

Why do you participate in Open Source? (survey) - redslazer
https://spreadsheets.google.com/viewform?formkey=dEYwVTBNUlB2REk4SGp3TU56Q2x1Q0E6MQ

======
jasonkester
What a strange, skewed survey. It seems to pre-suppose a single reason you'd
participate in Open Source, then asks a bunch of questions so that you can
answer "yes, that's right".

None of those questions have an answer I can check that applies to me.

As an example, take the Internationalization library for ASP.NET that I
released as Open Source last year. Sure, it's nice to give back to the
community and all that, but there's a business reason there as well. It's
hosted on one of my product domains, so having developers link to the project
has measurable SEO benefits. Weighing that benefit against the negligible
competitive advantage of keeping it in-house was the main part of the
decision, along with the fact that it was comparably easy to break out as a
reusable piece.

"Goodwill" might have weighed slightly, but "Esteem", "Self-Actualization" and
all the other tick marks from that survey were never part of the equation.

This isn't limited to small projects, either. Pick any big-name OS project,
and chances are you'll find a big corporation or two behind it, promoting (and
funding) it to further their own business need.

~~~
redslazer
thanks for the input, basically i only wanted to ask 4 questions

Do you participate? Do you get compensated? Tick all that apply 1 Tick all the
apply 2

Which would have told me what in essence, i need. People who participate in
Open source (for no financial compensation) have fulfilled the needs
associated with the bottom 4 levels of Maslow's Pyramid of needs

Again thanks for the input, i should have made the survey more open ended and
just narrowed down the parts where i needed specific answers

------
olalonde
I hate it when people put surveys on HN but don't make the data publicly
available.

~~~
redslazer
i have no problem making the data publicly available, as soon as i have
submitted my first draft to turnitin.com (a plagiarism checker thingy) (done
link is below)

to be honest i dont think the information would be much use to anyone because
as mentioned the survey pretty much points that respondent in one direction

(Here is a link to the spreadsheet)
[https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AtwEsLgSGhLCdEYwVTB...](https://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AtwEsLgSGhLCdEYwVTBNUlB2REk4SGp3TU56Q2x1Q0E&hl=en&authkey=CPDj25AL)

------
motters
I participate in open source mainly as a way of making my hobby projects
available to others who might have similar interests, and also as a means of
keeping my skills and knowledge up to date. I could spend my time making
commercial closed source applications, but for me intellectual curiosity and
sharing information (a status/gift economy) trumps the desire to make money.

------
skore
Added this in the comment box:

I'm not actually employed by anybody - there ARE people on Open Source who are
self-employed. You should add that as an option.

Also - You might want to consider making the last question (about what need
OpenSource fullfills) into a multiple-choice question. I would tick the last
three boxes, but had to settle for the most important (that might have been
your goal, of course).

Lastly - Call it Free and Open Source Software. There are people who care
about the distinction.

~~~
nupark
There are people who are put off by the social supposition and patronization
inherent in insisting on the semantic distinction of "Free [FLOSS] and Open-
Source".

This is predicated on the notion of a non-exclusive ownership of "free," as
in, the GPL bring "more free" than the MIT license, despite the fact that many
in the intended audience would disagree. "Open source" is a sufficiently
inclusive term.

~~~
skore
...And then there are others who care about the history of how Free and Open
Source Software came about. (Do note that I'm from Germany, so for me "Frei",
the literal translation of "Free", is closer to Freedom than it is to Free
Beer.)

Also note that proponents do not claim ownership of "free" in any sort, but of
"Free". Sorry to be nitpicking on this, but it is the name. Likewise, there is
no claim that the GPL is "more free" - if you talk to somebody who has a good
understanding of this, they will agree that the GPL is less "free" than MIT.
However, I and others would argue that the slight reduction in "freedom" is
actually worthwhile because it mitigates certain social risks by strengthening
the Share And Share Alike aspect.

~~~
jasonkester
Frankly, I wish there were a term I could use for the code that I make public
that isn't in any way associated with some silly "movement" that wants to make
my code "free" or otherwise taint it with some form of pretentiousness that I
don't intend.

It's code that I'm throwing out onto the internet for other people to use. I
can't for the life of me understand why some people think it's so _important_
as to split hairs about definitions and argue about licenses for it.

