Mailinglist Archive: opensuse-edu (225 mails)

[Robert J Gautier <rjg@xxxxxxxxxx>]

On Fri, 2 May 2003, Alan Davies wrote:

> I'm not sure that 'free' is a good way to go here.
> 
> Administration is a mission critical area of school function.  As such it
> can't possibly rely
> on goodwill of volunteers to find bugs and solve them - or to test new
> versions rigorously.

There is no reason why Free software need only be supported in the way 
you describe.  In fact the support options for a Free software package are 
more flexible than those for a proprietary package.  The latter can often 
only be supported by its vendor, because nobody else can get access to the 
source code.

If a software package is Free then you have the right to use, modify, 
and redistribute the software, and to allow others to do that for you.
That means that you can support the software yourself, or get someone else 
to do it for you.  If the operation of a piece of (Free) software is very 
important to you, there is nothing to stop you paying someone to keep the 
software working.

You are better off when shopping for support for Free software because 
there can be a real market in those services; multiple providers who have 
to compete for your custom.

Proper support is like an insurance policy: you pay someone to take some 
of the risk that the software will break.  While I'm sure that Free 
software is the right way to go, perhaps the project that builds that 
software needs to address the issue of ongoing support - a revenue cost 
not simply for the right to use the software, but for keeping it working.
A cost that competition might keep low.

 Bob G