[ic] Frustrated with IC 4.8

[Ed LaFrance]

At 02:16 PM 09/17/2001 -0400, you wrote:


[snip]

>I propose a monthly registration fee to this mailing list to collect
>money for development and documentation support. I like to know, who would
>support this idea and what you consider a price, which would reflect the
>value of help you are getting here.
>
>Birgitt Funk

This is a quite fair idea - I for one would be willing to pay a reasonable 
monthly subscription fee for some type of "support list" membership or 
support forum, either a mailing list, web-based forum, or however it worked 
best.

To convince me to buy in, the list/forum would need to be somewhat more 
segmented than interchange-users.  For example, this list gets a large 
amount of traffic regarding installation problems - I would certainly want 
that compartmentalized so that I don't see it (and the replies to it) 
unless I choose to.  I assume this would require a system in which posters 
choose the topic of their inquiry up front - perhaps something more like 
the interchange IRC, with topic-based groups, or a web-based bbs-style 
forum, would be more appropriate.

Another thing that would be important to me is that the forum be monitored 
by member(s) of the IC team in some fashion, for the purpose of distilling 
relevant content into FAQ's and knowledge databases, to answer the sticker 
technical questions, and maintain the relevancy of the forums (are you 
listening, Miss Cleo?) - much like what is being done now on this list, but 
more frequently and less arbitrarily.  I would want to know that I am not 
just paying for an copy of the free list.

Many other developers of both open- and closed-model software do this 
currently.  Red Hat is not operating a charity, as far as I know.  Free 
lists like this one can still be offered, but no one would blame Red Hat 
for putting their attention to what offers revenue.

Comments, anyone?

- Ed L.


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