paid support options meeting

[Christopher Browne]

On 5/8/05, David J Patrick <davidjpatrick-rieW9WUcm8FFJ04o6PK0Fg at public.gmane.org> wrote:
> William Park wrote:
> >Company will get support from whoever they got the application from or
> >whoever set up the system.
> >
> >
> What if they downloaded a free distro ? Or had it installed at an
> installfest ?

Then they can right well go back and install whatever the company
doing support is prepared to support.

The TRUE value of the InstallFest is to get people past the "learning
cliff" of getting Linux installed.

That gives them a system to toy around with.  If they want to head to
"serious" from there, there are two reasonable routes:

 1.  Figure it out themselves, and support it themselves, perhaps by
       pointing some questions in the direction of either mailing lists or
       at consultants billing not-inconsiderable hourly rates.

 2.  If they want a consultant holding their hand, it makes most sense
       to have the consultant start with a configuration that is KNOWN to
       the consultant, meaning that the consultant comes in and spends
       2h reinstalling things from scratch.

The instant you try to do some sort of cross between this, where you
expect GTALUG to do free installs and for the consultants to support
that, the lack of control at the InstallFest can, at blink of eye,
cost the poor client $200 because of some misunderstanding.

And that situation is in nobody's interests.  FAR better to pay $100
up front to get someone to do a fresh install so that there are no
arguments about who mussed things up.
-- 
http://www3.sympatico.ca/cbbrowne/linux.html
"The true  measure of a  man is how he treats  someone who can  do him
absolutely no good." -- Samuel Johnson, lexicographer (1709-1784)
--
The Toronto Linux Users Group.      Meetings: http://tlug.ss.org
TLUG requests: Linux topics, No HTML, wrap text below 80 columns
How to UNSUBSCRIBE: http://tlug.ss.org/subscribe.shtml