[Ubuntu-ch] Contact list on the wiki page, support and fees

[Myriam Rita Schweingruber]

Hi all,

I just went through a few additions on the contact list of our wiki page and 
found some issues:

A few people added themself as a contact _without_ giving any contact details. 
Please correct this ASAP, simply to have a coherent list. 

As mentionned in the header of the list, support can be given either for free 
or against a fee. Reading through the history of our IRC channel someone 
showed his surprise about that, so I think I should clarify this point:

Giving support can be done on a voluntary basis, but sometimes it ends up to 
be quite some work taking far more time than just a few message exchanges. 

Don't forget that it's not forbidden to work for money in the Free Software 
world and, unless you are really well off, everybody has to earn money for 
living. So even if Free Software is mostly given away for free and the 
license terms give everybody a lot of Freedom, the "Free Software Business 
Model" works quite well (as shown by quite a few businesses in the filed) and 
the money flows mainly from support contracts.

So please don't be shy to ask for money if you are asked to work for someone. 
The important thing of course is to talk about money first and agree on the 
contract terms, preferably with a written contract to make things clear for 
all parties involved.

Personally I only recently had such a case where the necessary time I would 
have had to invest in the support was going far beyond what I wanted to 
invest in "voluntary" work. I very successfully proposed a contract with a 
fixed amount on an hourly basis and the customer agreed on it. But of course 
I needed solid arguments. In this particular case it was easy, the customer 
didn't want to invest time reading through mailing lists, forums and user 
manuals to get his problem fixed and was quite happy I would do this for him. 

Those amongst you who are able to give commercial support on a regular basis 
should also consider to list themself in the Ubuntu Marketplace:
http://www.ubuntu.com/support/commercial/marketplace

This does not mean that everybody on the contact list has to consider giving 
commercial support, far from that. Simply keep in mind that sometimes the 
scale of support you might be asked for can go far beyond voluntary work, so 
don't hesitate to refuse "working for free" and ask for money or forward the 
work to someone else.

Of course it's difficult to say where to put the limits, this will always be 
something you have to work out for yourself, but you can always ask on IRC or 
the mailing list to get advice if you need help on such issues.

Have a nice day!

Myriam

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