Re: Free / Open Source Software Survey
* Barak Pearlmutter <barak@cs.nuim.ie> [2005-03-20 10:14]:
> I consider my own time more valuable than yours.
> If you spend half an hour making useful improvements to my Debian
> packages, or proofreading my personal web site and sending me
> corrections or other improvements, I'll fill out your survey.
I wasn't invited to take part in the survey, so I cannot talk
specifically about this one. However, in general, I don't see the
problem. If those surveys lead to a better understanding of the free
software community (e.g. why people get involved; what problems they
might perceive, such as burn-out; what problems users have with our
software), we can use these insights as a good starting point for
further improvements - and this certainly is a significant
contribution, just like proofreading some manuals or reporting a bug.
Disclaimer: I'm both a free software developer as well as a researcher
looking at quality in free software projects, so I will eventually have
to invite people to take part in surveys too and I'm thinking a lot of
how to avoid make my invitations look like random spam...
--
Martin Michlmayr
http://www.cyrius.com/
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