by Steven J. Owens (unless otherwise attributed)
A guy on a mailing list wrote:
>I found a free engine for adding a discussion forum to our Web site
>[...] and it looks like just the ticket for what I want to
>do. [...] Unfortunately, because it is freeware (GNU Public
>License), there is no support available.
What bugs me is that assumed causal relationship - "because it is freeware there is no support available." In fact, the lack of support is probably not at all related to the fact that it's free software. Now I'm afraid I have to go off on a rant (not directed at you personally, of course) about the myth of technical support being available (let alone better) for commercial software.
I used to write docs professionally, but I develop software for a living now. Back when I wrote docs, I dealt with the tech support guys in-house a lot, and I even did a one-week stint working in tech support. I know those folks worked hard. Since making the switch to development, I've dealt a lot with the commercial software world from the other side. The idea that commercial software is supported is a myth. I've found that the support companies offer is often literally non-existent, or consists largely of:
"Yeah, you can't do that."
"Oh yeah, we know about that one, that's a known bug."
"Did you make sure it's plugged in? Okay, going to line 2 on my checklist..."
"Just let me jot this down and I'll research it and get back to you - now you said you're using this 'computer' thing to do what?"
Free software - which is by definition open source, although not all open source software is free, and certainly not all open source software is "free software" - may not be any better supported (witness this aspforums thing) but more often than not, it is.
Additionally, searching for resources for free software and open source software tends to be more of a "broad and shallow" search across the internet. Commercial software, tends to require either winding your way through a maze of tech support menus, ora "narrow and deep" search in a private web site (cf. Oracle's technet, or Microsoft's knowledge base). Guess which domain has had countlessly more time and effort spent on developing good search tools?
Finally with the source available, somebody who knows programming can crack open the code and figure out what's going on if there's a bug in mission-critical software. This is not always a "last resort", either, sometimes it's the first thing I check! And while having to publish the source doesn't guarantee cleaner and more understandable code, it certainly encourages it.
By the way, if you're interested in finding some forum software for your site, I suggest you read up on the different options at:
http://thinkofit.com/webconf/index.htm