:

	1) Doesn't cost a fortune.
	2) Assurance that their SPRs will get some kind of response.

and it is also necessary that there be some inducement to pay.  If a
business knows it can get the same service for free, when the budget
gets tight it'll be the first thing to go.  I think a business would
hardly be comforted to know that its software support contractor was
certain to fold as soon as the next recession hit.

What I'm wondering, how does a support company structure its services
and fees to satify these needs?  Are there any companies out there now
that offer this kind of service for free software?

 - Dave Cottingham
   dc@cobi.gsfc.nasa.gov