Re: [SLUG] support for open source
Rob Sharp wrote: Building a Kernel is a requirement for Securing Servers. - Oscar Plameras Oooh! Cheeky sig :-) James Gregory brilliantly characterized this with ..., I don't leave a crow-bar lying next to my car when I park it. Ref'd - http://lists.slug.org.au/archives/slug/2004/11/msg00215.html -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
[SLUG] support for open source
After reading this poorly written article: http://analysis.itmanagersjournal.com/article.pl?sid=05/02/03/1918223tid=107tid=112 a friend asked me what was the most acceptable way to profit from open source. Having been sufficiently confused by the article it took some time to straighten him out, in which time I had mentioned providing support as a business model. Which got me thinking about a recent debacle at my current place of employ involving CVS. We use CVS. We find it more than adequate for our use. At some point something broke on the CVS server. I don't know if it was something related to CVS or something stupid about the platform it was deployed on (windows). I never experienced the problem in question. During the process of fixing this IT broke something else which was squared blamed on CVS and the Subversion advocates in the office took this as an opportunity for a revolution. IT had a go at Subversion I think, but nothing came of it. Meanwhile, weeks and weeks past where this problem with CVS wasn't fixed, and that ment the managers got involved. When they asked IT why no-one had fixed the problem yet, IT reluctantly admitted that none of them knew how to fix it. Managers being managers they immediately ordered IT to find someone who could fix the problem. That is, it was time to bring in the commercial support. IT found a company that did open source support in the US. They emailed them, they got no reply. In an amazing feat of persistence, they found a second company: Ximbiot. They replied offering a US$35,000/year support contract. IT knew they weren't going to pull this off, so they asked for a per incident price, none was offered. Ok fine. IT decided that switching to Subversion might not be such a bad thing after all.. maybe there's commercial support for it. Nope. There's commercial support for some suite of software that includes subversion, but not for subversion on its own. After more weeks and weeks management decided to fix the problem themselves. They called a proprietary revision control software company. Unfortunately it was one that engineering had used before and knew to suck. After much in-fighting, the decision was made to go with Perforce instead - which is actually pretty good. But seeing it was left in the hands of management it never got done. Last week I heard we'd signed a deal with Seapine. I have no idea how good that is, but apparently they have great commercial support. It's too late for my employer, we'll be using one proprietary system or another for the rest of our solvency. How about the rest of you? Does anyone know a good, preferably Australian, CVS support company? I wonder how hard it would be to start one. Most all software support I have seen for open source has been email based. Australia is pretty centralized, all you would need is a few techs per capital city to provide good on-site support. Trent -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] support for open source
quote who=QuantumG It's too late for my employer, we'll be using one proprietary system or another for the rest of our solvency. How about the rest of you? Does anyone know a good, preferably Australian, CVS support company? Man, unhappy story. :-( A huge part of the problem here is your last three words, and how well the industry is trained to think in those terms. You're looking for a product support company for a product that does not have a single company behind it [ let's not get into ownership and how it relates to copyright here ;-) ]. It is *really* hard to break that cycle: I ran into the same problem at a previous job, in an industry where do it yourself is the name of the game. Mind boggling. I can think of a few local consultants and consultancy shops who have expert knowledge of CVS - mostly because they use it intensively themselves - who almost certainly could have solved your problem. But they're not those CVS guys with the 1800-FIX-MY-CVS number. ;-) Major lesson to learn here: Use your local community resources, because they will either know the answer, or you'll have the cream of the commercial support crop at your fingertips (given that most are involved with, or at least read, their local community lists). - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2005: Canberra, Australiahttp://linux.conf.au/ Building a Kernel is a requirement for Securing Servers. - Oscar Plameras -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] support for open source
Building a Kernel is a requirement for Securing Servers. - Oscar Plameras Oooh! Cheeky sig :-) On Mon, 7 Feb 2005 14:24:55 +1100, Jeff Waugh [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: quote who=QuantumG It's too late for my employer, we'll be using one proprietary system or another for the rest of our solvency. How about the rest of you? Does anyone know a good, preferably Australian, CVS support company? Man, unhappy story. :-( A huge part of the problem here is your last three words, and how well the industry is trained to think in those terms. You're looking for a product support company for a product that does not have a single company behind it [ let's not get into ownership and how it relates to copyright here ;-) ]. It is *really* hard to break that cycle: I ran into the same problem at a previous job, in an industry where do it yourself is the name of the game. Mind boggling. I can think of a few local consultants and consultancy shops who have expert knowledge of CVS - mostly because they use it intensively themselves - who almost certainly could have solved your problem. But they're not those CVS guys with the 1800-FIX-MY-CVS number. ;-) Major lesson to learn here: Use your local community resources, because they will either know the answer, or you'll have the cream of the commercial support crop at your fingertips (given that most are involved with, or at least read, their local community lists). - Jeff -- linux.conf.au 2005: Canberra, Australiahttp://linux.conf.au/ Building a Kernel is a requirement for Securing Servers. - Oscar Plameras -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html -- Rob Sharp e: [EMAIL PROTECTED] w: quannum.co.uk j: [EMAIL PROTECTED] -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
Re: [SLUG] support for open source
On Mon, 07 Feb 2005 12:42:59 +1000 QuantumG [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: After much in-fighting, the decision was made to go with Perforce instead - which is actually pretty good. In comparison to CVS maybe. I'm using GNU Arch at home and Perforce at work using Perforce has made me *VERY* aware of just how good Arch really is. Does anyone know a good, preferably Australian, CVS support company? Back in the late 1990s I worked for a company that did all its development by way of tarballs emailed from developer to developer (however scary that may sound). When we moved to CVS, we had a guy come in, set it up on a Solaris box, and document how the developers were supposed to use it. We paid for about a month's worth of consulting for the setup and the developers maintained it after that. I wonder how hard it would be to start one. Probably not too hard, but I wonder how big the market is. Most companies seem pretty proficient at maintaining revsision control systems themselves. Erik -- +---+ Erik de Castro Lopo [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Yes it's valid) +---+ C++ : You won't live long enough to learn it all from experience. -- Peter Miller (author of Aegis) -- SLUG - Sydney Linux User's Group Mailing List - http://slug.org.au/ Subscription info and FAQs: http://slug.org.au/faq/mailinglists.html
