Open support vrs. Company support [was: OXF rebuttal (was: Re: Interesting comparison)]

[Antonio Gallardo <ag...@agsoftware.dnsalias.com>]

Hi:

I want to point out what really means Free Maillist Support.

At first sight when we said Cocoon has support trought free maillist, it
seems like it is less than Company Support. Many of us saw this as a lack
instead of a feature, just before we make the first taste of the Cocoon's
free support feature.

>From my point of view Open support means:

1- Faster response time.
People with knowledge of Cocoon are worldwide distributed. I can talk
about countless experience when I am tired trying to solve a problem I
post a problem to the list just before go sleep and when I wake up and go
back to work I have a handfull of ideas of how to solve it. Often the
first response is in the first 15 minutes or less at any hour. It is
incredible!

Many company support talks about 24 hours in working days. Our support is
far better as that and must be viewed as a feature.

2- Answers include diferents approach to solve the same problem:
Since many of us has envolved in other activities and have diferents
interests, we have diferents point of view of a same problem. This enhance
the overall answer at all. The user with a problem many times can saw
another way to solve the same problem. Not only the point of view of the
person that get payed to solve his problem in a company support.

3- Good knowledge database:
We have mail archives that everybody can search to get an answer of a
problem that someone before you had.
This is not true in many knowledge database I saw in the world even in big
corporations. Sometimes there is no knowledge database or outdated.

Well, It is just a starting idea. I know many people wrote about this
topic  before me and explained it better that I can.

Please comments,

Best Regards,

Antonio Gallardo.

Re: Open support vrs. Company support (long!)

[Antonio Gallardo <ag...@agsoftware.dnsalias.com>]

Tony Collen dijo:
> Antonio Gallardo wrote:
>
>> Hi:
>>
>> I want to point out what really means Free Maillist Support.
>>
>> At first sight when we said Cocoon has support trought free maillist,
>> it seems like it is less than Company Support. Many of us saw this as
>> a lack instead of a feature, just before we make the first taste of
>> the Cocoon's free support feature.
>>
>>>>From my point of view Open support means:
>
> <snip/>
>
> I didn't have any specific replies because it's all good, so I'll add
> some more thoughts, slightly on the "Devil's Advocate" side of things.
>
> When is commercial (or 'professional') support desired, compared to the
> "free" kind?

Please excuse, I dont found the right word (english is not my main or
mother language). I meant commercial support as you posted. But I tried to
point out that they showed this as a feature of OXF as opposite to the
type of support that Cocoon mail list offer.

Indeed I know there are other companies providing commercial support for
Cocoon. I know they are doing his work well.

>
> I'm sure the members of Orixo can answer this one :)  It's a tough one
> though.  The notion of professional support is relative, since many of
> us are not here as a result of our jobs (me, for instance).  Sure, we're
>  all professionals in one way or another, but I'll limit my definition
> to  refer to people who are directly supporting Cocoon for money.

OK. I got your point. I wrote before about I didn't foudn the right word.

>
> There are some benefits, as far as I can see, to wanting commercial
> support over the free kind.  I don't speak of these from experience, so
> I could be way off base here.
>
> Professional support as an interface or hub into The Community.

If you need someone to speak for you, then you need better to contract a
"speaker" instead. :)

>
> Ideally, the company providing commercial support is active in the
> Cocoon Community, because otherwise they clearly wouldn't have their
> pulse on the project.

>  If a company decides they want to use Cocoon, it
>  may be beneficial for them to hire a company to do the work for them
> (outsourcing), or at least be able to steer them in the right direction
> (consulting).

This are other areas (outsourcing and consulting). I know this can be
considered support. Anyway cocoon already has this.

> The professional supporter can guide the client, getting
> them up to base and keeping them on the cutting edge of changes.  The
> company could also hire Cocoon consultants to train employees about the
> basics, and teach them the ropes.
>
> There *are* quiet times on the list, mainly when Europe is asleep :)

Partially agree. I know Europe is the land of many of the members of the
Cocoon community, but you cannot forget there are people from Australia,
Japan and America (from Canada to Argentina) that are part of this list.
The  have this kind of support? I think Cocoon mail list does not sleep at
all. See the archives and you will see there are post no matter the time
or day.

How many time you wrote to a company and they answer you the next
bussiness day (sometimes this means more than 48 hours). I am not just
talking about the company that own OXF I try to target a general

> When people in Europe are going to bed, or leaving work and turning off
> their computers, lots of us here in the US are just finishing lunch.
> That's still half a day!  Having an experienced Cocoon contact a phone
> call away (and in your timezone) could be very beneficial, especially
> when something Goes Bad(tm).

I agree. But not always is the case in comercial support.

