It’s no secret WANdisco are big fans of open source, but where do you go when you encounter a bug, or your open source project keeps throwing errors? In this post, we cover all the options available for open source fans in need of some extra guidance.
Community support
Successful open source projects are typically collaborative efforts between hundreds, if not thousands of developers. This collaborative development encourages transparent, archived communication through mailing lists and forums, which can be an invaluable (and free!) source of information for the open source user. And, if you can’t find the answer to your question, you can always post it at the project’s mailing list, community forum, or even Stack Overflow.
For Apache Subversion users, SVNForum.org is the place to go to connect with the SVN community. Sign up to discuss everything Subversion, and exchange information and tips with other users. Alternatively, the Subversion project maintains a series of active mailing lists, including the users mailing list where you can post build problems, configuration issues, usage questions, and more.
Professional Support
Open source solutions have plenty to offer, but many organizations are concerned about the level of support they can get from the community alone. Most open source projects have a great community of users who are always willing to help out, but mailing lists and forums aren’t always the ideal place to reach out to when disaster strikes your organization! Thankfully, many established open source projects now have professional support options.
When choosing a professional support provider, there are a few questions worth asking:
1. Do they have committers on the project?
2. Do they cover the hours I need? (of course, 24-by-7 worldwide support is always preferable!)
3. Are they enthusiastic about the project?
4. How easy are they to contact? Do you get a named support contact? Can you dial a number and speak to a real person?
5. Do they have customer testimonials?
As one of the major corporate sponsors of Subversion, WANdisco offer professional support for SVN. Our professional Subversion support includes:
- Guaranteed response times.
- 24-by-7 Worldwide coverage.
- Indemnification coverage
- Our Enterprise security product, Subversion Access Control
- ….and more!
And, act before Friday (April 13th, 2012) to get the first 90 days of Subversion support for free, when you purchase any of our one year support contracts.
Enterprise-class support for TortoiseSVN is also available, alongside professional support for uberSVN, the open ALM platform for Apache Subversion.
Free Online training
Over the last couple of years, open source solutions have been gaining popularity within the enterprise, and with all the benefits of open source, it’s easy to see why! Of course, cost is one of the major reasons why organizations switch to open source. With closed source, there’s the initial outlay, but there can also be hidden extras; support charges, the expense of ongoing upgrades, training costs, etc.
With open source projects, not only are you saving on the software’s initial cost, but there’s typically plenty of tutorials, webinars, refcards and articles freely available on the internet, to help out with everything from the installation process, to best practices for the advanced user.
As part of our commitment to the Subversion community, we run bi-weekly free training webinars, covering everything from branching and merging, to running Subversion with continuous integration, hook scripts, and more.
Enterprise Training
Despite the wealth of resources freely available on the internet, there may come a point when an organization needs some formal training to get the most out of their open source software. Successful open source projects are frequently the subject of professional training sessions, but it may also be worth investing in ‘train the trainer’ sessions, so all future training can be performed in-house by your own staff.
At WANdisco, our Subversion training courses are designed to provide the essential hands-on experience you need to increase productivity. Choose from public classes at our training centres; private, on-site classes; and web-based training. Some of the courses we offer, include:
- Core Concepts – covers architecture and design principles, branching and merging, conflict resolution, and more
- Subversion for Administrators – gain the background knowledge needed to effectively install, configure and manage Subversion repositories and servers
- Train the Trainer - designed for customers with in-house training staff