[oclug] To What Degree, Support?

[Mark Harrison]

Support depends on what I'm trying to acheive. My support requirements for a
system, vs. a component, vs. a service are wildly different.

If I order a new laptop, as a friend of mine did last week, and it arrives
pretty much dead, then I don't want to have to get into the hassle of
sending it back and being machine-less for a week or two while they "look at
it". In this case, a "next day support-on-site" contract would be well worth
it for me.

If it's something like an ISP, well the only support I expect from an ISP is
the things they do, if you see what I mean.

If _I_ can change something, then I don't expect them to... However, if I'm
restricted from changing something, then this is their problem.

Which service I then buy depends on what I'm looking to acheive.

For example, the xAP website (www.xapautomation.org) is a relatively static
website with a CMS. The service we get is a hosting service, where the ISP
provides a particular version of Apache, a particular version of MySQL and a
particular version of PERL. I expect them to support those components...
since they're fixed. However, if I choose to add Nuke on top of that, then
supporting Nuke is OUR problem. However, given the nature of xAP (OpenSource
development), it can be assumed that the Project web team are IT literate
:-)

At the opposite end of the scale, eMog (www.emog.com) is a fully managed
Lyris list service. Why did we go with that? Simple - the vast majority of
our users are in their 50s or 60s, non-IT-technical, and need something that
"just works". Even worse, the other co-moderators are also in their 50s or
60s, non-IT-technical, and need something that "just works". I'm the only IT
person in the moderators team, and CANNOT get involved in 24/7 support for
something that's just a hobby, but is also used by users in over 30
countries, with all the time-zone and language problems that entails.

Regards,

Mark

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Francis J. A. Pinteric" <linuxdoctor at linuxdoctor.biz>
To: "oclug" <oclug at lists.oclug.on.ca>
Sent: Wednesday, April 21, 2004 12:56 AM
Subject: [oclug] To What Degree, Support?


> Reading the thread about someone wanting to buy some hardware and his
> need for support, I'm just wondering how important support is to people
> here.
>
> Do people here always require support in their computing purchases?
> What's wrong with a warranty period? Would you purchase the thing if it
> came with no support at all, perhaps excepting the warranty?
>
> I'm quite curious on this point not only for my edification but possibly
> also for a business opportunity.
>
> Without going into too much detail, I have being made to me essentially
> an infinite amount of disk space that I can portion off anyway I like
> into full featured VPS's. The catch is that there will be no support
> beyond on-line documentation and a phpBB2 based forum.
>
> Using the group here as a guage, how much of disincentive would lack of
> support be to people such as yourselves?