[hobbit] Informal survey about commercial support for Hobbit

[Jerry Yu]

c would be easy enough to do, with a paypal account. All Henrik needs to do
is to publish a special email account  which he links to his paypal account.

On 8/28/06, Reif Jeffery M <ReifJefferyM at johndeere.com> wrote:
>
> A few things come to mind:
>
> a)  Regarding guaranteed response, you could use 2 business days, which
> is a common "basic" service level.  Guaranteeing 4/8/24 hours starts
> costing a *lot* more as the time goes down, at least with support
> agreements that I have been involved with.  Note that "response" means
> acknowledgement of the issue.  A fix is on a best-effort basis.  From
> what I've seen, you generally exceed that now.
>
> b)  You may consider offering your product for sale, with or without a
> support option:  Put together a one page quote that describes hobbit as
> it exists today.  Same thing everyone else gets, just for sale.   For
> those companies that "need" to purchase a product license rather than
> just download some old thing off the internet ;).    If you work for one
> of those companies, you know what I'm talking about.  No kidding.  I
> don't think you would have a huge volume here, but if a few are
> desperate to write you a check for $5000, then you could take them up on
> it.
>
> c)  If you had a donation link, I think a lot of folks would be happy to
> donate occasionally, a few $$ per month, or when they've benefited from
> your work, etc.  Kind of like a 'tip jar'.  Does the Amazon thing allow
> a monetary donation to an accout, or does anyone have expertise in
> setting this up, like with a credit card?
>
> d)  I have seen sites that use a bid system for solutions or
> enhancements.  For example, I would like to have feature XYZ added.  I
> would be willing to pay $10 for it.  Several other people would like it
> too and could offer $5, $10, $20, or $0 for it.  You decide whether you
> want to do it or not, but if you do, it would be worth that sum of
> money.  I don't know if this method works or not.
>
> I prefer method "c", and use it fairly regularly.  I would have used "b"
> at a previous employer - back in the BB days, had it been available.
>
> Whichever system is chosen (or not), Henrik has demonstrated commitment
> to this project; more so than any commercial vendors I've dealt with.
> Thanks, Henrik.  And also thanks to the contributors in the user
> community whose names pop up regularly.
>
> Jeff
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: henrik at hswn.dk [mailto:henrik at hswn.dk]
> Sent: Thursday, August 24, 2006 10:19 AM
> To: hobbit at hswn.dk
> Subject: [hobbit] Informal survey about commercial support for Hobbit
>
> I've had a couple of enquiries about providing commercial support
> for Hobbit. In essence they need a guaranteed response to e-mail
> support queries, as a supplement to the mailing list where mails
> do get answered, but not always within a day or two.
>
> Making money off Hobbit never was my intention, but being paid for
> doing what is really a hobby for me does seem attractive.
>
> So this is just an informal survey:
>
> * Would you be interested in paying for Hobbit support?
> * What kind of support do you need? E-mail for solving problems,
>   custom feature developments, or ... ?
> * What response-time requirements do you have? Since I'm in Europe
>   and a lot of the Hobbit users are in the US or Australia, I have
>   a problem with same-day response guarantees.
> * How much are you willing to spend on it ?
>
> Feel free to respond here on the list, or to me directly.
>
> Just to avoid raising any panic, let me emphasize that this will NOT
> in any way stop or detract from the support I offer here on the
> mailing list. I think the mailing list will always be the primary
> support channel, and a place for discussing Hobbit developments,
> beta versions and all the other related issues. It's just that some
> companies feel more comfortable using software when there is a
> "normal" support contract.
>
>
> Regards,
> Henrik
>
>
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>
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>
>
>
>
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