===============
Support Options
===============

Commercial
----------

.. image:: images/support-1024x492.jpg

Extended professional support services are available for an annual fee.
For the commercial support options see `the OPNsense website <https://opnsense.org/support-overview/commercial-support/>`__

Community
---------
If you need help with OPNsense you can always try the community options first.
When resorting to community support it is important to understand that anyone
helping you is doing so for free and at their own time. Even tough your issue or
question might not be answered fully it would be nice to thank the people who
helped you.

To receive community support, the following options are available:

* Start searching this documentation & wiki
* The `OPNsense forum <https://forum.opnsense.org>`__
* Ask online users on `IRC Freenode <https://freenode.net/>`__ #opnsense


Community Support Levels
------------------------

Tier 1 – Core (Critical)
============================================
* Core team develops and supports,
* Compiler errors or functional failures block git merges and releases,
* Functionality is part of the standard installation.

Tier 2 – Plugins (Non-Critical)
=====================================================
* Core team develops and supports, sometimes with help from community members
* Compiler errors or functional failures block git merges,
* Functionality problems such as 'known issues' or might still going into releases,
* Features require user to install the plugin / functionality not installed by default.

Tier 3 – Plugins (Community)
============================
- Tier 3 is community supported, this means the OPNsense core development team won't support it to avoid overloading the team,
- When accepting a Tier 3 feature into the code base, it will come with a number of limits and conditions:

  *  Submitter must commit to maintaining it:
  
    - make sure code compiles and correctly functions after OPNsense and/or external (e.g. library) changes,
    - support users when they encounter problems (forum / git issue tracker – all related issues will be assigned to the maintainer).

- The code is offered as plugin and will not be part of the default OPNsense installation. The OPNsense core team will not be responsible for QA,
- If the feature get lots of traction, and/or if the team just considers it very useful, it may get 'promoted' to being officially supported (Tier 2),
- The feature will be removed if the submitter stops maintaining it and no-one steps up to take over.
