Invitation to Participate in Research

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.piosik@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!