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gEDA-user: Re: RHEL

DJ Delorie wrote:

But RHEL costs ~$800 - $2500 *per year* for usable versions. If that's not "screwing your customers for profit", then I don't know what is. 


Most of that cost is for 24/7 phone support, which our customers feel
is a reasonable price for what they get.  Note: the way our company
works, your questions end up getting answered by engineers like
myself, not mindless drones like some other companies.

Do you think it's worth $800/year to be able to ask me questions and
get answers (and often patches) the same or next day?  That's our
usual turn-around time for gcc bug reports.  How much would it be
worth to be able to get 24 hour turn-around on bug reports for gEDA or
PCB?  Ok, now add that you're under the gun to finish your board, and
we usually have engineers online 24 hours a day? (I've been known to
send out patches at 2am local time)

We have some customers who get an engineer on site, too, and some that
get an engineer's home phone number with permission to wake them up in
the middle of the night.



Wow! I didn't know you were RH.

1) The quote "screwing customers for profit" came from an earlier poster; my point was that MS charge less, and they have no problem turning a profit. I personally have no problem with making a profit or paying lots of money for software, both of which I already do.

2) I agree that these are reasonable prices for support contracts, but I personally don't want a support contract.

*That* is what our customers are paying for.

If you want to find some more customers, here's a suggestion. What I (and lots of other people) want is a stable and usable platform that doesn't look and feel like it has been put together by hackers. I don't want phone support; just something that works (and has a good online update service). Something like OSX or, dare I say it, even Windoze. I'd be happy to pay Windows prices for this.

Evan