Apache Geronimo / WebSphere CE support from IBM
IBM is now offering commercial support for a customized version of Apache Geronimo called WebSphere Application Server Community Edition. Ok, no big news, this won’t make it into CNN headlines.
IBM is offering 3 levels of support worlwide for respectively $900, $3250, $6000 per server (up to 4 CPUs). Details can be found here. For prices, you have to login and go to the catalog.
In addition, it is also offering support for Apache Geronimo directly. There are only 2 levels of support (Entry and Enhanced) and are also priced at $900 and $3250 as they are equivalent to the one on WebSphere CE. Details can be found here.
What do you think ? Is it expensive ?
I would have a tendency to think it is a pretty good price for companies, especially considering that IBM is actually ‘sponsoring’ Geronimo by paying some developers. It’s probably good value for money. But I’m wondering what will be their reactions.
Few seems educated to how opensource works (and especially how IBM has been involved over the years), and I know far too well that a couple of so-called OSS IT companies are selling such JBoss AS support to anyone willing to believe them that they can do so. Seems pathetic while they don’t know the community around or the source code.
Customers should look for companies or individuals with real track record in the community of the product they support, or at least request for proof of investment. If after a year of support there has not been a single patch submitted, this would clearly justifies cancelling support and penalties. I believe what’s missing is a directory of ‘certified’ professionals, the certification being the involvement into the community.
I guess if you know what you are doing you know to ask them things about who has commit rights, what they are working on right now, etc. etc. But if you are going to a company for support, you run the risk of being mislead by the shiny hype.
After all, consider how many orgs do provide support vs commit code? example: redhat’s contribs to linux are 2nd only to linus’s, even IBM lags there, and novell are way behind in the core, even if they now fund mono + gnome.
Comment by Steve Loughran — November 22, 2005 @ 12:22 am
Steve, I think it’s difficult to compare about Linus vs IBM. And I what I would ask first is ‘implication’, show me you’re there and doing something basically. Trying to quantify activity is a bit too harsh in software development. If a company X is selling JBoss support and is never posting nor contributing docs, fixes or something, there’s obviouslly something wrong.
Comment by stephane — November 23, 2005 @ 3:14 pm