Kaj Kandler wrote:
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Hi Juergen et. al,
Juergen Schmidt wrote:
| sophie wrote:
| independent of any tool that can help to check at least broken links. I
| think charging to get listed is still a good idea. Ideally a small
| amount of money per year. I am sure that we will get only serious
| consultants when we do it this way.
You are right, when looking at it this way, as a service to the
consultants.
|
| The software is free but that doesn't mean that everything else is for
| free as well. We all know that this is the only way to make money with
| an open source project. Consultants make money with a free software and
| can build a business in any way around this product. I think it is only
| fair to pay such a little fee to sponsor the project. Independent of
any
| other potential activities in the community (ux, extensions,
| sponsorship, ...)
I'd second the free software does not mean free support services. I
believe
FOSS in general should do a better job at explaining that it is actually
not free but rather shared development effort and that everybody
involved has to earn a living somehow.
However, I don't think that charging for the consulting listing is very
helpful. Here are the three reasons:
* Administering the charging process consumes most of the revenue and so
far we haven't got a volunteer organized to maintain the list, so
getting a volunteer to administer the money and maintain the list does
sound not more but less likely for me. And if you charge you really need
to perform.
* A "small" fee is relative to your context. A small annual fee in the
U.S. or Germany is a month worth of income in countries like Romania or
Kenia. Not to mention the added cost of paying anything in currency for
countries that do not have Euro or Dollars as native currency.
* The aim should not be on servicing the consultants but rather the
users. Make it easy for the users to find a consultant.
My proposal would be to offer a Wiki system with a page per consultant,
that "the system" does encourage to update about once a year at least. I
think that would server the users best, because:
* Each service provider has the opportunity to describe in detail what
his/her experience is, allowing the user to seek the best matching
provider. Although every provider can do this on their own website.
* The update component would serve as an important indicator that the
provider cares about this listing and renews its statements there. This
helps the users to separate the want to be's from the real active
offerings. I think even better could be some sort of comment or rating
system by users itself, because it would serve in addition as education,
that service is not a free replicatable commodity as is the digital form
of a program.
Just my two cents.
K<o>
P.S.: If you want to put a hurdle on the listing, how about an annually
updated (changed) reference customer with contact information for
verification by users. This would allow anybody to offer the listing
(with equal cost around the world and no hassle of collection), serve
the purpose of education as well and showcase use cases for successful
support and services. I'm also sure that any interested press person
would love such references for interviewing and in depth research
(another desirable effect).
I'm on both the consultants list and the CD distribution list myself and
I think both these proposals are very good. I have also already
'screened' the 'competition' a few years ago and back then the lists
were already stale. An other system is really needed!
I must say, on the other hand, that I have never been approached by
anybody for consultancy. Once, yes, but that was not due to the listing,
but because somebody in France forwarded an institution from Brussels to
me (and probably a few others). Requests for CDs are also not often
made, but in this country everybody and his neighbour has broadband, so
that's not too surprising.
Jo
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