[plug] [Fwd: Open Source Software: developers survey]

[Onno Benschop]

-----Forwarded Message-----
From: FLOSSpols <flosspols at infonomics.unimaas.nl>
Subject: Open Source Software: developers survey
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 13:47:47 +0100

 Dear FLOSS (Free/Libre/Open Source Software) participant, 

 Two years ago, the University of Maastricht (the Netherlands), carried 
 out the FLOSS developer survey supported by the European Union. This was 
 the first survey that provided deep insights in the international FLOSS 
 community, its beliefs, and its functioning. Although this study has 
 been pathbreaking for many research activities in the following years, 
 some very important questions regarding this phenomenon remained 
 unanswered so far. 

 The original FLOSS survey and follow up FLOSS-US (Stanford) and 
 FLOSS-Japan/FLOSS-Asia (Mitsubishi Research) showed that "Learning new 
 skills" was the most common reason provided by developers for their 
 community participation. Another significant finding of surveys is that 
 there are far fewer women in FLOSS development than in software 
 development as a whole. In this two-part survey, once again supported by 
 the European Union, we would like to find out, first, how learning is 
 organised and perceived within the FLOSS community and, second, to 
 understand better the role of women within the community. 

 For this purpose we rely heavily on your support, because you and your 
 colleagues are the only ones who have the experience and expertise to 
 help us revealing a realistic and appropriate picture of the community. 
 Therefore we would like to ask you to fill in the following 
 questionnaire. The more FLOSS developers respond, the better and more 
 accurate the survey results. 

 FLOSSPOLS is a scientific project that is financed by the European 
 Commission and carried out by the University of Maastricht and the 
 University of Cambridge. It serves exclusively purposes in the public 
 interest, especially the provision of support for European policies 
 towards Open Source and Free Software. The information you provide will 
 be kept strictly confidential, and nobody outside the FLOSSPOLS research 
 team will have access to personalised data. Moreover, all results we 
 publish will ensure that the identification of persons who have replied 
 to the questionnaires will be impossible. 

 If you are younger than 18 years, we would like to draw attention to the 
 fact that surveying of underage persons is a sensitive ethical issue in 
 the EU framework. However, we acknowledge that many members of the FLOSS 
 community are quite young. If you are underage, we would like to 
 recommend that you carefully consider the purpose of our survey, as 
 stated in this letter, before filling it out. 

 You can start the survey by clicking on the link: 

 http://flosspols.org/survey/survey_dev.php?id=2190&key=EIRVU

 If you have further questions or comments on this topic do not hesitate 
 to contact us. 

 The FLOSSPOLS team 
 University of Maastricht 
 the Netherlands
Onno Benschop 

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