# Hercules Version 4: Technical Support

## Paid Support

Hercules does not have any official (formal) paid support in place...

...HOWEVER...

I'm sure if you ask the group whether or not there's anyone out there willing to provide it, you'll probably get more than one response. `;-)`

I know for a fact that at least one person is already providing Hercules Technical Support on a paid basis, and as I said, I'm sure there are probably others out there who are either already doing it, or at least willing to do it, too. All you have to do is ask (any of the people involved with Hercules (users and/or developers)) and I'm sure more than one would be willing to provide it to you for a reasonable agreed-upon fee.

Your best approach for obtaining fee-paid tecnical support for Hercules would be to post an inquiry to the main Hercules-390 group (see next section below) and simply ask whether anyone out there would be willing to provide it. As I said, I'm sure there are probably many people out there who would be willing to do so for the right price.

## Free Support

Since Hercules is an Open Source product owned by no one in particular and copyrighted by many (lots of very sharp people have contributed over the years to Hercules's success), there doesn't exist any type of official "Technical Support Department" within any type of company or anything (like there usually is for closed-source products).

Instead, as with most Open Source products, there simply exists a dedicated group of individuals and enthusiasts who are willing to put in their spare time helping others with whatever problems and/or questions others may have regarding it. This dedicated group of Hercules enthusiasts is known as "our user community", and it honestly does, in this author's opinion, a pretty darn good job at providing whatever technical support most people find themselves needing.

If your question and/or concern regarding Hercules is not already addressed in our FAQ and/or documentation then you might consider posting your question to either the main Hercules-390 group or one of the more "focused" support groups listed further below:

>         HERCULES-390:   Primary SDL Hercules Hyperion support forum

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://hercules-390.groups.io/g/group

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://hercules-390.groups.io/g/group/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          group@hercules-390.groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     group+subscribe@hercules-390.groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   group+unsubscribe@hercules-390.groups.io
>                 Group owner:   group+owner@hercules-390.groups.io
>                 Help:          group+help@hercules-390.groups.io

The Hercules-390 group is your primary source for free Hercules support, and you are strongly encouraged to subscribe. It is a vibrant, active community with hundreds of members, most of whom are very knowledgeable in many different areas of mainframe technology, both from a hardware point of view as well as from an operating system and software point of view.

In addition to the main Hercules-390 group, other more specialized Hercules groups also exist to provide more focused support for a variety of popular IBM mainframe operating systems, such as DOS/VS, z/VSE, VM/370, z/VM, MVS, z/OS, etc:

>         H390-DOSVS:   Running DOS/VS, DOS/VSE or z/VSE under Hercules

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/H390-DOSVS

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/H390-DOSVS/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          H390-DOSVS@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     H390-DOSVS+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   H390-DOSVS+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   H390-DOSVS+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          H390-DOSVS+help@groups.io

>         H390-MVS:   Running MVS or z/OS under Hercules

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/H390-MVS

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/H390-MVS/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          H390-MVS@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     H390-MVS+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   H390-MVS+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   H390-MVS+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          H390-MVS+help@groups.io

>         Turnkey-MVS:   Discussion group for running the Tur(n)key MVS38j operating system on Hercules

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/Turnkey-MVS

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/Turnkey-MVS/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          Turnkey-MVS@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     Turnkey-MVS+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   Turnkey-MVS+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   Turnkey-MVS+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          Turnkey-MVS+help@groups.io

>         h390-vm:   Running VM/370, VM/SP, VM/ESA or z/VM under Hercules

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/h390-vm

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/h390-vm/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          h390-vm@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     h390-vm+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   h390-vm+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   h390-vm+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          h390-vm+help@groups.io

>         H390-MTS:   Discussion group for running the MTS operating system on Hercules

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/H390-MTS

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/H390-MTS/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          H390-MTS@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     H390-MTS+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   H390-MTS+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   H390-MTS+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          H390-MTS+help@groups.io

>         H390-MUSIC:   Discussion group for running the Music/SP operating system on Hercules

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/H390-MUSIC

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/H390-MUSIC/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          H390-MUSIC@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     H390-MUSIC+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   H390-MUSIC+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   H390-MUSIC+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          H390-MUSIC+help@groups.io

>         H390-OSVS:   Discussion group for running the OS/VS1 and OS/VS2 operating systems on Hercules

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/H390-OSVS

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/H390-OSVS/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          H390-OSVS@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     H390-OSVS+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   H390-OSVS+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   H390-OSVS+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          H390-OSVS+help@groups.io

>         Hercules-OS380:   Discussion group for running the OS380 operating system on Hercules

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/Hercules-OS380

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/Hercules-OS380/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          Hercules-OS380@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     Hercules-OS380+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   Hercules-OS380+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   Hercules-OS380+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          Hercules-OS380+help@groups.io

>         MVS38j-Wylbur:   Discussion group for running the Wylbur operating system on Hercules

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/MVS38j-Wylbur

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/MVS38j-Wylbur/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          MVS38j-Wylbur@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     MVS38j-Wylbur+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   MVS38j-Wylbur+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   MVS38j-Wylbur+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          MVS38j-Wylbur+help@groups.io

>         KICKSforTSO:   Discussion group for running KICKS for TSO under MVS38j on Hercules

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/KICKSforTSO

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/KICKSforTSO/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          KICKSforTSO@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     KICKSforTSO+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   KICKSforTSO+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   KICKSforTSO+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          KICKSforTSO+help@groups.io

>         cbt-tape:   Discussion group for the CBT MVS Utilities and Overflow Tapes

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/cbt-tape

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/cbt-tape/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          cbt-tape@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     cbt-tape+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   cbt-tape+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   cbt-tape+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          cbt-tape+help@groups.io

>         hercules-s370asm:   Forum discussing use of S/370 assembler with the Hercules emulator

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/hercules-s370asm

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/hercules-s370asm/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          hercules-s370asm@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     hercules-s370asm+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   hercules-s370asm+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   hercules-s370asm+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          hercules-s370asm+help@groups.io

>         SATK:   SATK and Bare-Metal programming on mainframes

>             Group Web Page:

>                 https://groups.io/g/satk
>                 https://github.com/s390guy/SATK

>             Group Files and archives:

>                 https://groups.io/g/satk/files

>             Group Email Addresses:

>                 Post:          satk@groups.io
>                 Subscribe:     satk+subscribe@groups.io
>                 Unsubscribe:   satk+unsubscribe@groups.io
>                 Group owner:   satk+owner@groups.io
>                 Help:          satk+help@groups.io