I'm not entirely sure I follow. Let's take Linux as an example of an open-source product for which there are companies selling support.
Company A takes a vanilla distribution of Linux, and differentiates themselves by providing "better" support than the others.
Company B takes a vanilla distribution of Linux, and differentiates themselves by adding innovative new features that people want (for example, package management a la Debian or Gentoo). Despite the fact that these new features are open source, Company A cannot easily integrate them into their own product - because they would then be required to support said features.
So which company am I going to buy support from? If I want the new features present in B Linux, you can bet I'm going to buy support from Company B - even if A's support is "better". Why? Because B's engineers can more easily answer my support questions, and, if I am an important enough customer, they can even fix / add things specifically for me.
I think what I'm getting at is that companies providing innovative features, in my opinion, are going to win out over "better" support - which is a rather subjective claim to begin with.
I am really fascinated by this trend of selling support for open-source software. If a company creates a free, open-source product, and then uses support as their business model (RedHat, for example), doesn't that produce a conflict of interest in regards to the quality of their product? If the product is difficult to use, they will make more money off support. If it's rock-solid and completely intuitive, their revenues will crumble.
Am I making any sense?
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I'm not entirely sure I follow. Let's take Linux as an example of an open-source product for which there are companies selling support.
Company A takes a vanilla distribution of Linux, and differentiates themselves by providing "better" support than the others.
Company B takes a vanilla distribution of Linux, and differentiates themselves by adding innovative new features that people want (for example, package management a la Debian or Gentoo). Despite the fact that these new features are open source, Company A cannot easily integrate them into their own product - because they would then be required to support said features.
So which company am I going to buy support from? If I want the new features present in B Linux, you can bet I'm going to buy support from Company B - even if A's support is "better". Why? Because B's engineers can more easily answer my support questions, and, if I am an important enough customer, they can even fix / add things specifically for me.
I think what I'm getting at is that companies providing innovative features, in my opinion, are going to win out over "better" support - which is a rather subjective claim to begin with.
I am really fascinated by this trend of selling support for open-source software. If a company creates a free, open-source product, and then uses support as their business model (RedHat, for example), doesn't that produce a conflict of interest in regards to the quality of their product? If the product is difficult to use, they will make more money off support. If it's rock-solid and completely intuitive, their revenues will crumble. Am I making any sense?