About widi.berlios.de -> the authors respond

[Gregorio Robles]

	Hello, everybody,
	Hi MJ Ray,

> >       We just use the BerliOS services.
> 
> That is possibly a mistake that will colour your returns.

 	Oh, we've already thought about that... that's why we are so
interested in releasing all the tools and sources we've used.

	* You say it was made at BerliOS
	* somebody else could say it was done by Germans
	* somebody else may say it was done by Europeans
	* ...

	We know it!
	That's why encourage _everybody_ to make more researches on developers:
We give away the tools and our database.
	I know the survey is a little different. We will give a list of news
sites where we have posted a press release and show the logs to show how
this affects on it.

	If you've got more ideas about transparency, we'll be really happy to
know.

> >       You can see it in our questionary... we always talk about "Open Source
> > / Free Software!"
> 
> Is this flame-bait?  Still "Open Source" first, after the historical
> order is recalled to you?

	Yes, I know it!

	The research group has already discussed this. The official study at
the TU-Berlin was about "Open Source developers".

	Two of us argued that we wanted to make it for Free Software
developers, the others two said Open Source developers. We decided to
put both so everybody was free to chose what was better for him.

	The order was another discussion. We were 2:2. At the end "Open Source
/ Free Software" developers was chosen instead of "Free Software / Open
Source", because the argumentation that the official study should be
about "Open Source developers" was definitive. :-(

> Please make this data available, or at least inform us of how, when
> and where it will become so.  For one, as a qualified statistician, I
> shall be quite interested to run the rule over the returns, as well as
> how they are (ab)used in debates to come.	

	You can trust us or you can't. ;-)

	But in both cases I _encourage_ you to take our results, our tools and
our sources and make your own studies. I've already said that our work
should be the first one, not the final one!

			thanx another time,

				Grex

	P.S. I answer to this as a P.S., because I think this is personal (and
not related to Widi):

> And surely you are more likely to get OS than FS by aligning yourself
> with berlios?

	I align myself for FS. I was one of the two who argued for free
software.

	I'm so interested that you take this study, because I think there is
valuable data to improve _Free Software_ ;-) in Europe! If I would be
OS, I would be knocking at someone else's door, not at yours.

	I know it is difficult to trust somebody by mail without ever having
seen him. But I say you I'm for FS. Maybe now you've to believe it and
wait for another time to see me in person and see that I'm not lying. If
next GUADEC is in Spain, it could be a good occasion. Until then I'm
sorry, I can only ensure it to you by mail :-)