Greetings,
We see a lot of professionals and SMBs who are member of this list.
I was wondering if we all can form a sort of service network of professional for various solutions using open/mixed source.
Any person/organisation with skills/knowledge on FLOSS/Hweterogenous/Others can be a member.
We cannot ignore the "other"/"Proprietery" completely as they are entrenched in the various verticals.
Please bear with me. I have dedicated last five years of my bread and butter earning career to FLOSS solutions but have difficulty in gaining traction in the enterprises working alone.
Of course there are commercials involved. Which can be discussed threadbare. Perhaps another list for that.
I was having a "Single window Solutions" in mind wherein the members/prospective customers can pick and choose services they want.
Modalities/details can be worked out.
Soliciting opinions from the esteemed members of this list.
Regards,
Rajagopal
On Dec 24, 2010, at 12:51 PM, Rajagopal Swaminathan wrote:
Greetings,
We see a lot of professionals and SMBs who are member of this list.
I was wondering if we all can form a sort of service network of professional for various solutions using open/mixed source.
Mixed source? What's that?
Any person/organisation with skills/knowledge on FLOSS/Hweterogenous/Others can be a member.
We cannot ignore the "other"/"Proprietery" completely as they are entrenched in the various verticals.
But you see, that is the mission of this list here. To remove those entrenched and put FLOSS everywhere. Why do you think the list should help you?
Please bear with me. I have dedicated last five years of my bread and butter earning career to FLOSS solutions but have difficulty in gaining traction in the enterprises working alone.
I've spent more than a decade. I am sure others have spent more. What is the point?
Of course there are commercials involved. Which can be discussed threadbare. Perhaps another list for that.
Commercials make sense if you are selling a standard widget. When you indulge in providing services, which is how most of us like to work with FLOSS; commercials become parts of contracts. Why would a list be interested in contracts between two private parties?
I was having a "Single window Solutions" in mind wherein the members/prospective customers can pick and choose services they want.
Hire experts. Start a company. Market and provide services. The model has succeeded.
Soliciting opinions from the esteemed members of this list.
I don't know if I am esteemed, but I do hope that the others have their Christmas cheer on before replying.
Cheers,
Amol Hatwar
On Friday 24 Dec 2010, Rajagopal Swaminathan wrote:
We see a lot of professionals and SMBs who are member of this list.
I was wondering if we all can form a sort of service network of professional for various solutions using open/mixed source.
We had discussed this concept in detail in various ILUGD meetings (and eatings) for a long time. While the concept is excellent, there are a few practical problems in implementation that we discovered, so I'll share those and leave the floor to discussion on how they can be solved.
The first issue is that of management and infrastructure. Considering our clients are corporates, education institutions and Government/NGOs, it is more or less imperative that there is a single umbrella organisation whom they can contact for support. The umbrella organisation itself can take support requests from clients, distribute to independent consultants internally, manage payments and track project progress. As a client, I would want a single point of contact.
So far so good. The issues that arise from having an umbrella organisation, however, include:
- What if more than one consultant is qualified to pick up a given lead? How does the umbrella organisation decide internally which consultant the lead should go to?
- How do you rate the effectiveness of consultants? If you and I are charging respectively Rs 100 and Rs 10 for the same service, presumably there is a qualitative difference between the sort of work we do which justifies your higher rates. However, that is extremely difficult to measure, and clients usually aren't in a position to evaluate core technical competence vs hot air blustering. Sending the wrong consultant to the wrong client will result in the organisation (and FOSS) getting a bad name.
- What happens if a consultant commits and doesn't deliver? We need to devise some framework by which consultants can be lined up so that if the first one fails there is another one ready to step into her shoes to keep the project going. Again, failure to do this will result in severe lack of client confidence. We also need to define success and failure metrics in advance of projects, so that slippages can be clearly identified and detected.
Apart from the organisational problems, there is also the issue of continuity. We need to set systems in place that consultants are mandated to use which describe the work done by them in fine detail. This is required so that if one consultant is unable to take a second project from her client, the next consultant has access to all the configurations and customisations (with detailed reasons) so that she doesn't have to spend days just trying to figure out how things are currently working.
