I have recieved an invitation to fill in the second survey developed by University of Maastricht (the Netherlands) to study Free\/Libre\/Open Source Software. The first one was about two years ago and I barely remember it.<\/p>\n
Anyway, these guys could use some help, so if you are in any way participating in FLOSS (I hate this word) community and have some time on your hands, check it out. It took me “You took 35 min 58 sec to fill out this survey.” There are slighly more than 40 questions.<\/p>\n
Below is the full text of the email that they have sent.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\nFrom: “FLOSSpols” flosspols (at) infonomics.unimaas.nl
\nTo: my email address
\nDate: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 13:47:12 +0100
\nSubject: Open Source Software: developers survey<\/p>\nDear FLOSS (Free\/Libre\/Open Source Software) participant,<\/p>\n
Two years ago, the University of Maastricht (the Netherlands), carried
\nout the FLOSS developer survey supported by the European Union. This was
\nthe first survey that provided deep insights in the international FLOSS
\ncommunity, its beliefs, and its functioning. Although this study has
\nbeen pathbreaking for many research activities in the following years,
\nsome very important questions regarding this phenomenon remained
\nunanswered so far.<\/p>\nThe original FLOSS survey and follow up FLOSS-US (Stanford) and
\nFLOSS-Japan\/FLOSS-Asia (Mitsubishi Research) showed that “Learning new
\nskills” was the most common reason provided by developers for their
\ncommunity participation. Another significant finding of surveys is that
\nthere are far fewer women in FLOSS development than in software
\ndevelopment as a whole. In this two-part survey, once again supported by
\nthe European Union, we would like to find out, first, how learning is
\norganised and perceived within the FLOSS community and, second, to
\nunderstand better the role of women within the community.<\/p>\nFor this purpose we rely heavily on your support, because you and your
\ncolleagues are the only ones who have the experience and expertise to
\nhelp us revealing a realistic and appropriate picture of the community.
\nTherefore we would like to ask you to fill in the following
\nquestionnaire. The more FLOSS developers respond, the better and more
\naccurate the survey results.<\/p>\nFLOSSPOLS is a scientific project that is financed by the European
\nCommission and carried out by the University of Maastricht and the
\nUniversity of Cambridge. It serves exclusively purposes in the public
\ninterest, especially the provision of support for European policies
\ntowards Open Source and Free Software. The information you provide will
\nbe kept strictly confidential, and nobody outside the FLOSSPOLS research
\nteam will have access to personalised data. Moreover, all results we
\npublish will ensure that the identification of persons who have replied
\nto the questionnaires will be impossible.<\/p>\nIf you are younger than 18 years, we would like to draw attention to the
\nfact that surveying of underage persons is a sensitive ethical issue in
\nthe EU framework. However, we acknowledge that many members of the FLOSS
\ncommunity are quite young. If you are underage, we would like to
\nrecommend that you carefully consider the purpose of our survey, as
\nstated in this letter, before filling it out.<\/p>\nYou can start the survey by clicking on the link:<\/p>\n
http:\/\/flosspols.org\/survey\/survey_dev.php?id=2102&key=QQIDL<\/a><\/p>\n
If you have further questions or comments on this topic do not hesitate
\nto contact us.<\/p>\nThe FLOSSPOLS team
\nUniversity of Maastricht
\nthe Netherlands\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\nI have recieved an invitation to fill in the second survey developed by University of Maastricht (the Netherlands) to study Free\/Libre\/Open Source Software. The first one was about two years ago and I barely remember it. Anyway, these guys could use some help, so if you are in any way participating in FLOSS (I hate … Continue reading Open Source Software: developers survey<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1,62],"tags":[],"keyring_services":[],"class_list":["post-8351","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general","category-technology"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t