06.03
Many new users of Free/Open Source Software come with one of two (if not more) unrealistic expectations: either an expectation for support despite not having paid anything for the software or support, or an idea that Open Source = Public Domain.
Community-based support is not the same as commercial support. Community-based support is a purely volunteer effort, and should not have particular expectations of response times. For example, telling the community that a particular issue is “Urgent!” does not generally make it more urgent for the community. Making no effort to solve the problem yourself generally leads to even less urgency from the community. If you want a commercial level of support, pay for it. For example, Canonical offers commercial support for Ubuntu. There are many support vendors out there.
Open Source is not Public Domain software. It has a copyright and a license. I have seen several people complaining that particular libraries are GPL-licensed (or other so-called “viral” licenses) preventing them from using them in their commercial applications. Please realize that you are asking to take someone else’s work for free and turn a profit on it. Either participate in the social contract of open source, find another library, or approach the developer and offer to pay for a dual-license to allow use in your proprietary work. Using GPL code without adhering to the copyleft provisions of the license is software piracy, which nobody should tolerate. Presumably, if you don’t want your application to be open source, you’re looking for others to pay you for your work. I don’t think you’d very much appreciate it being resold without a license and without revenue for you.
There is a social contract in addition to the legally-binding licenses behind FOSS. Respecting it will continue to encourage the development of a productive software ecosystem.
So, there’s a $50 or less end-user support package out there somewhere people can buy? Link?
Canonical Support Qty 1 is $55, but the 3-pack comes in at $43/system.
Isn’t the expectation of urgent help the same expectation every computer enthusiast faces with friends and family regardless of the software when acting as technical support in their traditional circle of brick and mortar acquaintances ? Isn’t what you are describing just a transference of this expectation to the community of Ubuntu techies as social interactions become more and more distributed and network based? Shouldn’t this sort of expectation transference be expected in a distributed technical community which bills itself as the most social and approachable? People have been abusing the technical knowledge of their friends for years for cheap support…seems reasonable that sort of behaviour would bleed into a technical community which defines itself as friendly.
But even if that expectation transference babble is off the mark…you still have the problem that noone is actively advocating end-user commercial services seriously. When people advocate for Ubuntu… access to community help is a talking point. For the people who come to Ubuntu via word of mouth by being introduced to it by friends and acquaintance Ubuntu advocates… how are they suppose to know about the Canonical end-user services? Have you ever seen anyone mention Canonical end-user support service price points when handing out LiveCDs? Have you seen anyone ever rave wildly about how great the installation phone support Canonical provides in that starter edition? Have you ever heard anyone mention their experience at all with Canonical’s installation-only phone support? Or for that matter the email support? Have you ever heard anyone ever ask a new user who was having installation problems if they had used the Canonical phone support before attempting to help solve the problem?
And what are your thoughts about an OEM’s responsibility at pointing less technical consumers to commercial end-user support options instead of to the community? How many OEMs who are currently selling an Ubuntu pre-installed system include an option to purchase the starter support? How many of those OEMs prefer to point people to community support ahead of the Canonical services? And since the starter edition support package only has phone support for installation..does it even provide any real value to new Ubuntu users who purchase Ubuntu pre-installed?
-jef
Really ? If so, then please cut-and-paste that _clearly_ on distro’s download page and remove such thing as “linux for human being”. Unless this is your opinion only, which i assume it is. (or unless you’re right, and these distro rely on tricking users by not telling it, of course.)
On a more positive note, even perfectly-aware users who don’t except support from a free product, they do _not_ expect that it have to fully change (and often broke) every six months and that bugs won’t be fixed because ‘they are fixed in the development version’ (bis repetita)
Sometimes, i really feel that it’s not the users who don’t understand how it works…
Benjamin: If you’d rather it not change so often, just install the LTS versions. It’s supported to do a direct upgrade from one LTS to the next. I’m not aware of any “tricking” of users going on, and I don’t think “Linux for human beings” is selling the notion that the community support is good, free, and fast.
Perhaps people would be more tolerant of community support if the system documentation was better. I can’t count how many times in the past week I have found outdated documentation, links that go nowhere, etc. on the ubuntu website. The site is chock full of references to Gutsy, Hardy, etc. Sometimes it even says: “This document is out of date. Click her for new version.” You click the link and 404. The state of the documentation is dismal. There ought to be a clean set of documentation for each release, each in it’s own self contained site.
David: thanks for your reply, but why did you reply that ? Did you assume i, or users, aren’t aware of the LTS ? Those people suggesting LTS (which happens every six months on Ubuntu forum, after every users complaining their setup broke are told that they didn’t _have to_ upgrade) probably didn’t really meet real-world user using LTS.
Note that, I’m all for complaining about users assuming support is free, which is not true, of course, but i think people should not underestimate _why_ so many users feels they need to “ask” (which you may think as “support” but they might call as “basic things”).
