Still no new license -- but draft text available

[Grant Griffin]

Olivier Dagenais wrote:

...

> I also have motivation for decreasing my technical support calls through
> making my software as easy and friendly as possible:  the less I am
> "bothered", the more time I can spend on the next version.  This might be
> harder for a company that has a department devoted to technical support and
> one to development, but for a one-man-band, it works out.

I think that's a good example of a broad principle.  One definition of the
eluisve term "quality" is "that which results in the least cost _to society_
over the life cycle of a product".  Note that quality does not depend on where
the cost occurs.  For  example, after buying a new van, I immediately found that
it needed a front-end alignment.  I took it in to the dealer, and that was done
at no cost (at least to me) under warranty, but I still had to expend the "cost"
of my time and trouble to get it done.  A "higher quality" van would not have
needed an alignment--which would have saved me and somebody else some cost.
This illustrates that customers would rather a problem not occur than for a
problem to occur and be fixed to their satisfaction--which coincides with the
definition of quality.  And regardless of the software business model
(shareware, closed/commercial, open-source), this fact about quality remains.

One revenue model in open source is to provide "service" in terms of adding new
features.  That may be a viable model, but I'm not sure that a "customer
support" model really is--at least in the long term.  That's because the higher
quality software (as defined above) is that which doesn't _need_ support.

those-who-think-of-support-as-a-cost-not-a-revenue-enhancer-will-ultimately-win-ly
y'rs,

=g2
--
_____________________________________________________________________

Grant R. Griffin                                       g2 at dspguru.com
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