On Thu, Jan 10, 2002 at 05:59:23PM +0000, Mark Fowler wrote: > My point is why should any of this matter. Let's keep the distinction > between the product and the developers in place, keep them separate.
Hmm, I'm not sold on this. Given that often your only line of hardcore support is directly from the developer your product <-> developer tie is inseparable. That, or you're prepared to either fully take on the project yourself (often infeasible, certainly rarely efficient unless it's core to your containing project) or fully trust in the user community. This too is risky unless you have a long-lived product with other users who've put in considerable time -- otherwise it tends to be only developers who have any kind of in-depth understanding. > Smoothwall is open source, and you haven't paid for any support - you > shouldn't expect any. Bah. On one hand, that's practically a truism but on the other I don't think it's a useful metric. If there's no support in *any* software, it's basically useless and would likely become a liability to anyone adopting it, who wasn't prepared to accept either of the above conditions (learn 100% yourself or hope for the best from user community). On the other hand, I've not had much sleep so might be completely missing your point :-) Paul -- Paul Makepeace ....................................... http://paulm.com/ "What is a burrito good for? Another chance to get an ice cream." -- http://paulm.com/toys/surrealism/
