On Thu, 2003-01-23 at 10:39, Philip Hazel wrote:
> Tell your management that this is the difference between commercial and
> free software:
>
> . For commercial software, you pay big bucks and get phone support. When
> you phone up with a problem, they tell you it will be fixed in the
> next release, which is due out in 6 months time.
>
> . For free software, you pay nothing, and don't get phone support. If
> you have a problem, you post to the mailing list, and if it's a real
> problem you get a patch within 24 hours.
There are, of course, companies that provide full commercial support for
Free and Open Source Software, on per-incident or maintenance contract
basis. The real difference with FOSS is that you have a choice of
support strategies:-
* Commercial pre-paid support contract
* Commercial per-incident
* In House expertise
* Ad hoc mailing list etc
You don't even necessarily need to commit to one of these forms - you
can combine more than one, and change pretty much on the fly if you
wish.
I don't know of any companies specifically offering exim support (mainly
because I have had no need to look for them), but I am sure there are a
number of quite skilled consultancies.
I would say that for ISP level (ie very large installation) support you
almost certainly need a significant degree of In House expertise no
matter what MTA product you use - ISPs (or big Universities,
Corporations etc) just have different degrees of requirements - I doubt
there are more than 3 mail system installations with more than a million
active registered users in the UK for example.
Nigel.
--
[ Nigel Metheringham Nigel.Metheringham@??? ]
[ - Comments in this message are my own and not ITO opinion/policy - ]