This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but hopefully should serve as a starting point for further thought.
Regards,
-- Raj
Greetings,
Let me thank you for picking up this thread for discusion.
The umbrella organization should be consisting of trusted members only. By corollary, Any member is equally trusted. The organization itself is a member.
Trusted in the sense of financial transactions vis-a-vis authorities
2010/12/24 Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) raju@linux-delhi.org:
On Friday 24 Dec 2010, Rajagopal Swaminathan wrote:
- What if more than one consultant is qualified to pick up a given lead?
How does the umbrella organisation decide internally which consultant the lead should go to?
Roun-robin of course to begin with.
Often the requirement ballons and three of them giving a well documented support for which the umbrella organisation should take ownership
The organisation should be capable of providing permenant e-mail and free internet access to all it member.
Every completion should be announced by the organization with customer's requirement satisfaction comments verbiatim -- positive or negative doesn't matter.
The membership fee should not be steep and should not prove to poor people.
Educational institutions should be charged as they anyway have money enough.
I was thinking of involving other interested goups like instrumentation, CANbus, Power equipment vendors and the such.
FLOSS India can obtain the mandate of the LUG members with offer to include them free of charge as tier-1 or tier-2 consultants. Here the Philosophy and Praxis requires delicate balance as perceptions (and hence values) can get altered dramatically.
- How do you rate the effectiveness of consultants? If you and I are
charging respectively Rs 100 and Rs 10 for the same service, presumably there is a qualitative difference between the sort of work we do which justifies your higher rates. However, that is extremely difficult to measure, and clients usually aren't in a position to evaluate core technical competence vs hot air blustering. Sending the wrong consultant to the wrong client will result in the organisation (and FOSS) getting a bad name.
Let me attempt a very rough formula: m - years of overall experience n - years of relevant/specific experience o - no of New projects executed p - no of Maintenance projects under belt q - total number of projects involved in and the percentage contribution thereof r - a standard amount per shift or per activity basis (Say about INR 75/hour entry point) s - a standard amount per year of Overall experience (applicable only in case relevant/specific experience is > 0) t - minmum premium the entity demands , u, v
all the amounts with netiable/unnegotiable tag and subject to change based on the suggestions of the list members.
I was wondering if Other LUGs could also pitch in in this thread.
It is in everybody's self interest and in the interests of transparency and freedom.
- What happens if a consultant commits and doesn't deliver? We need to
devise some framework by which consultants can be lined up so that if the first one fails there is another one ready to step into her shoes to keep the project going. Again, failure to do this will result in severe lack of client confidence. We also need to define success and failure metrics in advance of projects, so that slippages can be clearly identified and detected.
Documentation is the key here. I had the workflow of dotproject in mind.
I did mention about the three person and one umbrella organizaiton -- a total of four entities -- sharing the ownership of which anyone is answereble.
There should be an agreed upon amount share for mitigation "Charges" which can be arrived at during costing.
Apart from the organisational problems, there is also the issue of continuity. We need to set systems in place that consultants are mandated to use which describe the work done by them in fine detail. This is required so that if one consultant is unable to take a second project from her client, the next consultant has access to all the configurations and customisations (with detailed reasons) so that she doesn't have to spend days just trying to figure out how things are currently working.
That can be solved simply by hosting the configuration/documents under an SCS
Above IMHO. Over to the floor...
Regards,
Rajagopal
2010/12/24 Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) raju@linux-delhi.org:
The first issue is that of management and infrastructure.
What if more than one consultant is qualified to pick up a given lead?
How do you rate the effectiveness of consultants?
What happens if a consultant commits and doesn't deliver?
Apart from the organisational problems, there is also the issue of continuity.
All these, of course are manageable if the set of consultants register themselves as a company and offer their services through the company. But then by doing that, we are replicating the business model of Infosys/Wipro/whatever...
Binand
On Monday 27 December 2010 12:54:42 Binand Sethumadhavan wrote:
2010/12/24 Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) raju@linux-delhi.org:
The first issue is that of management and infrastructure.
