[sf-lug] Towards a list of Linux consultants in the Bay Area (was: consultant?)

[Rick Moen]

Just to elaborate on that:  I'm aware there are list-members who are
physically in the city of San Francisco and willing to visit individual
Linux users at their houses/apartments to solve their Linux problems,
either on a consulting basis or free of charge.  I salute their
dedication.  Truly.

This particular Linux user, Polly, stresses that she's an artist and
decidedly not a technical person, and basically is not going to tackle
even what's probably a pretty dirt-simple CUPS config problem without
in-person handholding.   

There's a definite niche for anyone willing to do as Polly asks; she's
hardly the only such computer user.  There are tens of millions of them,
in general we'll basically never see them on LUG mailing lists (because
they want personal, private handholding), and they'll never read FAQs no
matter how many, how good, and how easy to find.

The hard truth, though, is that giving them private helpdesk services
(gratis or not) does little or nothing to build and maintain the Linux
community.  I personally would rather spend my time where it will do
more good.


I'd be glad to keep a directory of people willing to do in-person Linux
consulting (including free, the way LUGOD's LERT does in Davis[1]) for
the Bay Area.  Joshua Drake, who before a nasty schism was part of the
Linux Documentation Project, maintained the "Linux Consultants Guide"
from 2000 to 2006:
http://www.commandprompt.com/community/consultants/guide/

That Guide attempted to cover the entire Earth, which strikes me as not
a reasonable choice of scope.

I've long maintained a list of Bay Area Linux / BSD businesses as an
adjunct to BALE:  http://linuxmafia.com/bale/other.html  If people know
of Linux consultants not yet listed there, please let me know.  (I need
to be able to re-check on people / firms listed, so they need to have
Web sites.)

[1] http://www.lugod.org/projects/lert/