A call to the community

[Tony]

Right, that stinks.

Have we ever thought to ask for a return Email once PCLinuxOS has been installed, which tells 'us' how many copies are out there; running, plus a note in a return Email to always come to this Forum for any Help and Support ?
Plus a little more about PCLinuxOS and were to find the Wiki, Homepage, and Forum.
We used this method with Avast! Home freeware edition to gauge servers needed to update the product, and to keep an eye on piracy.

No one reads EULA's.  

Having a return Email, after installing PCLinuxOS, telling the user to never accept Help and Support from anyone posing as such, who wants Money for services pertaining to Help and Support for PCLinuxOS; and who is not directly helping the 'client' through this Forum, would spread word to the users - however I suppose such instructions can be removed from an OpenSource product ?
Maybe a more vigilant message that no payment for help is ever to be paid for should be added to the Installation Instructions.

I suppose you will never catch everyone selling Help to an unknowing uninformed User.  
 
Neal ManBear:

Please use the 'Report to Moderator button,' if you suspect a violation.

   
Yep, I'm with you.  

 

[Neal ManBear]

Abraxas,     
PCLinuxOS is not freeware. Avast has a free edition, but it is proprietary software. PCLinuxOS is FOSS. Free and Open Source Software.     
Doing as you suggest would be like adding a proprietary lock on the system. Not gonna happen.     
We are not insisting that people come here only for support. The objection is to people who are paid for support using us to provide that support and getting paid for our work. In other words, they do bugger all to earn the money they collect other than to use our support system to get answers from community volunteers.     

[Just17]

Abraxas,
                people are quite entitled to seek payment for any support they provide. That is not an issue at all.
     Good luck to them if they get paid for their work.

What Neal is referring to is someone who cannot support their customers without further assistance. Apparently they seek such assistance on this forum and do not pass on some of the payment they receive in supporting their customers with the forum's help.

That is as I read what has been posted.

It is felt that this practice is unwelcome.

***

As an ordinary user of PCLOS, and a regular forum visitor, I have a different attitude to this.
I would much prefer to deal with someone who for the most part is capable of dealing with problems without recourse to further assistance, rather than with someone (the end user or customer of this person) who has no clue at all how a PC works or how to do much more than turn on the power.
So if that person is fielding problems from (say) 20 clueless users, and is charging for doing so, I am all for it.
If he needs some assistance every now and again with something he cannot figure out himself, and comes here for help, then I have no problem with that personally.
I would hope that such a person would donate every now and again as a mark of appreciation. But like all users ....  that is not a requirement (that I am aware of).

But then .....  I neither have any 'interest' in PCLinuxOS or the forum, so am not viewing this from that perspective.

regards

[Neal ManBear]

Thanks for explaining, Just18.      

My objection is to the dishonesty. They charge their customers for support they know they can't provide without help. They come here and request help while pretending to be seeking it for themselves. They take answers for themselves and use them to make a profit without having done any of the work of figuring out the problem and finding a solution.     

[Wildman]

Thanks for explaining, Just18.      

My objection is to the dishonesty. They charge their customers for support they know they can't provide without help. They come here and request help while pretending to be seeking it for themselves. They take answers for themselves and use them to make a profit without having done any of the work of figuring out the problem and finding a solution.     

Like Neal, This is the part that bothers me the most.....Why not just say, I need help so I can help a customer. I have never met anyone who could all ways provide everything to a customer without some additional help themselves......But to be Dishonest about it...terrible way to be...

[Tony]

Thankyou all.
See, being of an inquisitive nature I feel we have well and truly covered every aspect of the scope of this issue. Lucky I'm here to ask the dumb questions   . ( I'm not quite as silly as I may act, I just like to make clear for a reader who may have little general knowledge on the issues, as I did initially. )
Opening up these topics are worth me seeming a bit dumb, I feel.

Subterfuge is not a nice way to do business. That's taken for granted.
Proprietry Software is licensed extremely with the opposite intention of Open Source Software.
("Free and Open Source Software.")   Understood.

Just18:

"...What Neal is referring to is someone who cannot support their customers without further assistance. Apparently they seek such assistance on this forum and do not pass on some of the payment they receive in supporting their customers with the forum's help."

That is the meat of the problem I feel personally.

As we hold back no knowledge to a fair question here, the least they could do is be up front, and open, about helping a paying customer, and even go so far as to contribute in the best spirit of sharing, a small sum from their fee as a donation, to PCLinuxOS. That would be nice, but obviously not imperative.

If we see a Mole, tell a Mod.

[Neal ManBear]

In the interest of being open, the donations here are Texstar's income. We have no corporate support, only individual donations. Those are never high dollar.     

[AndrzejL]

Right, that stinks.

