[SciPy-dev] OpenCD

[David Grant]

Joe Cooper wrote:

> As soon as money changes hands, no matter how cheap we sell those CDs 
> or how largely a "No Warranty and No Support" statement is printed on 
> the label, folks who buy it will start calling us and emailing us 
> directly, asking questions and expecting answers.  And if something 
> doesn't work right someone will want it fixed, NOW!  It sounds 
> ridiculous to most folks (me too), but I've been involved in Open 
> Source software on a lot of fronts and I /know/ it would happen.  In 
> fact, the most demanding users are nearly always the ones who've given 
> the least to a project, in terms of effort or money.  Not that I'm 
> bitter or anything.  ;-)
>
Have an automated email sent to them telling them about the various 
support options such as mailing lists, IRC, bug reporting, and possibly 
some non-free support option (set up a 1-900 number or something? :-) ).

I for one think that the more users using scipy, the better it will get. 
If that means selling some CDs, having some disastified "customers" 
along the way, so be it. Overall, getting more people to use python for 
scientific applications will help the community and help improve scipy 
in the long run.

Dave