Opensourcing by itself does not provide any service for customers. But there are now plenty of companies proposing these services, along with support, and including opensourced softwares also in their service offers.
But servicing these apps or components at the software level (including for fixing security issues, or helping to fix some incorrect translations, or documenting some processes) is something frequently forgotten: a company just provides helps for installing the full package of an OS with some installation wizards and some doc only for their own specific products added on top, but forget all the rest. At most they will provide links to public forums, but not everyone wants to discuss publicly about the problems they encounter: they want private support and confidentality or protection of their privacy by having direct contact with the service provider, which whom they may show private data or conversations used along with the supported apps. For that of course the customer service will be often paid/subscribed. Having private support is something that must be developed, and that cannot be supported by a live community: you need people you can trust or with whom you can create contractual agreements. That's where there are companies like Ubuntu or RedHat (or now even Microsoft in their Azure environment or for the new bash environement in Windows 10, with a collaboration between Microsoft and Canonical, or with Oracle and IBM which also have these supports for professional offers, or with Steam that supports gamers on the Linux platform, or with Google that supports the Linux-based Android system, including with paid subscriptions for private support...) I would then not conclude that such services do not exist, but they are not sufficiently developed and not enough visible: most Linux projects in fact forget to promote their service providers, and many people are left alone with the terms of the open licences that offer them *no warranty* at all, no responsable team to take in charge privately their problems. We should promote those external companies (and give them an opportunity to help opensourced projects by donations to the projects and direct involvement in the projects, in exchange the projects will include some minimum non-exclusive banners or an online directory that users can browse and then make their choice for the service they want to pay). This is done however in some indirect projects such as conference events organized in various places (but most of these events are too far away and too costly for going there: people want to get supprot directly by mail, or phone, or want that their service provider to come in situ with qualified professionals and with recognized and standardized working methods). On 08/01/2016 11:49 AM, [email protected] wrote: > > > > > *Gentlemen, If you believe that the future of Open Source should be in the > application area, your example of using a small portion of Quick Books > revenue to improve an Open Source product are missing the entire process of > having users.... Commercialization, advertising, Customer service, > documentation, help systems... at the end of the entire process is the > technical product (program). The technically most important part of a > product, is almost the least important part of bringing a solution to the > real world. Try looking at the almost non-existent market penetration of > Libre Office / Open Office is due to the price, FREE, means nobody telling > me why I want to use the product, nobody telling me the product exists (NO > advertising), no training seminars for VARS, no product co-commissions = NO > REASON I SHOULD Hustle my users into the product. I will get to service > the product and get nothing for recommending it. John A. Ward* > >
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