- What if more than one consultant is qualified to pick up a
given lead?
How do you rate the effectiveness of consultants?
What happens if a consultant commits and doesn't deliver?
Apart from the organisational problems, there is also the issue of continuity.
All these, of course are manageable if the set of consultants register themselves as a company and offer their services through the company. But then by doing that, we are replicating the business model of Infosys/Wipro/whatever...
We are talking of a BPO like organisation. BTW wipro/ IBM/Reliance etc are doing precisely the same - get the contract then outsource.
Dear Raj,
As always, very sensible points.
I was wondering, is it possible for Rajagopal and like-minded chaps to do something if they _don't_ create an umbrella organisation? I'm thinking like a bunch of medical specialists who are 'visiting specialists' at a hospital. The patient treats the hospital as a convenience single-point of access and operational services (paying money at a common counter, booking appointments through a common telephone operator, etc), not delivery assurance.
Do you think there's any chance that this sort of loose collection may work?
Personally, I am not sure it'll work, because I feel that the customer has to have more than a minimum level of maturity to make use of such an offering, and IMHO the Indian IT services/solutions customer does not have that maturity, in most cases. He'll want a single umbrella organisation and a single contract. But I was just wondering -- what do you all think?
Shuvam
On Fri, Dec 24, 2010 at 07:09:49PM +0530, Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) wrote:
On Friday 24 Dec 2010, Rajagopal Swaminathan wrote:
We see a lot of professionals and SMBs who are member of this list.
I was wondering if we all can form a sort of service network of professional for various solutions using open/mixed source.
We had discussed this concept in detail in various ILUGD meetings (and eatings) for a long time. While the concept is excellent, there are a few practical problems in implementation that we discovered, so I'll share those and leave the floor to discussion on how they can be solved.
The first issue is that of management and infrastructure. Considering our clients are corporates, education institutions and Government/NGOs, it is more or less imperative that there is a single umbrella organisation whom they can contact for support. The umbrella organisation itself can take support requests from clients, distribute to independent consultants internally, manage payments and track project progress. As a client, I would want a single point of contact.
So far so good. The issues that arise from having an umbrella organisation, however, include:
- What if more than one consultant is qualified to pick up a given lead?
How does the umbrella organisation decide internally which consultant the lead should go to?
- How do you rate the effectiveness of consultants? If you and I are
charging respectively Rs 100 and Rs 10 for the same service, presumably there is a qualitative difference between the sort of work we do which justifies your higher rates. However, that is extremely difficult to measure, and clients usually aren't in a position to evaluate core technical competence vs hot air blustering. Sending the wrong consultant to the wrong client will result in the organisation (and FOSS) getting a bad name.
- What happens if a consultant commits and doesn't deliver? We need to
devise some framework by which consultants can be lined up so that if the first one fails there is another one ready to step into her shoes to keep the project going. Again, failure to do this will result in severe lack of client confidence. We also need to define success and failure metrics in advance of projects, so that slippages can be clearly identified and detected.
Apart from the organisational problems, there is also the issue of continuity. We need to set systems in place that consultants are mandated to use which describe the work done by them in fine detail. This is required so that if one consultant is unable to take a second project from her client, the next consultant has access to all the configurations and customisations (with detailed reasons) so that she doesn't have to spend days just trying to figure out how things are currently working.
This is not an exhaustive list by any means, but hopefully should serve as a starting point for further thought.
Regards,
-- Raj
Raj Mathur raju@kandalaya.org http://kandalaya.org/ GPG: 78D4 FC67 367F 40E2 0DD5 0FEF C968 D0EF CC68 D17F PsyTrance & Chill: http://schizoid.in/ || It is the mind that moves
Greetings,
On 12/27/10, Shuvam Misra shuvam.misra@merceworld.com wrote:
Dear Raj,
As always, very sensible points.
Personally, I am not sure it'll work, because I feel that the customer has to have more than a minimum level of maturity to make use of such an offering, and IMHO the Indian IT services/solutions customer does not have that maturity, in most cases. He'll want a single umbrella organisation and a single contract. But I was just wondering -- what do you all think?
