Annual Maintenance Agreement

An UrbanSim Annual Maintenance Agreement has been developed and is recommended for all users of UrbanSim. The annual cost is $3,500 for each user organization using it within a single metropolitan area, regardless of the number of computers it is installed on. To execute an agreement, please download the attached Maintenance Agreement Invoice shown as an attachment at the bottom of this page and process it through your procurement office. Once funds are received, we will activate your membership to the appropriate groups on this web site for 12 months from the month of initiation.

The funds from the maintenance agreement provide a foundation of support for the ongoing maintenance and refinement of the sytem, including documentation, testing, bug-fixing, and distribution over the web. But besides helping to keep the project running smoothly so you will continue to have access to current and future development of the system, it also provides direct benefits to subscribers:

• Priority responses to bug reports. We will attempt to respond to each report within 24 hours and to provide updates as work progresses on fixing the problem.
• Priority response to technical questions. We will attempt to respond to questions within 24 hours. Note that the urbansim-users email list will mostly be used for users to respond to each other's questions, while dedicated support by the development team will be mainly restricted to responding to active subscribers.
• Access to a dedicated, restricted-access section of this Wiki, allowing efficient sharing of information between developers and subscribers, and among subscribers.
• Creation of a dedicated forum for the user, if desired, for the user to engage in threaded discussions with developers and other subscribers on user-specified topics.

urbansim_maintenance_agreement.doc

Does this Mean UrbanSim Will No Longer be Available for Free?

No. All users may continue to download stable releases from the UrbanSim.org website at no cost, but users who participate in an annual user maintenance agreement receive the benefits listed above -- and avoid being a 'free rider'.

What About Academic Research and Teaching?

We want to support the use of UrbanSim in academic research and teaching, since these are activities that will extend the system and help to train users. If you have a research project that is contributing new features to the code shared on this web site, your organization will be identified as a Collaborating Developer, and no Maintenance Agreement is expected (though please feel free to support the project anyway!). If you are using UrbanSim in a classroom setting or for a Master's thesis or PhD? dissertation, kudos! (and please remember to cite us in your papers...). If you are using UrbanSim for your own funded research and are not contributing code shared on this web site, we urge you to share the responsibility for maintaining the system by participating in a Maintenance Agreement.

What About Consultants?

If you are a consultant and wish to develop expertise in supporting users in the application of UrbanSim, we urge you to contact us and to coordinate with Urban Analytics, Inc. in providing consulting support to users who want it. We would like to have partners who can help support the system and its application, and Urban Analytics, Inc. will consider including as partners qualified firms and individuals.

-- PaulWaddell - 21 Jul 2009