[Novalug] survey request from college students

[William Sutton]

I don't mind taking a survey for free if the survey accurately assesses 
whatever it is intended to survey.  The point here is that surveys 
(anything else created in the FOSS community) tend to be geared for 
self-taught, super-intelligent, highly contributory individuals.

To illustrate with a simple example on bad survey methodolgy, I had a 
second grade assignment to survey my classmates on something.  I chose to 
survey them on what their pet was.  Categories that I had were cat, snake, 
fish, and "no pet" (go figure).  Anything not matching one of the canned 
categories went to "no pet"....

In a similar vein, you can ask how often someone has downloaded the Linux 
source and read through it to find all the bugs and patch them, but that's 
going to be a trivially small result compared with the number of folks who 
are actively using Linux to do /something else/.  Most people who use 
Linux are using it to host something else (web site, applications, etc) 
and only care about patches insofar as they are timely and correct.

William Sutton

On Wed, 23 Jun 2010, Jay Hart wrote:

> So, do like I do.  When I'm asked to complete a survey, I state "Sure, time is
> money so when I get $50 for my knowledge and time, you'll get a completed
> survey".
>
> I have yet to complete a survey.
>
> I know, sound like an a-hole, gotcha...
>
> Jay
>
>> I don't think so.  I took a similar survey someone put up for Perl users.
>> I get the feeling that these sorts of surveys are written by people who
>> regularly rub shoulders with Linus, Alan, Richard, Eric, Larry, Randall,
>> and friends, and expect everyone taking their surveys to have the same
>> level of contribution.  Thus, questions geared for people like Mark
>> Spencer, Tim Bunce, and so on.
>>
>> It's annoying and confusing for us mere mortals :-)
>>
>> William Sutton
>>
>> On Wed, 23 Jun 2010, Keith Casey wrote:
>>
>>> On Wed, Jun 23, 2010 at 6:58 AM, greg pryzby <greg at pryzby.org> wrote:
>>>> Do you use Gnu/Linux? Do you consider yourself part of a larger Gnu/Linux
>>>> free and open source software community? Whether you've just starting
>>>> clicking around in Ubuntu or you've been tweaking your kernel for years, we
>>>> are interested in learning about if, and how, you've learned (and possibly
>>>> taught) as part of the Gnu/Linux community.
>>>
>>> After just a few questions in, I find their questions pretty flawed.
>>> Despite using Linux on the desktop exclusively for 3+ years, I
>>> consider myself barely part of the Linux community. Sure, I use it but
>>> I don't develop software specifically for it or submit more than a
>>> handful of bug reports. On the other hand, I'm active in the PHP
>>> community on a daily basis.. both with web2project and other things.
>>>
>>> So questions like this confuse things:
>>>
>>> Contribute patches to Gnu/Linux or other FOSS projects?
>>> Contribute new code to or edit existing packages for Gnu/Linux or
>>> other FOSS projects?
>>>
>>> It's put me in the odd position of saying that I never look at the
>>> source for GNU/Linux (I don't) but I regularly contribute patches to
>>> "GNU/Linux or other FOSS projects" (almost daily).
>>>
>>> Are we still that strange of an animal that we're hard to classify?
>>>
>>> keith
>>>
>>> --
>>> D. Keith Casey Jr.
>>> CTO, Blue Parabola, LLC
>>> http://BlueParabola.com
>>> http://CaseySoftware.com/blog
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> Novalug mailing list
>>> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
>>> http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/novalug
>>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> Novalug mailing list
>> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
>> http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/novalug
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Novalug mailing list
> Novalug at calypso.tux.org
> http://calypso.tux.org/mailman/listinfo/novalug
>