Valentina Developer Program For Priority Fixes: Your Feedback Wanted

[Sims, John]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: valentina-bounces at lists.macserve.net 
> [mailto:valentina-bounces at lists.macserve.net] On Behalf Of 
> Lynn Fredricks
> Sent: Thursday, October 13, 2005 1:00 AM
> To: valentina at lists.macserve.net
> Subject: Valentina Developer Program For Priority Fixes: Your 
> Feedback Wanted
> 
> Hi all,
> 
> Ive been asked by a long time user about providing a "pay per 
> fix" program such as REAL Software has 
> (http://www.realsoftware.com/support/developerprogram/#quickfi
> x). Well and good, we can do this, but Id like to get your 
> feedback on how valuable this would be for you. Anyone who 
> has been a Valentina developer for more than just a few weeks 
> knows that the development team hops on problems very 
> quickly. But even then, not all issues get addressed in the 
> order they'd like.
> 
> If we published this, it would be on a credit system based on 
> the "one day or less" model, ie if it takes a less than a 
> day, it would count as a day.
> If it flows over into day two, then it would be two credits. 
> Once we quote a fix time, that's the maximum number of 
> credits. We'd also narrow the offering to VDN members. VDN 
> isnt just about using Valentina Embedded Server, its also an 
> upgrade/maintenance, access to the private forum, the dev 
> versions of Office Server and the like.
> 
> What do you all think?
> 
> Best regards,
> 
> Lynn Fredricks
> President
> Paradigma Software, Inc

Lynn and all...

One thing that has not really been touched on in this discussion is the
affect such a system can have on the product.  What do I mean by this?
Well, if you are only talking about the end-user having the ability to
pay for true bug fixes to be elevated, that is one thing.  But if you
open the door to situations where Valentina is not filling an
individual's need (which so many developers incorrectly see as a bug)
and then allow the individual to pay to have what amounts to a "feature"
implemented then you have really big problems.  The last company I
worked for used to allow customers to file feature requests like most
companies do.  However, if it was a feature that we were not planning on
implementing anytime soon or one we did not plan to implement at all,
the customer had the option to pay for that feature to be added to the
application in a timely fashion.  Since so many of these were features
that only specific customers wanted for themselves (and no other
customer would ever see the use for), the application became completely
schizophrenic from a developers point of view.  I can see the value in
giving a customer the option to elevate a fix to a bug (entered in
Mantis and verified by Paradigma as a bug), but I strongly recommend you
avoid the path of allowing individuals to "purchase features".

My long-winded 2 cents :-)

-John