Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

Benedict_White · 2005-02-05 22:44:47

I was reading the thread on messed up /opt. when I came accross this article:

http://www.osnews.com/story.php?news_id=8761

I have read a few articles which have critisised either arch (quoted elsewhere, MS critisising Linux) and in this one in Arch v Slackware.

One of the point is that there is paid for support for Slackware but not for Arch. I already do install (for the company I work for) Arch for money, and support it afterwards, so there is paid for support for Arch.

Question is though, should there be "official paid support" for Arch, if so:

1. Who decides who can do paid support?
2. What could be the criteria for it?

I also noted that Arch is supposed to be less stable on the server than Slackware, though I have never had a problem with Arch on the server as I only install what is needed and it runs fine.

Any way, anyone any thoughts on paid for support?

cactus · 2005-02-05 23:03:44

anyone can provide paid for support for archlinux, or any other linux for that matter.
there is even paid for support for EOL redhat 8 and 9, I believe.

Is that what you were getting at?
As for "official", that would be a stickier issue. De-jure vs de-facto.
Judd could likely spin off a biz (be it profit or non-profit), that would provide "official" support, but it would only be "official" because it would have judd working there...ie. based on his clout (de-facto).

Official belies a central producer, hence a method for enforcing de-jure complaince..ala microsoft, apple, etc. Since so many people own different parts of GNU/Linux oses, no support can really be de-jure, only de-facto.

I think...

Benedict_White · 2005-02-05 23:16:40

Thanks for your thoughts Cactus.

I was hoping to spark discussion. The thinking is that we all need to eat, and that some people feel uncomfortable using something they can't throw money at.

Now, as I said, the company I work for already does Arch based work because it is very easy to use and set up custom servers for specific tasks and then keep them up to date. So yes anyone can charge for supporting Arch, and what ever happens in this discussion that will still be the case.

What I was think of was being able to have a list of people who either the community, or some sub section of it, says can support Arch linux installs (Or in other words, not only can read, but actually does from time to time, whilst never actually admitting it.)

As I say, it might grow Arch.

Arch on the server is fairly easy as there is not much to go wrong, Arch on mass desktops on the other hand requires more thought, bit then that is also true of other OS's and disro's.

cactus · 2005-02-06 00:02:44

Benedict_White wrote:

What I was think of was being able to have a list of people who either the community, or some sub section of it, says can support Arch linux installs (Or in other words, not only can read, but actually does from time to time, whilst never actually admitting it.)

Interesting idea, but I can see how it could cause problems. If, for instance, there was a section on the arch site saying something to the extent of "these people know their arse from their elbow when it comes to arch", then people will hold that information with a certain weight...hey, it says so right on the arch site, so they must be good.

If they become unhappy with the services from that person, they might think badly of the arch site in general...hell, they might even try suing (sp?)! Of course, the cuationary disclaimer "blah blah, no fault of mine, blah blah, women and children first, blah, orders from captain zeep" might negate lawsuits, but as far as reputational damage goes..not good.

Reputation is something built up over time, as far as business support goes. Now, there is, I believe, a page where people who have supported arch via donations, hard work, etc. are listed. This might provide a business with exposure, lending credence to the fact that at least they help out arch...might provide a bonus to secondary reputation, while at the same time, arch itself really is only saying, "hey, thanks for the contribution!"

I don't know...seems like a sticky issue that is likely a bit over my head. I don't know as much business as I would like, and i know far too much about other things, to be useful.

Mith · 2005-02-06 00:11:46

I think offering support is too much of a responsibilty. When someone pays for something, he/she expects it to be perfectly correct and working.. now if you give support to a company and something unforeseen happens and puff data crash.. I bet you they won't be happy..

let server admins try arch at home, get comfortable with it and then when they think they can handle most of the problems install it within their company and for all the other questions refer to the arch community (forum/irc/maillinglist)

iphitus · 2005-02-06 04:10:46

official paid for support wont happen unless arch goes commercial, which wont happen either

why? there isnt the resources or demand.

there isnt enough demand to pay someone to do that, and because there isnt enough demand, there isnt enough money to pay someone to do that. and you'd need a few people too.....

not happening.

miqorz · 2005-02-06 13:19:50

I don't care one way or the other. I wouldn't use it though.