> Additionally, the Professional Supporter has also been active on the
> mailing lists, and possibly has contacts in other places, such as other
> projects (Tomcat, or Avalon, for instance), or in other local networks
> such as user groups.  This reinforces the idea of the Commercial Cocoon
> Supporter as a hub of knowledge.

Out of topic. I wrote about above. I am not against this.

> Antonio had some good examples, let me see if I can come up with some
> counterexampes.  Keep in mind I'm trying to play Devil's Advocate and
> I'm not really complaining :)
>
>> 1- Faster response time.
>
> Many companies can't afford to wait overnight for a problem to be
> solved.  Indeed, the mail list is fast, but only when everybody is
> awake.

If you have people that follow the maillist in Asia, Australia, Europe and
America, then when the list sleep?
>
>> 2- Answers include diferents approach to solve the same problem:
>
> I agree, I don't really have a counterexample, except for having a
> professional supporter post onto the list (after exhausting their other
> resources [themselves]), "My client, ABC Inc. is needs to get A and B
> done, but we can't do it this way because &excuse;  I'm stuck, does
> anybody else have ideas?"  Again, this isn't really a counterexample,
> but it shows that the professional supporter could be a good contact
> into getting a problem solved.

Better hire a person that will write for you. It is cheaper and is
commonly called a secretary. :)

>
>> 3- Good knowledge database:
>
> Yes, but there's lots of effort involved in digging through a few years
> of mail archives, or learning the intricacies of Avalon, digging through
>  the existing docs, etc.

Sorry, But I really think that to use Cocoon you does not need to take
care of Avalon. I wrote my first Cocoon application without see any Avalon
page at all.

I am not "too smart", this is just another Cocoon feature. :)

> The idea of providing commercial support for Cocoon interests me
> greatly, because it's something I'd like to eventually do.

Well, this is another history.... outsourcing and consultancy these are
other areas.

> I'm not sure
>  if companies here in the US are even willing to hire "expensive"
> consultants anymore, as opposed to just hiring somebody in-house.  It
> would be a fun experiment though.
>
> Currently on monster.com there are exactly 8 jobs listed (in the US) in
> which "Cocoon" is a keywords.  They are mainly located on the east and
> west coasts.  The fact that there are so few job listings is a mixed
> blessing, one, because it makes it hard to get a job doing Cocoon work.

Well, this is the fruit of the community. The inductry is really showing
interest in Cocoon. Thanks for tell us about this important notice :)

>   The good part is that this leads me to believe there is a shortage of
> people knowledgeable enough to work with Cocoon full-time, which tends
> to be good for those of us who can fill an admittedly small niche.

yep.

All in all, I think this kind of dicussion are good enough for us. :)

Best Regards,

Antonio Gallardo.

Re: Open support vrs. Company support (long!)

[Michael Hartle <mh...@hartle-klug.com>]

Hi all,

> When is commercial (or 'professional') support desired, compared to 
> the "free" kind? 

some companies have established a "blame game" culture where any 
decision-maker has to have his back covered every possible way he/she 
can. In these cases, when deciding in favour of a product, the career of 
that decision-maker is likely linked to its success (or failure). The 
availability of a commercial support based on a legal contract provides 
some kind of calmness that upcoming problems will be solved (otherwise, 
the company would sue), no matter how ugly the corresponding hack is or 
which problems it might cause in the long term. The last time I 
demonstrated an open-source-based concept, it took some time working 
against this stance.

I think, for these companies, commercial support finally boils down to 
have someone else bitten in the "blame game". You can hardly sue 
"loosely coupled" members of a mailing list who developed free software, 
but you can sue a company that entered a legal contract on full 
commercial support for not doing so.

My 0.02€ so far,
best regards,

Michael Hartle

Re: Open support vrs. Company support (long!)

[Antonio Gallardo <ag...@agsoftware.dnsalias.com>]

