Re: Re: Perl Commercial Entities?

I am entitled to some support at least up to the point at which you tell me that you will not provide it. At that point I am not entitled to any support whatever, and it would be rude for me to ask again.

Most CPAN modules are maintained by developers who do provide support. It is reasonable to expect —unless a developer says up front that he will not be providing any support— that he will be providing it.

Not answering legitimate e-mail is not really polite. If a developer is not going to support his product then he ought not to give the impression that he will support it by providing his email address.

Comment on Re: Re: Perl Commercial Entities?

Replies are listed 'Best First'.
Re (tilly) 3: Perl Commercial Entities? by tilly (Archbishop) on Mar 22, 2001 at 04:07 UTC
No, you are not entitled to any support, whether or not the email address is present. The purpose of that email address is to document who wrote the software. But they have no obligation to provide support, answer questions, or supply fixes for problems. They also have no obligation to accept patches, treat you politely, etc. In point of fact you are likely to get all this and more. But I assure you that if you tell the authors of the software that their generousity has obliged them to do anything in the future, they will generally not be very happy about it. This is something that they choose to do. If you treat them rudely you will find that they are liable to choose to be rather rude back. By contrast companies truly are obliged to give support. And you will note that they generally do not give one drop more support than they feel they have to. IMHO that reflects human nature. People don't like being obliged to do things, and so do things they are obliged to do only grudgingly. People like doing things they voluntarily do, and are liable to go an extra mile...	[reply]

Replies are listed 'Best First'.

Re (tilly) 3: Perl Commercial Entities?
by tilly (Archbishop) on Mar 22, 2001 at 04:07 UTC

any

The purpose of that email address is to document who wrote the software. But they have no obligation to provide support, answer questions, or supply fixes for problems. They also have no obligation to accept patches, treat you politely, etc.

In point of fact you are likely to get all this and more. But I assure you that if you tell the authors of the software that their generousity has obliged them to do anything in the future, they will generally not be very happy about it. This is something that they choose to do. If you treat them rudely you will find that they are liable to choose to be rather rude back.

By contrast companies truly are obliged to give support. And you will note that they generally do not give one drop more support than they feel they have to. IMHO that reflects human nature. People don't like being obliged to do things, and so do things they are obliged to do only grudgingly. People like doing things they voluntarily do, and are liable to go an extra mile...

[reply]