Have we ever thought to ask for a return Email once PCLinuxOS has been installed, which tells 'us' how many copies are out there; running, plus a note in a return Email to always come to this Forum for any Help and Support ?

This idea was posted on a forum long time ago. It was a bad idea then and it's still a bad idea in my honest opinion.

Regards.

[dcwbis]

What is it about certain posts that gives people the impression that the questions are not of a personal nature, but are instead support questions for paying clients?

Personally, I have only been using pclos for about a month, but I have spent a lot of time reading many of the forum topics.  I cannot say that I have spotted anything that I suspected of being asked for a paying third party. 

I understand that with my limited time in the forums I have not had the opportunity to see the number of posts as the longer term members.  Can someone cite an example post(s) that you believe to be of a suspicious nature?

[AndrzejL]

Abraxas,
                people are quite entitled to seek payment for any support they provide. That is not an issue at all.
     Good luck to them if they get paid for their work.

I wouldn't mind this sort of behavior. If they provide the support themselves - no problem - You can charge for Open Source support. I would love to see them sending a % of their income gained thanks to PCLinuxOS to Texstar as a "thank You" in a form of donation. This would make sense to me.

Regards.

[Neal ManBear]

Right, that stinks.

Have we ever thought to ask for a return Email once PCLinuxOS has been installed, which tells 'us' how many copies are out there; running, plus a note in a return Email to always come to this Forum for any Help and Support ?

This idea was posted on a forum long time ago. It was a bad idea then and it's still a bad idea in my honest opinion.

Regards.

     
+1! In my honest opinion, that would be too close to a proprietary action. We want to avoid appearing proprietary.     

[Neal ManBear]

What is it about certain posts that gives people the impression that the questions are not of a personal nature, but are instead support questions for paying clients?

Personally, I have only been using pclos for about a month, but I have spent a lot of time reading many of the forum topics.  I cannot say that I have spotted anything that I suspected of being asked for a paying third party. 

I understand that with my limited time in the forums I have not had the opportunity to see the number of posts as the longer term members.  Can someone cite an example post(s) that you believe to be of a suspicious nature?

     
Most appear normal. Those that are discovered are usually removed. Some pose questions on IRC. Some PM devs.     

[Just17]

Thanks for explaining, Just18.      

My objection is to the dishonesty. They charge their customers for support they know they can't provide without help. They come here and request help while pretending to be seeking it for themselves. They take answers for themselves and use them to make a profit without having done any of the work of figuring out the problem and finding a solution.     

Yes .......  and I see no reason for such dishonesty.
I would love to see many many people making a living supporting installs of PCLOS.
It is not possible for most to be able to sort all customer problems that may arise, so IMO, this is the best place to get extra assistance should the situation arise.

It is not unreasonable to expect those who do so to - in some manner or form - support the OS in return.

The problem I see is, I doubt very much, if most of us users of the forum are in a position to make such a judgement.

We have no idea if - or how - any poster might be supporting the OS, or to what extent.

So, in all honesty, I do not consider that I am in any position to make such a judgement ....  maybe resulting in the use of the report button.

Others might have more information on which to make such judgements.
So I do not expect I will ever be in a position to use the report button for such a case.

Also, IMO, there is a danger, when calling for such 'dilligence', that we as users become suspicious of even the most innocent.
That, I believe, would be even more detrimental to the good nature and operation of the forum than some 'leeches'.

I only wish to counsel caution in the judgements made and the use of the report button, nothing more.

regards.

[AndrzejL]

I have reported post (suspicious in my honest opinion) in the past where the op was asking questions about a software for the hardware "that belongs to someone else" and when he received help he stated that he was not happy because the helpers were to late and that the person with the certain hardware already left. He had some nerve to complain that we were not in the IRC support channel to answer his / her queries...

I have spent few minutes of my private time and replied to this persons question and instead of "thanks" what did I got? Complaints and a strong feeling in my gut that this person was working out hardware issues for a customer and not for a friend or a family member. I call it a hunch and I learned over the years to trust it... You can call it a "Spider sense" . It works. Events like this make me less comfortable with spending time in the forum helping people.

Just like Sproggy said - sometimes it's just waaay to many questions from one person about way to many different devices. I mean how many printers / scanners / webcams can one own? 2 - 3? But not 10 or 20... Most of folks will own a desktop and a laptop or maybe 2 laptops... but if someone asks about 20 or 30 different machines (2 or 3 a day) then something is not right. I mean I know that Jase is not only ugly app lover but a laptop addict (like myself) but how many other folks with such a addiction can there be?

My point is - trust Your guts. If You feel that someone is trying to pull some nasty number on us then report it. You don't have to be 100% sure. Admins / Moderators will investigate it. Leave it to them. All Jase is asking of You is the be cautious and to report suspicious events.

I know to whom I should be loyal to.

Regards.

[Vorteggs]

Too much words.