Sylvain Wallez dijo:
> Tony Collen wrote:
>
>> Antonio Gallardo wrote:
>>
>>> Hi:
>>>
>>> I want to point out what really means Free Maillist Support.
>>>
>>> At first sight when we said Cocoon has support trought free maillist,
>>> it seems like it is less than Company Support. Many of us saw this as
>>> a  lack
>>> instead of a feature, just before we make the first taste of the
>>> Cocoon's
>>> free support feature.
>>>
>>>> From my point of view Open support means:
>>>
>>
>> <snip/>
>>
>> I didn't have any specific replies because it's all good, so I'll add
>> some more thoughts, slightly on the "Devil's Advocate" side of things.
>>
>> When is commercial (or 'professional') support desired, compared to
>> the "free" kind?
>>
>> I'm sure the members of Orixo can answer this one :)  It's a tough one
>>  though.  The notion of professional support is relative, since many
>> of  us are not here as a result of our jobs (me, for instance).  Sure,
>>  we're all professionals in one way or another, but I'll limit my
>> definition to refer to people who are directly supporting Cocoon for
>> money.
>
>
> <snipped-very-true-comments/>
>
> I have found several reasons that led our customers to ask for paid
> support (I prefer to say "paid" support as "professional" implies that
> cocoon-users is of lesser quality). You mentioned some of them already :
>
> 1/ They're not accustomed to using opensource software. They use it
> because it's both powerful and free, but are a bit frightened both by
> the fact that there's no "real" person they can ask to when they have a
> problem and by the information flood in the mailing-list (in clear text,
>  they're not subsribed to cocoon-users).

> 2/ Project-related support. We do architecting, prototyping, guidance,
> evaluation and all that stuff that require some minimal knowlege of the
> project domain. And this can't be provided by cocoon-users.
>
> 3/ Training. Cocoon is a large beast with many features, and mastering
> it takes time. Training allows to greatly reduce the learning curve.
>
> 4/ Custom component development. Cocoon allows to build entire
> applications without writing a single line of Java. But sometimes a
> particular feature is needed, which requires to code new component and
> thus requires a deeper knowledge that what the customer doesn't want to
> invest in. Being a committer also allows the new component (if generic
> enough) to go back to Apache, thus relieving the customer of its
> maintainance.
>
> The "knowledge hub" aspect is not something whose benefits are
> immediately perceived. But as most projects use other libraries as well
> (and Cocoon comes with a big load of jars), this quickly proves useful.
> Coming to us because we are Cocoon-geeks, customers quickly discover
> that we're also Ant-geeks, Tomcat-geeks, FOP-geeks, etc. This is what we
>  call the "Cocoon galaxy".
>
> As you can see, free support and paid support don't serve the same needs
>  (except on point 1/) and are complementary.

Thanks Sylvain. I just thinked in this first example. Then you showed me
that there are other activities that clear can be called support too.
Anyway I found a very interesting doc related to this topic (warning: the
doc is large too):

http://www.dwheeler.com/oss_fs_why.html

But related to support, they show that this is not black and white. If you
does not want to read all the docs. I can point to the 9 chapter:
Unnecessary Fears.

Best Regards,

Antonio Gallardo.

Re: Open support vrs. Company support (long!)

[Sylvain Wallez <sy...@anyware-tech.com>]

Tony Collen wrote:

> Antonio Gallardo wrote:
>
>> Hi:
>>
>> I want to point out what really means Free Maillist Support.
>>
>> At first sight when we said Cocoon has support trought free maillist, it
>> seems like it is less than Company Support. Many of us saw this as a 
>> lack
>> instead of a feature, just before we make the first taste of the 
>> Cocoon's
>> free support feature.
>>
>>> From my point of view Open support means:
>>
>
> <snip/>
>
> I didn't have any specific replies because it's all good, so I'll add 
> some more thoughts, slightly on the "Devil's Advocate" side of things.
>
> When is commercial (or 'professional') support desired, compared to 
> the "free" kind?
>
> I'm sure the members of Orixo can answer this one :)  It's a tough one 
> though.  The notion of professional support is relative, since many of 
> us are not here as a result of our jobs (me, for instance).  Sure, 
> we're all professionals in one way or another, but I'll limit my 
> definition to refer to people who are directly supporting Cocoon for 
> money.


<snipped-very-true-comments/>

I have found several reasons that led our customers to ask for paid 
support (I prefer to say "paid" support as "professional" implies that 
cocoon-users is of lesser quality). You mentioned some of them already :

1/ They're not accustomed to using opensource software. They use it 
because it's both powerful and free, but are a bit frightened both by 
the fact that there's no "real" person they can ask to when they have a 
problem and by the information flood in the mailing-list (in clear text, 
they're not subsribed to cocoon-users).

2/ Project-related support. We do architecting, prototyping, guidance, 
evaluation and all that stuff that require some minimal knowlege of the 
project domain. And this can't be provided by cocoon-users.

3/ Training. Cocoon is a large beast with many features, and mastering 
it takes time. Training allows to greatly reduce the learning curve.

4/ Custom component development. Cocoon allows to build entire 
applications without writing a single line of Java. But sometimes a 
particular feature is needed, which requires to code new component and 
thus requires a deeper knowledge that what the customer doesn't want to 
invest in. Being a committer also allows the new component (if generic 
enough) to go back to Apache, thus relieving the customer of its 
maintainance.

