Survey on open-source software

[calande]

I am creating a questionnaire for a survey on open-source software (OS & apps). I'd like your contribution to have a look at it and to bring a contructive critique to improve the questions/replies. As soon as the questionnaire is ready, I will release it for the community to answer and then we should know a little more about the relationship between users and open-source software.

You'll find the draft of the questionnaire here: http://www.auriance.com/docs/questionnaire.html

Please tell me what you think, how we can improve it, thanks in advance.

[a12ctic]

what is your favorite color?

[calande]

Mine? Green

[fingal]

Errr well some comments then. Please bear in mind that I should be in bed and I've just had a row with a mate of mine (who turns out to have views that would shame Mussolini) so if that creeps in here ....

- What's the favourite colour question all about then? Sounds a little Pythonesque (and I don't mean the programming language);
- if you're having a sliding scale of comments, is 'no not really' a good way of asking a question ... in terms of the data you'll finally end up with - maybe a 5 point Likert scale would be better?;
- your first set of questions has a lot of 'If no why nots' and not many 'If yes whys'. How about a bit more balance there?;
- you ask a lot of 'other' type questions ... when you are collating yer data you might need some comments to qualify that ... 'other' isn't very descriptive;
- given that your survey is about 'open source software and OSs' you ask if 'double clicking a setup file' is a favoured installation method. Not likely under Linux where you are more likely to either type ./install_whassit having first logged in as root or ... well you get the idea. Double clicking is more of a Windows thing.

Well ... hope that was at least partially useful.

[calande]

Thank you, yes some questions will seem strange for entrenched Linux users, but this is to know more about the users. For instance the color is very important because it is used to define a color theme for KDE or Gnome. Also the "Double-click setup file" is also very important because 90%+ computer users use this method to install software (Windows), and for instance, PC-BSD uses this method to install software, and some people are loving it. So, we need to know in what proportions.

[a12ctic]

personaly i like

"apt-get install xxx" or "installpkg xxx.tgz" beter that next next finish, its much easier imo

[calande]

I use Ubuntu, and installing software on Ubuntu, be it using Synaptic or sudo apt-get is too complicated for me. I hope they offer an easier way to install software on Ubuntu such as in Mac OS X or Windows. I don't have a lot of installed software on Ubuntu for this reason

[a12ctic]

apt-get is so amazingly simple, its 5x as easy as googling around for software...

[fingal]

I use Ubuntu, and installing software on Ubuntu, be it using Synaptic or sudo apt-get is too complicated for me. I hope they offer an easier way to install software on Ubuntu such as in Mac OS X or Windows. I don't have a lot of installed software on Ubuntu for this reason

Can I ask .... what do you find difficult about typing apt-get install <package> ??

Any easier than that and you don't have a computer ... you have a pen and paper. Not attacking you by the way: I'm just very curious.

[calande]

I'm speaking personnally, and I understand if you find it strange, but I'll expose my impression anyway. First, anything that involves typing text is 10x more painful for me than double-clicking a file. Then, what is wrong about sudo apt-get install <package> is that you precisely need to know what to type in "<package>", for instance sudo apt-get install firefox will work, but if I type sudo apt-get install opera, it's not gonna work because Opera is commercial software and isn't in the repository. And finally, there are applications that are just too complicated to install (I gave up the following):

sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.8-plugins
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.8-lame
sudo apt-get install gstreamer0.8-ffmpeg
sudo apt-get install w32codecs
sudo apt-get install libdivx4linux
sudo apt-get install lame
sudo apt-get install sox
sudo apt-get install ffmpeg
sudo apt-get install mjpegtools
sudo apt-get install vorbis-tools
gst-register-0.8

On other modern OS you would just download a codec pack and double-click. The day Linux is that simple, I'll give it a try again. In the meantime, I'll do my possible to help my way