support contracts Re: [omniORB] omniORB4 for mission critical production app

[Huw Rogers]

It's not at all hard for an individual to generate a support contract
acceptable to a major corporation. There will usually be a couple of
iterations of contract negotiation about specific terms. You could also ask
to get a peek at another vendor's support contract while at the
customer's premises, in order to see a sample. There are also samples on
the net. Typical support contracts comprise both a retainer and a
time/materials (hourly billing + expenses) component. The retainer often
includes a base number of hours support (e.g. 8 hours a month), with the
T&M rate applied for excess hours. Expenses are usually travel expenses
for on-site software support. It's generally better for the support
contractor to try and get a high retainer / fixed number of hours if
they are confident the hours won't get used up, since they get paid
irrespectively and the hours expire at the end of the period (make sure
of this, otherwise you have an open ended commitment).

	-Huw

> Duncan Grisby wrote:
> 
> > On Friday 26 April, baileyk@schneider.com wrote:
> >
> > > If Duncan were to offer support for a reasonable fee, I'm almost sure we'd
> > > pay for it.  However, I wonder if he has the legal staff necessary to bang
> > > out a contract my company's lawyers will accept.  Lack of commercial
> > > support is the big stumbling block here.   ...
> 
> i would like to summit that if a company is run by lawyers, than omniorb is
> probably the wrong kind of software,  free and open source.  it would be much
> safer to go w commercial ones like microsoft's.  for a top notch omniorb expert,
> it is the lawyer's job to bang out a contract that the techy will accept and to
> pay him to review the contract.
> 

-- 
Huw Rogers <rogers@building2.co.jp>