[hobbit] Informal survey about commercial support for Hobbit

[Henrik Stoerner]

On Mon, Aug 28, 2006 at 09:16:05AM -0500, Reif Jeffery M wrote:
> a)  Regarding guaranteed response, you could use 2 business days, which
> is a common "basic" service level.

OK, that is what I was planning to offer.

> 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.

I try to.


> 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.

Right ... I do work for one such company :-) Some people just cannot
get their head to grasp that quality software might come without a
price tag, and - well, I try to please :-)


> 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?

I've setup a PayPal account now, and added a donation button on the demo
site. As I understand, that will also allow payments by 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.

It's an interesting idea. I am not sure I would like to use it, though - 
it could make planning of the releases more difficult. But I'll keep it
in mind.


Good input. Thanks!

Regards,
Henrik