I've ranted before about just how hard it has become to configure and administer computers. And there are services where you can hire sysadmins to help you, primarily aimed at novice users.

But we advanced users often need help today, too. Mostly when we run into problems we go to message boards, or do web searches and find advice on what to do. And once we get good on a package we can generally fix problems with it in no time.

I would love a service where I can trade my skill with some packages for help from others on other packages. There are some packages I know well, and could probably install for you or fix for you in a jiffy. Somebody else can do the same favour for me. In both cases we would explain what we did so the other person learned.

All of this would take place remotely, with VNC or ssh. Of course, this opens up a big question about trust. A reputation system would be a big start, but might not be enough. Of course you would want a complete log of all files changed, and how they were changed -- this service might apply more to just editing scripts and not compiling new binaries. Best of all, you could arrange to have a virtualized version of your machine around for the helper to use. After examining the differences you could apply to them to your real machine. Though in the end, you still need reputations so that people wanting to hack machines would not get into the system. They might have to be vetted as much as any outside consultant you would hire for money.

There seems a real efficiency to be had if this could be made to work. How often have you pounded for hours on something that a person skilled with the particular software could fix in minutes? How often could you do the same for others? Indeed, in many cases the person helping you might well be one of the developers of a system, who also would be learning about user problems. (Admittedly those developers would quickly earn enough credit to not have to maintain any other part of their system.)

The real tool would be truly secure operating systems where you can trust a stranger to work on one component.