Benedict_White · 2005-02-06 13:30:15

miqorz wrote:

I don't care one way or the other. I wouldn't use it though.

I would not expect you to. Most of the Linux community is made up by people who can fix things or talk to others who can give advice. Well, allot of Windows users do the same. Problem is that business likes to be able to pay some one to fix things.

iphitus wrote:

official paid for support wont happen unless arch goes commercial, which wont happen either

I must admit I would not want Arch to go the same way as Red Hat et al either.

Personally I was not thinking of centralised support, like hireing a Red Hat consultant, I was thinking in terms of being able to say X is competant in Arch.

Still, the idea does not seem popular at the moment, but at least no one has chosen the last option.

sarah31 · 2005-02-06 13:53:04

While it would be excellent if more users/businesses finacially supported Arch I just don't think the man power is ther to provide the quality paid for support that one would expect.

It would be fantastic if there wa senough mooney coming in for at least Judd to work on it full time without starving.

kill · 2005-02-06 16:27:24

I don't think it would be the best of ideas. No one knows everything and its to easy for people to get misinformation. Arch is a very open do it yourself distribution which is part of the problem. Red Hat and Novell get around the issue of different configurations by only supporting one. As anyone who has used SuSE knows its very hard to stray from the base install. This is to ensure adequate customer support. They know that configuration and how it should function making finding and solving problems relatively easy. Arch being so open there are to many factors to allow for support from a few individuals. Which leads to the issue of misinformation. If one of the paid support people give the wrong information it will be taken over the correct information from another source. Currently they're issues of misinformation on the board, paid support could just worsen this problem. No one knows every aspect and every piece of software out there.

Pajaro · 2005-02-06 17:11:49

I vote for "Pay in the open source way"

If you want your bug to be fixed earlier by the developers then do pay someone to help fix the bugs that are before yours in the buglist.

This is what enterprises that swtich to opensource use to do.

thegnu · 2005-02-07 17:15:16

If there IS paid support, might I recommend the Euro, and specifically NOT the US Dollar?

Wonderfully stable, that Euro.

EDIT: I forgot to add relevance to the topic at hand. I think paid support would be a good idea if someone wants to pitch Arch to any businesses. I think the first step is for people to pipe up and say that they have clients who will go with Red Hat only for the support. If there's a market for it and there are willing people, I don't see why not.

tomk · 2005-02-08 13:47:38

Official support would be a bad idea, IMO. As you say, Benedict, many businesses like to pay for support, because in doing so, they gain entitlement to the rights and protections afforded to paying customers. In negotiating their contracts or support agreements, they can request SLAs, service guarantees, and related penalties to ensure that these are enforced.

A support provider who enters into such an agreement becomes bound by it, immediately limiting their freedom and flexibility. I would hate to see this happen to Arch.

Yes, Arch needs wider adoption, and yes, this should mean adoption by business. But the support should be provided either in-house, like yourself, Benedict, or by impartial third parties. Furthermore, there should never be any endorsement by Arch of any such support providers.

To make a comparison, Debian is used by many businesses under similar arrangements.

Regarding the large amounts of money that Judd and the dev team should be earning, many FOSS developers work for commercial organisations, who recognise the value of their work, and accommodate it. One of the benefits of increased Arch exposure will be a higher profile for Judd & Co, hopefully leading to similar, and well-deserved, gainful employment.

Dusty · 2005-02-08 16:17:06

Interesting idea, interesting discussion....

I think it would be great if some company offered additional Arch support, but I think it would need a lot more funding than the current Arch project has. So third party support, with the company providing the support offering huge donations to Arch Linux would be the best case scenario.

Dusty

phrakture · 2005-02-08 16:22:56

I am now providing un-official arch support - if you want me to post in your thread, you must send me $1.99 (paypal, visa, mastercard, and cashier's check only) - then I will respond... this will be my last free post...

Benedict_White · 2005-02-08 17:56:41

I see that is now two people who think I am the spawn of Satan! :twisted:

tomk wrote:

Official support would be a bad idea, IMO. As you say, Benedict, many businesses like to pay for support, because in doing so, they gain entitlement to the rights and protections afforded to paying customers. In negotiating their contracts or support agreements, they can request SLAs, service guarantees, and related penalties to ensure that these are enforced.

