Support levels

allan

Hello all,

Over the last year, with the launch of this site and DataTables 1.4 (now two major revisions on!) DataTables adoption has gone up and up and up - which is fantastic! DataTables v1.6.1 has only been available for 5 days, and has already been downloaded over 2000 times. We've also got a great community going - with a lot of very helpful and informative posts being written. Contributions in code and bug finding are also superb - thank you all :-)

With this growth has some a lot more support requests, and I'm having a hard time keeping up now, as it takes a couple of hours a day to answer forum posts and e-mails. And that's before there is any chance to do any development work! Please don't misunderstand me, I'm absolutely thrilled by the reception that DataTables has received, however, I'm unable to maintain the level of support that it currently enjoys.

So the point of this post is to ask you all, the users of DataTables, what you think a good resolution might be? DataTables has a lot of potential, but probably not as a commercial product (unless you are a mega corp and know otherwise - get in touch ;-) ) since there are a number of other JS libraries which can do similar (if slightly different) things. So I think the option of 'incorporating' for it isn't a good one at this time. Obviously DataTables will remain open source, but one possibility is to have pay for support only (and leave the forums open to the community).

I guess it's the traditional open-source dilemma - how can it be kept going when it becomes more than just a hobby! A superb position to be in, and I'd love to hear all your thoughts, so please fire away. Also, there is no question of me ending support / development for DataTables - so no concern there, this is just a question of how best to move forwards in a sustainable manner.

Regards,
Allan

justSteve

I think you should feel free to continue to 'suggest' a donation for specific support requests. After i've banged my head on one or another particular problem I find myself asking - how much am i willing to pay someone so 'just fix it'. The answer is usually far greater than i end up donating but on a 'per hour' basis i know the answerer is making out quite well.

as a user base we have to relax the purse string a little bit and support content - not just datatables but content in general. we (intertube users) need to come to terms with the fact that kicking in a few bucks here and there isn't going to kill us.

allan

Hi justSteve,

Thanks for the reply. Yes, it certainly is a tricky one. I suspect you are right, if there was a donation for every question that was answered on the forum, I'd be making out like a bandit ;-). But it's not the case, as can be seen from the 15 donations over the last 30 days, with a couple of hours per day for support requests.

However, this just isn't about $$$ (lovely though they are - and please all do donate if you find DataTables useful - particularly in a commercial application!), it's how to make the future of DataTables sustainable. If it were possible to make a commercial enterprise out of it, I suspect I probably would as it's been great fun so far, as I would then be able to spend a lot of time on it (which is the key thing) - both dev and support. I just don't see it being commercially viable atm - how many would be willing to pay for a support contract? Of course if Google (or anyone else) wants a full time dev... ;-)

Regards,
Allan

Dan

Have you considered a "basic/Pro"-type model?

However it goes for you, I wish you the very best.
DataTables is a spectacular project!


Thanks,

Dan
San Diego, CA

allan

@Dan: Yes, that thought has certainly been considered. To be honest I'm not entirely sure what the pro version would offer over the current free one! I've got a few ideas for plug-ins, which could be considered, but they aren't anything all spectacular. Any suggestions what a pro version might include? It rather looks like support packages might be the best option commercially.

@All: One idea that was mentioned by 'gavin' in the forum was that the donations page should list all contributors. Gnome (and others) do this for example:

http://www.gnome.org/friends/
http://www.gnome.org/friends/previous-donors.html

Sounds like a good idea?

Regards,
Allan

Dan

No doubt, the current version of DataTables is already 'PRO', so I imagine a 'free' version would actually be a stripped down version. A 'pro' version could also include access to the established forums/support channels.

What you already offer-- for free-- is spectacular. A free/pro model would really just mean you _take away_ something from the current paradigm...

Cheers,

Dan

[ donation made, even before I saw this thread. :) ]

gavin

perhaps you could allow users to add a `bounty` to their questions. No idea how to enforce such a thing, though. Its such a fuzzy grey area.

Here is an example from another board:
http://www.magentocommerce.com/boards/viewthread/74522/P0/

***

by the way, having a `Top Donors` list allows people to give you their website to list there. And having a website listed in multiple domains helps its Google PageRank. So, you are helping your donors, while they help you.

gavin

perhaps using a paid-answering service:
http://www.justanswer.com/affiliates/

note, it looks like you can make yourself the only `expert` to answer questions, when you embed their widget on your domain:

"Use your own experts to handle questions that come through your site and earn up to 70% of your customer's accept fees! "

allan

Hi gavin,

Thanks very much for the comments. A bounty to questions is an interesting idea, but might be a bit tricky to implement. I guess something like Experts Exchange would match this - but then I would get involved with distributing money around for correct answers, which sounds like it could get messy!

The 'Top Donors' page is certainly on the radar, and it's just a question to getting around to doing it. I guess I have to split my time better, support questions on this forum, development of the site/promotion, and development of DataTables itself. Obviously the latter would probably be the most interesting, but most time seems to me on support. I've still got this 1.6.2 release to finish off for example... Hence why I feel it's important to get this right, and the reason for posting this thread, to get feedback on the way forward. It's a tricky one...

Allan

allan

Here we go - a list of previous donators: http://datatables.net/donate . Donations will automatically be added to the table when paying through PayPal (and one clicks to the 'return to merchant' button!) - otherwise I'll add it automatically. Hopefully this will add a little boost to the donations - the one thing left to do is make the information in the 'donate' button dynamic...

It's worth noting that I have not applied the 'visibility of donation' option to all donations retrospectively - however, if you would like your previous donation to be 'visible' please let me know and I'll add this in. The reason for this decision was it was 'hidden' at the time the previous donations were made, so this should continue to be true, unless you tell me otherwise.

Regards,
Allan

TomC

I think you should have a pay to post premium sub-forum right here and that is the only one that you reliably answer. Let the community help with the other forums but if people want fast/difficult answers from you they have to pay a little.

leon

Allan,
We heard great stuff about this dataTables and are considering its use for our new system.
However, I also hear and see on the forums that you don't always know if a feature is supposed to work or it works only on paper.
For example, it seems like the API functionality does not work with server-side processing. Is it true? Where can we confirm? http://datatables.net/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=1417&page=1#Item_4
Is there anywhere a list of features currently NOT operational?
Regards,
Leon

allan

@leon: I've moved your post to it's own thread: http://datatables.net/forums/comments.php?DiscussionID=1461 .

@TomC: Sounds like quite a good plan. Implementing it and maintaining it might be a little tricky - if someone donates $5 they probably shouldn't be entitled to the same level of support as someone who donates $100 for every new thread. Some kind of support package system could be worked out. Definitely needs some thought, but a good way to go.

Regards,
Allan