If fact that is exactly what I had in mind. Single logging. Single contact. Work starts immediately after a token payment of say INR 200-500. Of course the amount is a fictitious amount and can be crystallized after due diligence.
I have no doubt about the customer's maturity level. They are paying some entity anyway without getting any kind of assurance.
I was also thinking what it would take the various FLOSS centres / IT Labs / IT departments / IT Support groups in various companies to subscribe to become one of the service hubs for a beginning.
Of course not to mention quarterly seminars for relating the war stories (and the eating thereafter)
Not to mention the eternal requirement of students wanting projects will be automatically met.
Now the issue is about legalities. What if the idea catches up in the west which will necessitate compliance of various financial and legal regulatories.
What should be the form of such umbrella organization?
Regards,
Rajagopal
2010/12/27 Rajagopal Swaminathan raju.rajsand@gmail.com:
What should be the form of such umbrella organization?
A cooperative, I suppose is the best suited. Has worked for a variety of such initiatives in India in the past (Amul is the best known example).
Binand
On 27 December 2010 21:43, Binand Sethumadhavan binand@gmail.com wrote:
2010/12/27 Rajagopal Swaminathan raju.rajsand@gmail.com:
What should be the form of such umbrella organization?
A cooperative, I suppose is the best suited. Has worked for a variety of such initiatives in India in the past (Amul is the best known example).
Publicize LUG and get requirements to be posted on a ILUG-Commercial or something. Whoever is qualified and interested can then bid directly. Let the customer get the benefit of cost and decide on quality. Why should an open-source list that's mostly for fun get into commercial agreements. However let it facilitate.
-Akshay (! VU2BUG)
2010/12/27 Akshay Mishra akshaymishra@gmail.com:
A cooperative, I suppose is the best suited. Has worked for a variety
Let the customer get the benefit of cost and decide on quality. Why should an open-source list that's mostly for fun get into commercial agreements.
Cooperatives are not commercial entities. They are supposed to work for the common benefit of all members (which is what is being proposed here). If I remember correctly, LUG-Delhi is a cooperative.
Binand
On Monday 27 Dec 2010, Binand Sethumadhavan wrote:
Cooperatives are not commercial entities. They are supposed to work for the common benefit of all members (which is what is being proposed here). If I remember correctly, LUG-Delhi is a cooperative.
Nope, it's a registered society.
Regards,
-- Raj
On Monday 27 December 2010 22:20:22 Binand Sethumadhavan wrote:
2010/12/27 Akshay Mishra akshaymishra@gmail.com:
A cooperative, I suppose is the best suited. Has worked for a variety
Let the customer get the benefit of cost and decide on quality. Why should an open-source list that's mostly for fun get into commercial agreements.
Cooperatives are not commercial entities. They are supposed to work for the common benefit of all members (which is what is being proposed here). If I remember correctly, LUG-Delhi is a cooperative.
Besides co-operatives deal with goods, rather than services. Consequently it is relatively simple to account. In the rare cases where they deal with services, the services are in a very well defined and narrow spread. In contrast we have an extremely broad spectrum with a very divergent set of skills and performance level. A model which bears some resemblance to the proposal is temp staffing.
2010/12/28 jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in:
Besides co-operatives deal with goods, rather than services.
??? Where did you get that from? There are hundreds if not thousands of cooperative banks in India. ICH is a restaurant chain run by a cooperative. Look at the number of CHS in Mumbai - what goods do they deal in?
Consequently it is relatively simple to account.
Didn't get what you meant here. You mean to say that dealing in "goods" is simpler for CAs to manage? If yes, in what way?
A model which bears some resemblance to the proposal is temp staffing.
That is an operational model. The question is what legal entity works in this case. The two are different concepts. You can very well have a cooperative that deals in temp staffing (indeed, in my home state - Kerala - there are several such cooperatives).
Binand
Have a look at
just my 2c..
