People who are comparing OSS to commercial software need to interface with people who have a business plan which involves assisting them, which may not be the all of the people involved in the project. Their thing is developing clever software and that is great. What potential commercial users need is a data base which lists consultants who support particular projects. It would list the name, projects supported, geographical area served, level of involvement (project lead, contributor, or just providing support), and contact information. A person contimplating using OSS would search the data base to establish what support is available. Users would benefit from having more choices. The system would promote a dynamic market place for support of Open Source Software. Users of OSS would benefit because they would know that if their consultant did not give the desired level of service or raised fees to an unreasonable level, others would be happy to take his/her place. If they wanted to develop some level of expertise internally, the information to so would be readily available. They would know that if they wanted to make extensions to the software, the source code would be available. This is the way to take the problem described in the posting and make it a win for OSS.
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People who are comparing OSS to commercial software need to interface with people who have a business plan which involves assisting them, which may not be the all of the people involved in the project. Their thing is developing clever software and that is great. What potential commercial users need is a data base which lists consultants who support particular projects. It would list the name, projects supported, geographical area served, level of involvement (project lead, contributor, or just providing support), and contact information. A person contimplating using OSS would search the data base to establish what support is available. Users would benefit from having more choices. The system would promote a dynamic market place for support of Open Source Software. Users of OSS would benefit because they would know that if their consultant did not give the desired level of service or raised fees to an unreasonable level, others would be happy to take his/her place. If they wanted to develop some level of expertise internally, the information to so would be readily available. They would know that if they wanted to make extensions to the software, the source code would be available. This is the way to take the problem described in the posting and make it a win for OSS.