The "knowledge hub" aspect is not something whose benefits are 
immediately perceived. But as most projects use other libraries as well 
(and Cocoon comes with a big load of jars), this quickly proves useful. 
Coming to us because we are Cocoon-geeks, customers quickly discover 
that we're also Ant-geeks, Tomcat-geeks, FOP-geeks, etc. This is what we 
call the "Cocoon galaxy".

As you can see, free support and paid support don't serve the same needs 
(except on point 1/) and are complementary.

Sylvain

-- 
Sylvain Wallez                                  Anyware Technologies
http://www.apache.org/~sylvain           http://www.anyware-tech.com
{ XML, Java, Cocoon, OpenSource }*{ Training, Consulting, Projects }
Orixo, the opensource XML business alliance  -  http://www.orixo.com

Re: Open support vrs. Company support (long!)

[Tony Collen <co...@umn.edu>]

Antonio Gallardo wrote:

> Hi:
> 
> I want to point out what really means Free Maillist Support.
> 
> At first sight when we said Cocoon has support trought free maillist, it
> seems like it is less than Company Support. Many of us saw this as a lack
> instead of a feature, just before we make the first taste of the Cocoon's
> free support feature.
> 
>>>From my point of view Open support means:

<snip/>

I didn't have any specific replies because it's all good, so I'll add 
some more thoughts, slightly on the "Devil's Advocate" side of things.

When is commercial (or 'professional') support desired, compared to the 
"free" kind?

I'm sure the members of Orixo can answer this one :)  It's a tough one 
though.  The notion of professional support is relative, since many of 
us are not here as a result of our jobs (me, for instance).  Sure, we're 
all professionals in one way or another, but I'll limit my definition to 
refer to people who are directly supporting Cocoon for money.

There are some benefits, as far as I can see, to wanting commercial 
support over the free kind.  I don't speak of these from experience, so 
I could be way off base here.

Professional support as an interface or hub into The Community

Ideally, the company providing commercial support is active in the 
Cocoon Community, because otherwise they clearly wouldn't have their 
pulse on the project.   If a company decides they want to use Cocoon, it 
may be beneficial for them to hire a company to do the work for them 
(outsourcing), or at least be able to steer them in the right direction 
(consulting).  The professional supporter can guide the client, getting 
them up to base and keeping them on the cutting edge of changes.  The 
company could also hire Cocoon consultants to train employees about the 
basics, and teach them the ropes.

There *are* quiet times on the list, mainly when Europe is asleep :) 
When people in Europe are going to bed, or leaving work and turning off 
their computers, lots of us here in the US are just finishing lunch. 
That's still half a day!  Having an experienced Cocoon contact a phone 
call away (and in your timezone) could be very beneficial, especially 
when something Goes Bad(tm).

Additionally, the Professional Supporter has also been active on the 
mailing lists, and possibly has contacts in other places, such as other 
projects (Tomcat, or Avalon, for instance), or in other local networks 
such as user groups.  This reinforces the idea of the Commercial Cocoon 
Supporter as a hub of knowledge.

Antonio had some good examples, let me see if I can come up with some 
counterexampes.  Keep in mind I'm trying to play Devil's Advocate and 
I'm not really complaining :)

> 1- Faster response time.

Many companies can't afford to wait overnight for a problem to be 
solved.  Indeed, the mail list is fast, but only when everybody is awake.

> 2- Answers include diferents approach to solve the same problem:

I agree, I don't really have a counterexample, except for having a 
professional supporter post onto the list (after exhausting their other 
resources [themselves]), "My client, ABC Inc. is needs to get A and B 
done, but we can't do it this way because &excuse;  I'm stuck, does 
anybody else have ideas?"  Again, this isn't really a counterexample, 
but it shows that the professional supporter could be a good contact 
into getting a problem solved.

> 3- Good knowledge database:

Yes, but there's lots of effort involved in digging through a few years 
of mail archives, or learning the intricacies of Avalon, digging through 
the existing docs, etc.

The idea of providing commercial support for Cocoon interests me 
greatly, because it's something I'd like to eventually do.  I'm not sure 
if companies here in the US are even willing to hire "expensive" 
consultants anymore, as opposed to just hiring somebody in-house.  It 
would be a fun experiment though.

Currently on monster.com there are exactly 8 jobs listed (in the US) in 
which "Cocoon" is a keywords.  They are mainly located on the east and 
west coasts.  The fact that there are so few job listings is a mixed 
blessing, one, because it makes it hard to get a job doing Cocoon work. 
  The good part is that this leads me to believe there is a shortage of 
people knowledgeable enough to work with Cocoon full-time, which tends 
to be good for those of us who can fill an admittedly small niche.

That's about all my comments for now :)


Regards,

Tony