Open source survey: many questions remain

By Sam Varghese
Monday, 12 May 2008 22:26

Opinion and Analysis

Used in the right context, statistics can often illuminate and point the way. On the other hand, these days, given the degree of spin around, they are more often used to confuse and blur an issue.
That's why I am always suspicious about surveys. Over the years I've been writing about free and open source software, I've seen numerous surveys from the proprietary software crowd - which always tend to paint a positive picture of proprietary software. Curious.

And then there are surveys from proponents of free and open source software - which, mysteriously, end up favouring the FOSS community and its software.

It's not surprising that the great Benjamin Disraeli once referred to statistics as being the third kind of lies - after lies and damn lies.

Hence I decided to have a close look at the Australian Open Source Industry and Community Report 2008 conducted by Waugh Partners and officially released on April 1. If anything, such scrutiny would only add to the credibility of such a report - that was my reasoning. The data for the report was collected through two surveys conducted between October and Devcember 2007.

The report was backed by IBM, Fujitsu and National ICT Australia. The industry results seem perfectly kosher as the sample size appears eminently reasonable. The doubts I have pertain to the community statistics.

Jeff Waugh and Pia Waugh presented a sneak peek at the community side of the results during the national Australian Linux Conference. The presentation was on February 1, the final day of the conference, and was one of the last of five talks scheduled at different venues at 2.30pm.