Well, yes. The company I work for already does this for Novell, Microsoft and Linux. On the Linux front it is a minority of Suse box's, quite a few IPCop ones and quite allot of Arch. The businesses don't actually care what version of Linux, in fact many don't care if it is Linux, they just expect it to do what we say it does. We do that in exchange for cash.

A support provider who enters into such an agreement becomes bound by it, immediately limiting their freedom and flexibility. I would hate to see this happen to Arch.

Well, what support we provide for any of the platforms we support does not bind the vendor who provides the platform. So I don't see this as a problem.

Mind you Judd and co should be making money out of it as well.

Dusty wrote:

Interesting idea, interesting discussion....
I think it would be great if some company offered additional Arch support, but I think it would need a lot more funding than the current Arch project has. So third party support, with the company providing the support offering huge donations to Arch Linux would be the best case scenario.

Thanks for saying it was an interesting idea.

Well, we don't sell "Arch" but we do install systems which run on Arch. (Some at any rate) and this will probably expand. Being a for profit organisation we do have the resource to do this, especially for companies who are geographically close to us.

phrakture wrote:

I am now providing un-official arch support - if you want me to post in your thread, you must send me $1.99 (paypal, visa, mastercard, and cashier's check only) - then I will respond... this will be my last free post...

Well, the company I work for already charges for paid for support. That does not stop me provided free support. Mind you I am unlikely to fly over and stay for a week and fix something you broke for free.

thegnu · 2005-02-09 13:23:47

tomk wrote:

In negotiating their contracts or support agreements, they can request SLAs, service guarantees, and related penalties to ensure that these are enforced.

To be clear, this is the only part of your post I don't agree with. I think you can provide a reasonable amount of as-is support, and if people use the support, then good. If not, good.

Arch is for the daring, after all.

tomk · 2005-02-09 16:33:42

thegnu wrote:

To be clear, this is the only part of your post I don't agree with. I think you can provide a reasonable amount of as-is support, and if people use the support, then good. If not, good.

What you can provide and what a paying customer wants are likely to be two different things. In my experience, "as-is support" is not acceptable to many commercial organisations - they want contracted service levels.

thegnu wrote:

Arch is for the daring, after all.

Not a quality I associate with the mostly-conservative business world......

thegnu · 2005-02-13 16:23:36

tomk wrote:

What you can provide and what a paying customer wants are likely to be two different things.

Yeah. My point though is you provide a service you are willing to provide for a price you are willing to work for, and if someone agrees, they give you money. People will pay for what they want, and if they don't want a service, it's nothing personal. And arch is under no obligation to provide a reasonable service. Likewise, nobody is required to pay for it. My point is if you're reluctant to do something, charge an exhorbitant rate. Then if you get the work it'll be alright.

You know, if one person charged $500 to build me a brick wall and someone else would charge me $50 for a blow job, and I really wanted a brick wall, I'd spring for the $500.

Still Arch seems to be the kind of distro that would provide paid VIP service to a company's tech, and not to all the goons trying to do their online banking from work.

EDIT: If I wanted a blowjob, I'd be thankful it wasn't the other way around, though. :twisted:

Arch Linux

#1 2005-02-05 22:44:47

Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#2 2005-02-05 23:03:44

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#3 2005-02-05 23:16:40

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#4 2005-02-06 00:02:44

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#5 2005-02-06 00:11:46

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#6 2005-02-06 04:10:46

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#7 2005-02-06 13:19:50

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#8 2005-02-06 13:30:15

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#9 2005-02-06 13:53:04

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#10 2005-02-06 16:27:24

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#11 2005-02-06 17:11:49

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#12 2005-02-07 17:15:16

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#13 2005-02-08 13:47:38

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#14 2005-02-08 16:17:06

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#15 2005-02-08 16:22:56

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#16 2005-02-08 17:56:41

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#17 2005-02-09 13:23:47

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#18 2005-02-09 16:33:42

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

#19 2005-02-13 16:23:36

Re: Some thoughts on Arch's way forward.

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