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Abiword: Support Expectations
bockman
writes "Abiword developers have put up a
letter,
explaining what they expect from their user community and what the
community should (and should not) expect from a volunteer-based open
source software project like theirs. A much needed reality-check in
these times when a large number of non-developers have joined the
Linux users world." This is a must read for anyone who uses any
open source software.
That's funny, because it appears to me that the "you get what you pay for" ratio is still in favor of Open Source projects, as opposed to Microsoft. I guess it depends on how happy you are with your last Microsoft purchase versus your last use of software downloaded for free. I know which one I'm happier with.
See, if AbiSource was like Microsoft, they would be promising a completely secure and easy-to-use product in a couple months, miss their date by almost a year, and have recurring security issues (all of them completely denied, then considered "features", then patched quickly so as to break other parts of the product) up until it was time to release their next bloated version, and then repeat the whole cycle. So I don't really see where AbiSource has anything to be ashamed of, unless complete honesty with your user base is some sort of black mark against you.
Your right to not believe: Americans United for Separation of Church and
Still, it's also easy to see why users have expectations. After all, they've been told by journalists that Linux is Ready For The Desktop. They've read spewing by zealots about how fantastically superior Linux applications are and how there's limitless free, quick support available from The Community. They've read the stuff on the Red Hat or Mandrake box and spent money for it. They've invested time in installing Linux and in creating work on it. I can understand why they're annoyed to be told, "It's free and it's my spare-time hobby so deal with it."
I accept that dealing with a desktop Linux installation is a hobby in its own right and that you have to spend time to make it work and deal with some things that justa aren't there. But it's easy to see why a lot of users don't realize that.
Then there are the free software whackos who think that they're owed the world on a silver platter. But that's a whole other issue...
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
In my experience, there is a significant number of users that expect open source software developers to provide free product support. Product support is something from the commerical world. You paid for the software, so you are entitled to get help making it work for you. But open source software does not work that way. The users are expected to make an effort to read the documentation, to try to solve their own problems, and whenever possible, provide patches to fix bugs. You are not paying for the software with your money, so you, as a user, are not entitled to free support, or even software that works right. But when the software is good, and you make an effort to read documentation and solve your own problems, you will be rewarded with the knowledge and experience to solve your own problems again in the future.
I can't say I got that from the letter, but it is nice to see developers standing up from themselves. Especially in this day of "Free Software can compete with Pay software" it's great seeing someone telling it like it is. My favourite sentement:
The problem here is expecting too much all the time. Many of the more visible free software projects have made huge leaps in the past, and to many users that then makes them expect that sort of delivery to be the norm. If you deliver the best most of the time, it's expected all of the time. And as a developer, I'm flattered that users belive in a product and like it so much that the want to be able use it better. But as much as we love code, we also love just relaxing after work sometimes. The Abiword dev's want the software to get as good as it can be, but they also need to have time to work at their day jobs, cut the grass and walk the dog.
Perhaps in the future people will start paying for "free" software. That day, my friends, will be a glorious day.
Hilary Rosen's speech was about her love of money and her desire to roll around naked in a pile of money.
These guys make a great product, and put it out for free (beer and speech). They work hard for no money, and this letter is right on the money. If I don't pay for something, I'm not gonna expect tech support, or changes on my schedule. No one else should, either. It's like someone cooking up a meal for you, and serving it for free, and you picking it apart. This ain't Burger King, baby. If you want to have it your way, you need to help out and be patient. Hurray for Abisource making sure that people know where they stand
Damnit, Jim, I'm an anarchist, not a F@#$!^& doctor!
It's not that you get what you pay for. That's a lie told us by those selling the more expensive products. It isn't (necessarily) true in general, and more often not in free software.
It's that if you -do- get what you pay for, you can't complain.
AbiWord is much more useful than it's cost, but some people take that to mean they can just then start making demands. And people also don't know how to ask for the support that _is_ readily available.
And seriously, who the hell are these people calling when their software breaks? I've never even heard of someone having Word break and then picking up the phone to dial Microsoft. And if they did and started being beligerent to the person on the line, how much help do you think they'd get?
Reading this memo as an excuse of any kind is just wrong, because you don't need an "excuse" to not be able to hand the world to people who are irrationaly demanding it of you.
The enemies of Democracy are
sPh
The funny thing is, people think that paying for software gives them the right to "sue someone." Um, nope. Does the following look familiar? It should. It's attached to just about every commercial software package license agreeement:
We've all see this verbiage before--Microsoft uses it, even. But, what's really interesting is where I got this legal verbage from: The GPL. At least the Open-Source community is up-front and honest about what you can expect. Sue someone. Hrumph.
A lot of people don't have a clue what goes into a commercial software project. For example, Red Hat has only about 600 people. That is spread out through management, sales, marketing and support, as well as development. Now, Red Hat developers may be more productive than volunteers, since they are able to work on projects full time, but the vast majority of the work that goes into a new release of Red Hat Linux is in software written by the community.
.com era. They are not missed, either by OSS or Free software developers, or by profitable companies.
Microsoft's practices are harder to determine for an outsider, but they don't put in the huge amount of effort that the Abiword people think. For example, the Internet Explorer team is much smaller than the number of people working on Mozilla (in fact, it is smaller than the team working on Mozilla/ Netscape full time). The MS Word team is probably larger than the Abiword team, and support comes from a different group of people. However, if you email them and say, "Get this feature by tomorrow or I'm switching to something else!" they will have the exact same response as Abiword.
The days of 200 people working on a shell script to change directories using a web page went away with the end of the
Even Slashdot wants to hide some things
- Linux kernel version 2.4.mumble has problems and people ask "how can this be releasable". It's not stable!
- gcc 3.0 is unstable for the first few releases and folks start whining about how this isn't a production-quality compiler
- AbiWord says that they're not providing commercial-grade support services and everyone gets honked off and claims that open source software can't work
Can you all just take a step back, breathe deeply and remind yourselves that in any software organization with more than 10 developers there are two versions of the software (at least):- The development snapshot (or mainline, depending one your local terminology). This is a stable release from the developers to inernal customers such as Q/A, release engineering and perhaps alpha testers for integration testing and embeded product testing.
- The release. This is the ready-for-prime-time code that will be supported and maintained by the company.
Are you seeing the parallel here? When Linus releases kernel 2.4.57, he's releaseing a snapshot that lets Q/A (made up of Q/A groups in numerous companies that sell Linux-based products) release engineering (the distribution vendors) and alpha integration testers (embedded systems customers) begin their test and release cycle. Same for AbiWord. Ximian, Red Hat and many others release AbiWord, but I doubt that they ever release it absolutely as shipped. Their Q/A process only begins when AbiSource creates a new version.So, here's the question of the day: why are people shocked when the developers start acting like developers and say "we're not going to hand-hold you"? Well, there's a few reasons. Obviously there are the folks who just wait for an opportunity to slam OSS. Then there are the people who have become confused and don't realize that the Mozilla developers or the AbiWord developers are just that: developers. Then there are the folks who get their priorities confused. They say that they don't want to deal with "big business software", so they go it alone. This is all well and good, but when you do this, you have to expect the other shoe to drop.
If you're downloading gcc 3.0 the day it comes out because you want the new features fast, great! But, don't be shocked when your code fails to work correctly because you have a hardware combination that was not well tested. If you'd waited for Red Hat 7.2, you would have found the optional gcc 3.0.x binaries with a big old wad of patches. Why? Because they tested it, patched it, and released it.
Get over it. Software support is hard, and there are people in the OSS world that do it well. But, to expect every project to come out the gate with good Q/A and support is just silly.