Pulp Fiction or True Story? You decide…
“I’m a consultant working for a consultancy company in France. I might be able to persuade my client to donate a few euro if you can Skype with me to discuss all features of Archi. Should only take 2 hours at the most. Oh, and it has to be in French. Regards, Pierre.”
Well, this is a tough one. Do I spend 2 hours on a Skype call to provide free consultancy or do I take the dog for a walk? Wait, I don’t have a dog. And I don’t speak French either.
“Cher Pierre, mon chien dit qu’il est très désolé mais ce n’est pas possible. (Woof!)”
“Our large consultancy company would like to start using Archi but we can’t make a proper assessment unless you can give us the other plug-ins for free. Sorry we can’t donate because our credit card can’t be used for such purposes.”
Hi, sorry to hear about your credit card. Hope it gets well soon!
“We are an international organisation (Not Another Terrible Organisation) and we’ve identified some potential security issues in Archi that impact our use of the software. We can’t donate anything financially as we consider identifying these issues as our “donation”. We need these issues addressed immediately.”
Yes, sir! Right away, sir! Actually, with your multi-billion dollar budget why not use a paid product with paid support? Oh, you use a paid product as well? And your “donation” to them is? Mkay…
“Hi, I’m Alex and I work for Gratner. I’m reaching out to you to see if we can work together for our mutual benefit…(insert paragraphs of business-speak here)…so we can get Archi to reach a wider audience. If you’re interested I can arrange a call with our sales manager.”
Hi Alex, let me “reach out” to you. With around 7,000 downloads of Archi a month I think we’ll be just fine, thanks. As a fully informed consultant I’m sure you’re aware that Archi is free and open source software (you did check this first didn’t you, Alex? Alex? Hello, Alex…) And, as much as I like diagrams with boxes, I’m not interested in paying to get in your Mystic Quadrant.
“We use jArchi, the scripting plug-in, in our organisation and it’s added tremendous value to our workflow for our architects and saved us a lot of time and money. We’d like to contribute financially but it’s difficult so I’ve decided to donate $1.”
Thanks, you must really value jArchi.
“Hi, we noticed that Feature X isn’t implemented in Archi. We need Feature X in Archi in order to support our stakeholders.”
Archi doesn’t have Feature X. Sorry, but it would take a lot of time and resources to add that feature right now.
“But SparkDesign has got Feature X, Archi should have it! We need Feature X to support our stakeholders. I can’t believe that you haven’t implemented this! We can’t possibly use Archi!”
What a shame, I’ll certainly miss your valuable support. 🙂
“I’ve just donated £1.00 to Archi via PayPal two minutes ago, so where’s my free download of jArchi, the scripting plug-in?”
Hi, thanks for your donation to Archi! Sorry about the delay in sending you the free plug-in, but the notification from PayPal arrived at 5:30 a.m this morning and I was sleeping. As I answer all emails personally I couldn’t get back to you until 7:30 a.m this same morning. Sorry about that! In future, I’ll avoid sleeping and will monitor my email 24/7 with the aim of answering every email within 30 seconds.
“We MUST ensure that Archi never implements enterprise level features such as repositories.”
– a leader in modelling software and business change.
“Fuck you.”
– a leader in free and open source modelling software.
“Hi, we’re a successful training organisation that uses Archi in all of our ArchiMate training sessions and we couldn’t deliver training without it. It’s a great tool and we’d like to donate some money in order to keep it going!”
– no training organisation ever.
“You know, we think Archi is a great product and we’re trying to convince our client to use it for modelling. It sure would be great if you could add UML and BPMN support as well. It would be a real shame if our client had to use another product.”
Right, I’ll get onto that straight away. As you say, it sure would be a real shame if your client had to pay for software. Shouldn’t take me more than a couple of years. Working 12 hours a day. Every day. Unpaid.
“This email confirms that you have received a PayPal donation of £0.01 GBP from r.soule@bigcheesearchitects.com. You can view the transaction details online.”
Dear Mr. R. Soule, thanks very much for your donation to Archi, I appreciate it! BTW, PayPal has deducted a £0.01 processing fee for this transaction so I have received a net donation of £0.00. But I guess it’s the thought that counts. If Archi doesn’t meet your exacting requirements I’m happy to offer a full refund.
“We work for Regressive, the Insurance Company. We use Archi every day and we love it! But it sure would be sweet if you could add this exclusive feature. We realise that no-one else needs this feature and we can’t pay for it (because reasons) and we know it’ll take you a few weeks to implement, but…we’ll say publicly that we use Archi which will be great for you and get you more users!”
More users, eh? How could I refuse?
“Don’t listen to his sob story.”
– a thought leader.
“Sob!”
– not a thought leader.
“We’re assessing modelling tools for our client so could you fill in the attached matrix detailing your product’s features by tomorrow and write a summary of why we should use your product.”
– every consultant ever.
“I’ve just discovered your “Archi” tool on your website. How much does it cost? Where can I download it? What is the licence? What does it do?”
– also every consultant ever.
“Thank-you.”
– no consultant ever.
“Hello. Our client needs to buy 6 Archi licenses. Please provide invoice details and costs and how to access software.”
– every software purchasing company ever.
“Hello. Our client needs to buy 6 Archi licenses. Please provide invoice details and costs and how to access software.”
Wait, I thought we’d already done that one? Oh, it’s that software purchasing company… For the 20th time, please take a look at the Archi website. You might find the word “free” there…
“Hello. Our client needs to buy 6 Archi licenses….”
I give up.