David:
How many OEMs stuck with the last LTS on consumer desktops and laptops offerings? I really don’t think you can expect the new users walking in the door to know they should be preferring using only the LTS releases..especially when the OEMs who are catering to the consumer market don’t even do it. Everything that a new personal-use user sees in terms of real world marketing and outreach into the Ubuntu userbase re-enforces the idea that the latest release will be better than the last..and easy to upgrade to…and therefore better for them to use. There’s just as much indiscriminate rah-rah for non-LTS releases as there is for LTS, so from a newish user perspective there’s not really that much distinction. The only people who really know they prefer LTS are the people who’ve gotten burned by a bad upgrade…its a trial by fire. Non of the contextual chatter encourages less-experienced users to prefer LTS releases.
And as for “the linux for human beings” slogan. You are right, it doesn’t explicitly speak to community support. But when people (and OEMs) advocate Ubuntu to new users they most assuredly give the impression that community support is “good,free and fast.” I challenge you to find anyone who participates in organized events or LoCos who advocate to new users to buy Canonical end-user supporter instead of relying on community support who isn’t themselves a Canonical employee. And even then, I think you’d be hard pressed to find someone who can authentically speak to a personal experience using Canonical end-user support. Everyone reaches for community support as a primary resource.
How many LoCo team members in total globally have actually paid for/used Canonical end-user support to get help on a problem…any problem? How many LoCo team members globally have reached out to community support and had an overall positive experience? When you rely heavily on word of mouth advocacy, the personal experience of the advocates are going to influence the people they talk to. Since peer community support is a mainstay of the LoCo members and other advocates.. they will naturally point new users to the same community resources.
Canonical has to start getting people talking about the value of the end-user support offerings and to start relating positive personal experiences using it…socializing its usage. The same way that they’ve done a talking points campaign for launchpad and bzr and quickly and desktopcouch and all the other technology gunk they want to see widely adopted. If you want the support services to be widely adopted, then someone needs to start putting a happy face on spending money for it and relate personal experience using the services.
-jef
If the author of this article is suggesting that a user of open source software with problems associated with said software should not expect prompt response from a community with someone in that community more capable of fixing the problem in question then I would have to say that the word Ubuntu in this case would be a farce.
A response does not necessarily mean a solution it just reassures the user that someone else is there that cares, fortunately though, there quite often will be speedy responses and speedy solutions, the nature of many people in the technical fields willing to help with one problem or another has formed almost a natural law that makes this expectation an acceptable and realistic one.
The above is most fortunate and is even the case for none free operating systems as well, any time a powerful and useful product falls in the hands of people, whether free or purchased a community builds around it and most often become self sustaining, because most know and understand the usefulness of the product.
It has become so commonplace and widespread with the proliferation of the user forums and the power of the search engines and the goodness of people with willingness to share their knowledge that it is rather ridiculous to expect one to resort to paid services, in a business climate paying for support is expected, free or none free, in the world of the home desktop user the community is most valuable and is the chief mode of support free or none free, more so in the free Linux community where the bulk of the users are do it yourself types some more skilled than others but all willing to help in whatever way they can. The latter model is something that fits distributions like “Ubuntu” well.
If free and open software is to have a healthy rewarding existence it needs the above model, pay for service if you are operating a big business, use the community and expect it to help in a timely way if you are a small operator or individual, I wonder which big business would expect to use any kind of software without paid support or a bunch of paid in house experts anyway?
I think this is all a matter of perspective. I’m a developer, not an Ubuntu developer but a free software developer who jointly owns / operates a small IT shop. For us, the main reason why use ubuntu is for the community support. We have 2 canonical support contracts but we quite often find that the quickest way to solve a problem is actually via the community. Not because canonical are slow or unhelpful. It’s just that due to the large number of community members, someone somewhere has often encountered the problem before us. Otherwise Canonical would have to first replicate the issue or get us to aquire the appropriate information.
Now in comparison, we used to have contracts with Oracle, Microsoft , EDS and HP. Getting our definition of ‘urgent’ support from any of these companies was close to impossible and some of our clients were paying very large amounts of money.
I think from a technical user point of view the community support is invaluable but I must admit that non technical users will have a significantly harder time accessing it in an effective way.
I myself hang out in #ubuntu and I know that just the other day someone asked a basic question like ‘how do i launch application xxxx ‘ which I just ignored, along with the rest of the channel at the time.
However, that same day someone was having issues getting Spamassasin working correctly with amavis on their mail sever and myself and at least 7 others would have spent a good 4 hours helping them to get it working.
I have no idea why I felt compelled to help the second person and not the first.
I really agree that there needs to be more focus on people buying a support contract. Perhaps even an option right next to / below the free download link on the web site.
Linux for human beings doesn’t mean, free no obligation support guaranteed. At least that isn’t what i means to me.
Andrew,
Since you’ve said you are paying Canonical for a couple of support contract I have to ask. Have you ever actually used the services you are paying for or are you essentially paying for piece of mind / self imposed moral obligation?
If you have used Canonical’s support services for something, can you describe the reason and what the overall experience was? Was the issue resolved? And if so how?
-jef