[wplug] Looking for support

Jonathan Billings billings at negate.org
Fri Jan 16 15:39:28 EST 2009


On Fri, Jan 16, 2009 at 08:49:23AM -0500, Andrew Fisk wrote:
> I am trying to put together a directory of organizations in the  
> Pittsburgh area that install and support Open Source software.  The  
> goal is to have somewhere a small/ medium business owner can go and  
> see that there is a strong enough support community in the area that  
> they can use Open Source products with confidence that there will be  
> someone around to help them out.
> 
> If you know (or if you are) someone who does work in this area please  
> reply to me directly (not to the list).

Many years ago, there was a company (I won't name names) that came up
with a business plan that involved WPLUG providing free support for
people who purchased their product.  They came up with this idea before
actually asking WPLUG members about it, and were surprised when WPLUG
members were critical of them, particularly the part where we hosted
servers and did hardware support for free.  You can probably dig
through the archives if you're curious. 

At any rate, you'll find that some long-time WPLUG members are
somewhat nervous when one refer to WPLUG as a support organization for
businesses.  It's a Linux Users Group, and it's members volunteer
their support for other members.  Many of WPLUG's members are IT
support staff in some way, and get paid to do what they're giving away
for free for WPLUG.

I honestly don't have a problem with WPLUG choosing to go down the
route of providing linux support to companies, if that is the
direction they want to go.  But a linux community doesn't mean free
tech support for companies.

-- 
Jonathan Billings <billings at negate.org>


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