Official GNOME support page

The following page is a proposal for an official "Support" page on gnome.org. The page would link to companies able to professionally support GNOME and related technologies. The "Support" link will be available on the gnome.org front page.

Goal:

  • Allow companies interested in GNOME technologies to easily find professional support.
  • Fight the criticism that GNOME and GTK are not supported by a company or don't have any support at all.
  • Foster the GNOME eco-system by offering a place where GNOME professionals could meet potential customers.

This proposal is supported by the following companies:

Creating the page

Creating the page should be the job of the Web team. If they don't have the resources for that, interested companies might give a hand.

Structure of the page

1) Community support : a short introduction to the community and links to IRC and mailing-list where free support can be asked.

(This already exists, almost, though it's hard to find: http://www.gnome.org/contact/ (see User help) and see the Resources list at the bottom of each gnome.org page, in those menus/lists that nobody will ever find. We should avoid duplication. Murray)

2) Commercial support : a list of companies providing commercial support for GNOME or GNOME-related technologies. Each company comes with a logo, a short description of the company, a link to their website and an email of contact.

3) Contact of the maintainer of the page.

Commercial support committee

The page is maintained by a "Commercial support committee" (which can be a one-person committee). The committee is chosen by the board of directors. Directors themselves might be part of that committee.

Members of that committee should not be part of any company which are listed on the page or that might want to be listed on the page or that might have conflict of interests, unless the board grant an exception.

Adding a new company to the support page

Each company that want to be listed on the support page should send an email to Commercial support committee with their logo, their description, website and email of contact.

The committee will take its decision based on the following criteria:

  • Is the company well offering services about GNOME or GNOME technology (Selling a GNOME product is *not* considered as a service)
  • Is this offer well advertized on the company website
  • Is the company actively contributing to GNOME (by employing key maintainers for example, or by having a record of published projects)
  • Is the description accurate and not misleading?

Those rules are only guidelines and the committee is free to judge each situation on a case-by-case basis.

If there's a strong disagreement between a company and the committee, the board will take a decision.

Maintaining the support page

If a company wants to update its description or logo, it should be asked to the committee. The committee is in charge and has commit access to that specific page.

Yearly renewal

Every year, the committee will send an email to the company, using the contact address listed. The company has one month to reply and ask for a renewal. The renewal process is exactly the same as the add process. The company has to justify that it belongs to the GNOME support page. The committee has the right to ask for a renewal at any time if it feels that it is needed or the situation is unclear (company bought, company visibly changing its focus).

If there is no reply in one month or if the reply is not satisfactory, the company will be removed from the page.

This process has been made mandatory due to the volatility of businesses. A company might change his focus, might completely disappear or be bought by another.

Open questions

What should be the order of the companies on that page ?

1) alphabetical

2) random sort after each refresh

5% revenue to GNOME foundation?

One possible idea is that for each project which where granted through the GNOME foundation (including the support page), a fixed percentage should be sent back the GNOME foundation.

1) Yes

2) Yes but make it lower than 5%

3) No

Discussion are happening on professionals-list@gnome.org and on #professionals (irc.gimp.net).

Attic/GnomeSupport (last edited 2013-12-02 17:02:36 by WilliamJonMcCann)