~~~
skore
Because there are some people who care about the social and philosophical
implications of their work or hobby. If you don't need that, that's fine. Go
with "Open Source", or "Copyleft" or whatever suits you.

The only reason why we insist that it is important is because there are others
who continue to push that it is not. I never really understood that particular
color of "activism", but to each his own, I guess.

------
drdaeman
The last question is beyond my understanding. Most of time, I hack on FOSS
because I need some features, which aren't there. Or I need to fix some bugs
developers had no time to take care of, but which prevent me from using the
software. Sometimes I give patches to upstream, sometimes I decide that I'm
too lazy for communication, or that patches aren't worth publishing.

I do that for my job (I'm being paid for making things work, and we use lots
of FOSS software) and I do that on my own leisure-time too (be it some
project, or just toying around). But I really don't see any answer to describe
something to describe my "I hack to get this working in a way I want"
utilitarian needs.

Add: And if I dig deeper, to the reasons why I want it to work, there are too
many reasons. Sometimes it's just a part of my job, sometimes I just want to
fullfill my interests, sometimes I want to help someone or do something that
would matter.

------
Sakes
Good luck! Please post your results when done.

Edit: Also, some of the things I checked did not apply to me 100%. I am
assuming this is because while they are different in my eyes, they are
equivalent in the test giver's eyes.

Remember you are surveying programmers which means T&F equals F. So if you
want many programmers to check yes to something that partially applies, you
should specify that.

If my assumptions are correct, I would change "Tick all that apply _" to say
"Tick all that partially or fully apply_ "

I would remove validation on that page as well or add a nothing applies option
to the questions.

------
mcuk
If you say that you do not participate in open source projects, then you
cannot complete the survey because the required questions at the bottom are
not appropriate.

I am guessing it was done on purpose, but mentioning it just in case.

~~~
skore
That must also be why directly below the first question, it says "If No Please
Stop".

------
redslazer
Thanks in advance to anyone who fills out the survey, it is greatly
appreciated

~~~
joelhaasnoot
You sure have an interesting topic for your Extended Essay (assume that's what
it is), mine 4 years ago was pretty geeky but not quite the same level. Get a
good advisor and good luck!

~~~
redslazer
ya its for my extended essay and im really enjoying it(weird i know) but im
probably heading into Business+Physiology for Uni so something to do with
motivation was logical for me. Not really happy with my supervisor but im
getting it checked by other people as well. What did you do yours on?

~~~
joelhaasnoot
It was an essay for Business and Management advising a internet services
company on whether to invest in creating a certain website, mainly looking at
the financials and some limited real marketing data. Thanks to Gmail I just
found it again, and looking back it's pretty sad, but is a good convincing
study. The factors (mainly financial) are not what I would look at if I did it
again, but that was partly my very good advisor's pressuring. I had an idea,
but it had to be fit within the framework of the "extended essay" framework.
Oh, and I'm a senior in college, doing "Technical Information Science), hoping
to graduate this spring.

------
williamdix
There seems to be a validation on the second "All that apply" question
preventing no answers. That seems a little strange as I would hardly say those
are universal and everyone has to feel at least one.

~~~
redslazer
thanks for pointing that out to me by putting that i sort of ruining my
research. Since im trying to prove that all the contributers have fulfilled
all the needs discuss in Tick all the apply and that they were contributing to
open source to fullish the higher needs

------
sanxiyn
Did anyone answer that they participate in open source project to "belong"?
Because it is a big part for me.

I think it would have been better if I could choose multiple answers to the
last question.

------
njharman
"participate" needs to be defined.

I consider using and spreading the use of as participating. I'm sure many do
not. (btw neither they nor I are wrong)

------
redslazer
Survey Results <http://goo.gl/ZKVwa>

