Sam Varghese
Monday, 12 May 2008 23:26
Opinion and Analysis
Page 5 of 6
5. You mention that you "worked closely with psychometricians and statisticians provided by NICTA, our primary research partner, to ensure the end-to-end quality of the research." Did the people from NICTA analyse the data, collate it and then leave the conclusions to you? Or, if someone in your organisation did everything, is the person a trained statistician?
I think this question was answered in part by the NICTA response.
6. Publicity for the survey: You mentioned: "The Census was directly promoted through a national roadshow which traveled to every capital city, on several mailing lists including Linux Australia, Open Source Industry Australia and user groups around the country, and through direct contact with Open Source community members and companies. Indirect promotion included blogging, media coverage, and notification to members of the Australia Computer Society, AIIA, OzZope and numerous other organisations."
Which media were these? Was there any advertising in mainstream media or technology supplements of mainstream media? Were press releases sent to all major technology news outlets in Australia?
Given that major companies like IBM and Fujitsu were involved as sponsors, I thought that they would be concerned about adequate publicity. Hence the question.
7. You mention that you "... received 315 complete and legitimate responses, with 66 incomplete. Twelve of those incomplete responses were deemed legitimate and complete enough to include in the final results." What criteria were used to determine the legitimacy of these 12 responses as opposed to the other 54?
8. You mention that "The community survey was aimed at "individuals who contribute to Open Source projects and communities in any capacity, not just software development". What other contributions were taken into account? For example, would a man who sends a PC to East Timor via the Computerbank project (which fits it out with Debian and sends it to Dili) be counted as an individual who contributes to an open source project?
