Hi there! My name is Maciej and I study Global Studies at Gothenburg University, Sweden. Currently I'm preparing to write my master thesis in which I want to investigate free and open source software community using global civil society's theories. Therefore I would like to ask the FOSS community members, both developers and users, to help me with my research. Your motivations of using this kind of software is the key to my study. Although vast majority of FOSS community are men I believe that women's opinions can contribute to valuable findings in this study. Therefore there are very important to me.
I would like to create few virtual focus groups in which motivations of using FOSS would be discussed by the interviewees. The place would be Google groups (I hope not too many people will object using this platform, but this is the easiest way to conduct a survey...). Whole discussion will be carried out in English. Well, I'm Polish myself so if I find enough Poles willing to take a part in the group interview one of the groups may include Polish speakers only. Although everybody who declares using FOSS can join the research, the focus groups in this study will be closed for public. The survey will consist of asynchronous communication over a 2-3 weeks period and will start as soon as I get enough people – hopefully in 5-15 days time. If you are interested please contact me to my e mail – m.pio...@gmail.com Few sentences about yourself would be appreciated:) I expect my master thesis to be done in September 2010 and the findings will be available to all interested people. Also, I promise to preserve anonymity of anybody taking part in the interview if such a person wishes so. Please note that you don't need to create a Google account in order to use Google groups – you can use your current e mail address. All instructions will be given.. Needless to say that the software on my computer is almost all free and open source. Thank you for your help and I hope we will have fun in the discussion!
