On 2009-Jul-06 21:03:20 -0700, William Stein <wst...@gmail.com> wrote: >> * There is not a support line IT Services can ring up in the event of >> difficulties installing it on University systems. > >But note that there is a mailing list and irc chat room that IT >Services can get help from. > >It might also be worth noting that in the entire history of the Sage >project, nobody has ever once asked online or to me personally for a >phone conversation to help them with anything related to Sage. I.e., >nobody has ever written to sage-support or me personally and said "I >would like phone support. Is there anybody here who would help?"
Can I suggest adding a "Commercial Support" link to either the front page or the existing "Help Groups" page with a "not endorsed by the Sage Project" disclaimer and allow people and companies to request they be added to the list. I am thinking of something along the lines of http://www.freebsd.org/commercial/commercial.html This would seem to provide a service for prospective users without requiring they announce their requirements in a public forum. >> * Releases happen so frequently that IT depts. cannot hope to keep up >> with installing the latest releases. > >I wonder how much more often Sage releases are than iTunes releases? >I just checked and our releases are maybe about twice as frequent as >iTunes. I'm just pointing out that Sage isn't that unusual with its >release schedule. It used to be 2 years ago though. I think it would be more reasonable to compare Sage to the release schedules for the 3 M's (which I don't know). I _do_ find the current release schedule overly rapid (though in my case, that's because I'm trying to do some porting work and I'm finding it difficult to keep up). It's also worth considering the position of someone who relies on Sage - every time they upgrade, they need to go through their own regression test suite to ensure that functionality they rely on has not been adversely impacted. >> * Users are expected to be developers > >What does that mean really? It doesn't seem technically meaningful to >write "Users are expected to be developers". Expected by whom? What >is a developer? I agree this is a meaningless question. Is someone who writes an Excel macro a developer? >> * No glossy printed reference manual > >Add "You can't purchase a printed reference manual". There is a >glossy nice pdf reference manual, but it's not for sale. There's nothing stopping someone from offering to print and sell it. -- Peter Jeremy
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