Regards, Koustubha Kale Anant Corporation
Contact Details : Address : 103, Armaan Residency, R. W Sawant Road, Nr. Golden Dyes Naka, Thane (w), Maharashtra, India, Pin : 400601. TeleFax : +91-22-21720108, +91-22-21720109 Mobile : +919820715876 Website : http://www.anantcorp.com Blog : http://www.anantcorp.com/blog/?author=2
Greetings,
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 12:10 PM, Koustubha Kale kmkale@anantcorp.com wrote:
Have a look at
just my 2c..
Thanks Koustubha, for the link.
Anyway another (Huge, perhaps) opportunity in waiting perhaps for Indian Luggies http://opendotdotdot.blogspot.com/2010/12/putin-orders-russian-move-to-gnuli...
I am sure huge success of Kerala (and bihar) model of FOSS in e-governance must surely have played some role Putin's move.
Regards,
Rajagopal
On Tuesday 28 December 2010 11:33:59 Binand Sethumadhavan wrote:
2010/12/28 jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in:
Besides co-operatives deal with goods, rather than services.
??? Where did you get that from? There are hundreds if not thousands of cooperative banks in India.
Money IS a very tangibile and measurable commodity. The services ride on the tangible commodity and the service value is linked to the value of the money. Ditto every other type of exchange.
ICH is a restaurant chain run by a cooperative.
Yet to see a restaurant that lets you pick the cook, menu and waiters. Restaurants sell you a very fixed set of goods. The service is a differenctiator.
Look at the number of CHS in Mumbai - what goods do they deal in?
None. They dont sell anything at all. They provide a service to the members only. In contrast you are proposing to deliver to the customer a very "vaguely" defined service.
Consequently it is relatively simple to account.
Didn't get what you meant here. You mean to say that dealing in "goods" is simpler for CAs to manage? If yes, in what way?
As some of the earlier mails pointed out, there will be tremendous variability in service and consequently, in your ability to measure, and assign value.
A model which bears some resemblance to the proposal is temp staffing.
That is an operational model.
Precisely. Without which I cant see anything defined.
The question is what legal entity
Has to be a commercial entity. Wether Cooperative or a limited liability company is a matter of idealogy and convienence.
I am quite convinced that some umbrella entity is neccessary. But I am not very convinced that the operational details are even broadly oulined by anyone at all.
Greetings,
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 9:31 PM, jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:
On Tuesday 28 December 2010 11:33:59 Binand Sethumadhavan wrote:
2010/12/28 jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in:
Besides co-operatives deal with goods, rather than services.
BTW has anybody studied the Lijjat model?
Now if we substitute service as the deliverable, We are almost there.
Opinions...
Regards,
Rajagopal
Greetings,
On Tue, Dec 28, 2010 at 10:57 AM, jtd jtd@mtnl.net.in wrote:
On Monday 27 December 2010 22:20:22 Binand Sethumadhavan wrote:
2010/12/27 Akshay Mishra akshaymishra@gmail.com:
A cooperative, I suppose is the best suited. Has worked for a variety
Let the customer get the benefit of cost and decide on quality. Why should an open-source list that's mostly for fun get into commercial agreements.
Cooperatives are not commercial entities. They are supposed to work for the common benefit of all members (which is what is being proposed here). If I remember correctly, LUG-Delhi is a cooperative.
Besides co-operatives deal with goods, rather than services. Consequently it is relatively simple to account. In the rare cases where they deal with services, the services are in a very well defined and narrow spread. In contrast we have an extremely broad spectrum with a very divergent set of skills and performance level. A model which bears some resemblance to the proposal is temp staffing.
-- Rgds JTD
Thank you all for responding magnificiently, taking it to the next level.
Now, Who defines the notion of the word "value" for further discussion.
Seriously, one needs to consider that the very nature of this nework is to pay (service) tax first. Any suggestions from microfinance players, if any, in the group?
Regards,
Rajagopal
-
Akshay Mishra -
Amol Hatwár -
Binand Sethumadhavan -
jtd -
Kenneth Gonsalves -
Koustubha Kale -
Raj Mathur (राज माथुर) -
Rajagopal Swaminathan -
Shuvam Misra