[Gllug] Request for help in OSS/Free Software survey
Christian Reis
kiko at async.com.br
Wed Oct 2 13:22:07 UTC 2002
Hello Tim,
I'm writing to request your help with my MSc research project. I'm a
brazilian software engineer doing a dissertation on Open Source
software engineering processes, and as the final part of it, I'm
conducting a survey of the major Open Source projects.
The research depends on the respondant's knowledge of the project
and a bit of its history, so I'm asking project leaders personally to
answer for their own project; specifically in this case for
Tamber. If you can also answer for others that you lead or know well,
of course, it will also be very appreciated.
The survey has 12 questions, and shouldn't take more than 15 minutes to
answer (we did some testing and most people finish in about 7). It's
online at:
http://www.async.com.br/~kiko/fsp/
If you would like someone else to answer, please send me an email
address and I'll ask them directly. If you would rather the survey
came in through email, let me know too and I'll arrange.
The survey is usable on any browser (including text browsers like
lynx and w3m), and it contains *no* graphics, so it should be quite
fast. If you use Mozilla or another DOM-compliant browser the help
boxes show in the same page, which is a bit nicer than the default
behaviour. Apart from that it shouldn't be too much of a bother to
fill it out, and it will really help us get valid research findings.
If you want to know more about the survey, there is a FAQ on the
site, and I am available to answer any questions. A short text
follows describing it.
This is the only email I will send you with a request, and if you
don't have the time, kindly ignore it (use "D" in mutt or pine).
Thanks if you do take the time, too. :-)
About the Research
The MSc project is an attempt to characterize open source/free
software projects with respect to their software processes. This means
how the project organizes, how code is designed, produced and kept track
of, and other issues relating to the project's approach to development.
The qualification paper (in portuguese, i'm afraid) is available at
http://www.async.com.br/~kiko/quali/ - Google does a [rather poor,
and my surname isn't Kings] translation of it if you enter the URL
in the search box.
The results of this survey will be made publically available, and
the report will be also published in English, to make sure that the
largest number of people and organizations can benefit from the
data. If you are interested I can offer data in any format that's
considered convenient.
About me
I'm an MSc student at ICMC USP, Brazil, and my MSc work involves
describing and characterizing software process models for open
source projects. As part of my research, I've done a study of a
number of projects, and this year I've published an article on the
Mozilla Software Process at the OSS Workshop in Newcastle, UK. It's
available online at http://www.async.com.br/~kiko/papers.html
I'm also a member of the Kiwi, Bugzilla and PyGTK development teams,
and I work mainly on an open source project to develop a free point
of sales and retail management software, called Stoq.
Take care,
--
Christian Reis, Senior Engineer, Async Open Source, Brazil.
http://async.com.br/~kiko/ | [+55 16] 261 2331 | NMFL
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