Thanks to Mark Proctor for this view inside of a JBoss developer support ticket for Drools.
I thought I would share with our readers a thread from our priority support system. It’s an interesting thread as it covers some complex constraint problems in good detail, which I think most rules users might find interesting, and it also demonstrates the level of support we provide to our priority customers. This conversation is printed “as is” with only the user and customer names removed.
Ironically, it’s not always easy to get a view into these type of interactions. Red Hat Knowledgebase has what might be called distilled results of customer interactions. Yet development support is different: there is a greater value in the conversation, and thus a greater value to other knowledge seekers. How much value?
Where knowledge is freely shared, everyone gains. Sure, there is an obvious bump for Drools, but all users of this open source software get value when we show each other how to better use it. We seek answers in various forums because another person may have encountered a similar situation. Contributing to that knowledge stream helps it become more useful to all contributors and users, who are us. Why not have a developer support ticket work as an extension of an open collaboration methodology?
The next time you need an answer, maybe it is available from a knowledgebase, via web search, or on the JBoss forums. If not, having developer support is one option, and perhaps the answers you receive might be useful to others in the community. If you write about it, drop me a message or tag it in del.icio.us (dev.fu feed) with the tag “for:dev.fu“.
