[OSGeo-Discuss] Commercial Support for the OSGeo Stack

[Cameron Shorter]

I've just written the following blog about providing support for the 
OSGeo Stack. Comments welcomed.

http://terrapagestech.blogspot.com/2007/04/commercial-support-for-open-source.html

Overview
In this article I argue that commercial support for Open Source 
Geospatial Software will increase its use and I propose how we as a 
community should structure ourselves to provide the support.
Background
Open Source Geospatial Software is maturing is breaking into broader 
industry adoption. We have:

   1. Robust, stable high performance software components,
   2. Strong Standards compliance and integration between components,
   3. The OSGeo Foundation <http://osgeo.org/>, an umbrella organization
      providing cross project and community links and standards for
      organization and quality.

However, there are still things we can do to increase adoption of our 
products from enterprise customers:

   1. Make installation of the Open Source Geospatial Stack easier.
      Users often need to install a number of different software
      packages and their dependencies, all from different sources, in
      order to deploy a Geospatial solution.
   2. Improve our documentation.
   3. Offer dependable and timely support. This is what I shall be
      focusing on in this article.

Why pay for support?

OSGeo projects have a community of people providing extensive support 
via email lists and IRC for free! And while developers may accept 
payment for their advice, many have also stated their intent to continue 
providing feel support. So why pay?
Lets study a typical user's experience. The user installs ~ 3 packages, 
configures and sometimes extends some components. The user runs into 
glitches and requests help. Each support request involves ~ 5 emails, 
often with up to a one day turnaround. Some responses would be to point 
the user to another email list. Sometimes the user's question requires a 
lot of debugging and volunteers don't answer or take their time 
answering. The user is delayed, or forced to fend on their own. The 
user's key problems are:

   1. Schedule Slip due to long support cycles.
   2. Schedule Risk due to unpredictability of response times.
   3. Budget Risk due to unknown support and customization costs.

Why offer support?
Support contracts are relatively small, have high response requirements 
which impact internal schedules, and there is a high risk that customers 
will overwhelm any fixed price contract. Why offer this service?

   1. It is a good lead generator for larger consulting work. A company
      that offers support is likely to understand the products they support.
   2. The OSGeo community as a whole will benefit from the increased
      number of financial users which are attracted to using our products.

Support Products
Below is a list of proposed products we should offer to match the 
support requirements:
Development Contracts
Hire a developer to add functionality or customize an existing product. 
This could be fixed price or hired per hour.
There are already a number of people doing this. Value could be added by 
offering a head hunter service which finds quality developers for users.
Single Product, Second Tier Support
Offer second tier support for a fixed number of hours with guaranteed 
response times for one product. Support will generally be provided by 
email or IRC and offered internationally, so response times will usually 
be one working day. This will typically be provided by respected 
developers of the product.
Local, Multiple Product, First Tier Support
Offer local, first tier phone support for multiple products as an annual 
fixed price service. This will generally be provided by local companies 
who have general knowledge of these products and can answer 80% of 
queries. These companies would engage Second Tier Support contracts to 
answer difficult questions.
"We offer local support with international backing."
References
OSGeo <http://osgeo.org/>. The Open Source Geospatial Foundation is an 
umbrella organization for the key Open Source Geospatial products.
Refactions Research Support 
<http://www.refractions.net/servdetail/index.php?file=6-PostGIS.data> 
Refractions Research offers daily consulting.
DM Solutions Premier <http://www.dmsolutions.ca/premiere/>. DM Solutions 
offers first tier, fixed price support for a number of OSGeo products.
Motivations
As System's Architect at LISASoft <http://lisasoft.com/>, Cameron 
Shorter <http://cameron.shorter.net/> aims to set up Australian first 
tier support for packages in the Open Source Geospatial Stack, and 
international second tier support for Community Mapbuilder 
<http://communitymapbuilder.org/>. This article is aimed to trigger 
discussion and encourage Community Members to start aligning behind the 
above support groups.
Comments on this article will be welcomed.

-- 
Cameron Shorter
Systems Architect, http://lisasoft.com.au
Tel: +61 (0)2 8570 5050
Mob: +61 (0)419 142 254