Paid support for web-frameworks

Question

This may sound strange but sometimes when your ASP.NET webapp isn't working and you can't tell why, you call Microsoft, pay them something like $300 and get about 1-3 weeks of 1-3 people looking at your configuration, memory dumps, sometimes code... but usually not the db, and with a fairly good percentage they help you fix your mistakes, without necessarily up-selling you.

I found that Novell would like to offer that for Mono. Everyone knows MySQL offers it for their clients, because it was part of the reason they got a truck of money to swing by one day to change the name-plate on the door.

I'm curious if anyone has found people for the support of these, and how they'd rate their experience:

• Django
• Rails
• Grails
• JRuby
• Mono [ratings]
• add your own.

Answer 1

I haven't ever looked for paid support for these open source technologies, but in general I would guess until there is significant market penetration there won't be a business case for 'dial in support' of an app built by a third party.

In general, you'll be looking for a niche technology expert consultant that will probably charge you an hourly rate to look at your problem.

For django - look at djangogigs.com, or post on rentacoder.com I suppose.

Each usually has an irc channel - you could also ask general questions there, or try to find someone for hire.

Answer 2

That niche is typically handled by 2 groups I believe

1. Software component developers. - I get a lot of my presentation layer support from DevExpress since I use their widgets for my GUIs for instance. In fact, typically I don't use a technology in an official capacity unless I have identified a dependable support channel.

   The issue you raise with Microsoft is handle by abstracting your problem before reporting it. That's a common law with most commercial support channels: When an issue involves 2 vendors, they will blame each other! Your job is to first isolate the issue before or during reporting.

   It's hard, I know, but that's why you get paid the big bucks :-)

2. Is to bring in an outside consultant that should be able to study your system and do what we described in part 1 ( above )