RE: Commercial support, was Re: [HACKERS] v6.4.3 ?

Jan,My company Rakekniven provides professional support
packages for our business line of PostgreSQL servers. But
this is in addition to our servers that we build and test
by hand. In other words, the servers that we warranty
have been thoroughly tested (a generation behind) and are
a combination of hardware/software that we feel comfortable
with. Needless to say we spell out in detail, in the
maintenance contract, what the limitations of the software
are and what actions we are willing to provide to the
customer, including, replacing the server.But you must also remember that all software companies,
including Microsoft, warrant only the media the software
comes on and take absolutely no responsibility for the
use (damage) that may arise from using the software. Take
a look at one of your professional software licenses and
read it. You will find that according to these licenses
that most commercial software is no better than shareware
(License wise).
That's why, in the licenses, you see these big clauses 
that say this software is not suitable for use in Nuclear 
Power reactor's, etc... As an example, read one of IBM's
Mainframe License's, IBM only guaranties that the hardware
is free from all major defect's, without defining what those
defect's are. And IBM reserved the right to replace that
hardware at there discretion.

D. Gowin

-----Original Message-----
From: jwieck@debis.com [mailto:jwieck@debis.com]
Sent: Monday, February 08, 1999 9:12 AM
To: terry@terrym.com
Cc: hackers@postgreSQL.org
Subject: Re: Commercial support, was Re: [HACKERS] v6.4.3 ?


Terry Mackintosh wrote:

>
> Hi all
>
> > >     That's  the  reason.  One  of  the  biggest drawbacks against
> > >     Postgres is (for many companies at least), that you can't buy
> > >     support.
>
> IMHO ...
>
> Well, yes one can, one may just need to look around a bit... and pay
> commercial support prices.
>
> Example:
> As for my self I feel confident that I could provide such support, having
> been using Postgres+ since Postgres 0.95? (3?4 years ago?).  I charge
> $25/hour, but have been considering going to $30/hour. While I've yet to
> get a PostgreSQL specific job, I have had some other Linux based jobs.
>
> [...]
   Nice idea.
   But a word of caution seems appropriate.
   Commercial  support  doesn't  mean  only  that  you  can hire   someone who takes care about your actual  problems
with the   product.  It also means that there is someone you can bill if   that product caused big damage to you
(productwarranty).
 
   Commercial support doesn't mean only that you hire someone on   a  T/M  base  (time and material). It also means
thatyou can   sign a support contract  with  a  regular  payment  and  have   written  down  response-  and  maximum
problem-to-fixtimes,   escalation levels etc.
 
   For these issues (and there  are  more)  you  would  need  an   assurance  in  the  background  (or  a big company).
Butthis   requires that you have quality assurance management on top of   the  development.  And that you have aggreed
procedureswhere   escalation  levels  from  your  support  activate  the   core   developers  in  specified  times  to
solveproblems.  And it   requires that you have more  precise  product  specifications   telling  what  the  product
can and  where it's limits are.   Otherwise you wouldn't be able to pay the assurance.
 
   There are already distributions of Linux out  where  you  can   buy  commercial  support  with  them.  They  stay
behindthe   bleeding edge of development and are  offered  by  companies,   that  have their own development team apart
fromthe internet   community.
 
   Looking at how we are organized (or better unorganized),  all   this high level commercial support seems far away.


Jan

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