[NCLUG] FLOSS developer survey... (FORWARDED MSG) ("Frederick Noronha (FN)")

[Evelyn Mitchell]

From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <fred at bytesforall.org>
Subject: FLOSS developer survey... (FORWARDED MSG)
Date: Fri, 14 Mar 2003 01:15:32 CST

========== Forwarded message ==========

I am writing to request your help. We are researchers at Stanford 
University who are in particular interested in studying open-source as an 
alternative way of producing software. To that end, we have designed a 
survey that aims to understand motivations and organizational aspects of 
open-source. Could we please request you to post the announcement below 
to user groups so that developers can fill our survey 
and help us better understand how open-source works. This survey has been 
translated into several foreign languages so that we can attract a 
diversity of responses from across the globe. I am including 2 
announcements that relate to the survey and you could post either in the 
user groups.

I would be most grateful for advise regarding other sites or names I 
could approach in order to attract a large number of respondents from India.

Best
Seema

LONG ANNOUNCEMENT

A Survey of Software Developers

FLOSS-US is an online survey currently being conducted by researchers at 
Stanford University’s Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research 
(SIEPR). It is a part of the study of the Economic Organization and 
Viability of Open Source Software undertaken by SIEPR’s Knowledge, 
Networks and Information for Innovation Program (KNIIP) which is being 
supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation.

This survey has been designed in cooperation with Rishab Aiyer Ghosh 
(MERIT and Infonomics, University of Maastricht), who led the FLOSS 
survey of Open Source/Free Software developer communities, carried out 
with the sponsorship of the European Commission during 2002. 
[http://floss1.infonomics.nl]

To establish comparability with the previous sample of voluntary 
respondents, FLOSS-US asks questions on the same range of topics that the 
original FLOSS survey addressed, including:

o Motivation: monetary / non-monetary, reputation, pleasure, creativity, 
jobs
o Expectations: what do you expect of others? What do they expect of you?
o Organization: efficiency, quality, comparison with commercial software
o Law: intellectual property licenses, authorship, public domain
o Technology: preferred programming tools

In addition, developers are invited to provide information about their 
experiences and opinions on several other issues, such as: extent and 
intensity of OS/FS activities and project roles; relationships with 
commercial enterprises based on Free/Libre/Open Source software; support 
of OS/FS projects by proprietary software firms.

Announcements of this new online survey will be posted in languages other 
than English, and at sites likely to be visited by developers in regions 
outside as well as within western Europe and North America.

We will make public tabulated responses for each of the questions as soon 
as the survey period is closed, and the results of our further analyses 
will also be published on the SIEPR/KNIIP website. We are committed to 
protecting respondents' privacy: no personal identifiers will be stored 
with your answers and responses will be reported in aggregates that will 
prevent inferences about individual identities.
If you are an Open Source/Free Software developer, please assist this 
research: go to the questionnaire at 

http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/survey.fft

and fill it out!

At the end of the questionnaire you will find links to to the SIEPR/KNIIP 
website and further information about our project. When you have 
submitted your response there will be an opportunity to comment on the 
questionnaire itself, and to request any of the publications that will be 
based upon analyses of the survey data.


SHORT ANNOUNCEMENT

The Free/Libre/Open Source Software Survey for 2003
 
http://www.stanford.edu/group/floss-us/survey.fft

FLOSS-US is an online survey of Open Source/Free Software developers
currently being conducted by researchers at Stanford University's
Institute for Economic Policy Research (SIEPR), supported by a grant from
the National Science Foundation.  This survey has been designed to
complement the FLOSS survey for 2002 of Open Source/Free Software developer
communities sponsored by the European Commission.

FLOSS-US asks questions on some of the topics addressed by the original
FLOSS survey, plus questions on several other important issues,
including open source developers' motivations and expectations, usage of
licenses and programming tools, individuals' contributions to projects,
and support by proprietary software firms.

If you are an Open Source/Free Software developer, please click here to
fill out the questionnaire. We greatly appreciate your viewpoints
and your responses to our survey questions.

----- End forwarded message -----

-- 
Regards,                    tummy.com, ltd 
Evelyn Mitchell             Linux Consulting since 1995
efm at tummy.com               Senior System and Network Administrators
                            http://www.tummy.com/