From: <her...@he...> - 2002-12-16 23:39:51
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>> I dare to ask the question: is this really necessary? > To me it is, yes. That one was obvious :-) >> I find a 30-50 questions survey repulsive! In my eyes it makes fink >> begin to look like, well, a commercial product. Maybe I have always >> looked the other way when I encountered one, but after thinking for >> 30 seconds I couldn't come up with another Open Source project that >> surveys its users. >> > Oh, there are many. KDE, GNOME, even some GNU projects have or have > had efforts in the past to gather a basic knowledge of the user > community they serve, As I said, I probably have looked the other way, the same way I don't notice banner ads anymore. >> I once more ask the question: what do you need this data for? I would >> also be interested to hear from Max Horn and other core people if >> this is something coordinated. >> > I need to this data, because we all create parts of Fink to help > others. In a way we are servants to those who use our work. This also > means, that work could be made easier for us, if we knew who we serve. > Of course that should not include judging them to be the only ones > that are being served. > No one forces you to answer those questions, if you do it is merely a > continued effort on your behalf to make developing easier. Waitwaitwait... How in the world do I help fink developers in doing their work when I state - my gender - my occupation - my type of Macintosh I run fink on ??? And these are just the top 3 questions. I could easily go on with more examples. In fact, after cooling down I took some time to have a look at all the questions you proposed, and I came up with exactly three questions that are directly useful to the fink project: - Which new feature would you like to see most in furutre versions of Fink? - Would you find it useful to have Fink distributed differently? - How would you like to help Fink? What of the rest? It reminds me of the greedy gathering of statistics that I witnessed during 7 years of work at a market research company. > For an open source project, including Fink, time is a very valuable > thing. Everyone involved donates their time to Fink, which means that > it becomes very valuable. If we know how we should spend our time with > Fink, simply because we know what we are doing and for whom we are > doing it, then that is beneficial to us all. Maybe the following is presumptuous, after all I'm just a small user and lurker-on-the-list, sometimes dabbling in the art of creating an .info file, but... Besides having an obligation to the community, everything I do for fink is - because I think fink is useful, and - because I already know that others think fink is useful, too. As for the last: look at the mailing lists, look at the download stats on SourceForge, hell - search for "fink" on Google: a once common German word now has a special meaning! For me this is enough proof that people are using fink and that my time is not wasted, I don't need a survey for that. Again, the 3 questions mentioned above are the only ones that I think are valid ones in this scope. Of course, the scope grows when you include Apple into the equation. After Benjamin Reed mentioned them this whole matter finally started to make a little bit of sense to me. The results of a wholesale survey might actually be of interest to ***them***. But don't pretend the results are for fink. If your survey helps to convince Apple to officially acknowledge fink, fine. However, don't forget that in the end it will still be the fink project that will be associated with the survey. So, if I'm to make a constructive contribution to your request I would recommend to place a prominent notice on top of the survey that mentions that a) the collected raw data will not be given out to anybody b) the data in a processed form might be used for publication, such as a presentation to Apple Don't even think about how many people will shy away because of such a statement. Some will. But if you don't make a true statement, the thing might start to smell rather badly... > It is something coordinated, I can assure you of that. As > documentation maintainer and Fink "PR Dude" it has become and > increasing priority on my list to learn more about those who use Fink. > I do this so I may serve them better, not only through documentation > but also through gathering information which can then be used to help > Max and other developers. > Max and I spoke very carefully about this and he seems to feel, that > it is a good idea to query users. OK. No more questions about that. Might even have been somewhat inappropriate for somebody like me to ask this, my apologies. Patrick |