Date: Fri, 10 Apr 1998 00:55:22 -0500 (CDT) From: Frank Pawlak <fpawlak@execpc.com> To: jfieber@indiana.edu Cc: danj@3skel.com, hackers@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re[2]: Fw: Your Article "Freeware: The Heart & Soul of the Internet" Message-ID: <199804100555.AAA00337@darkstar.connect.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980409231615.11501C-100000@fallout.campusview.indiana.edu>
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John Fieber <jfieber@indiana.edu> wrote: > On Thu, 9 Apr 1998, Dan Janowski wrote: > > > We should conduct a census! Put it on the website, in the FTP > banners on > > wcarchive, in the CDROMs. > > Well, ya, but the results would rate next to worthless in terms > of statistical validity. Good demographic studies are pretty > hard to do when you don't know the extent of your population, and > asking people to register isn't going to define it for you. > > I did one random sampling of mailing list subscribers (I defined > my population as mailing list subscribers) and sent a small > survey regarding the FreeBSD web site. The response rate was in > the negihborhood of two to three percent. Completely useless. > 60 to 70 percent is usually considered the bottom end of > acceptable in survey research. I got much more data from a form > on the website, but the validity of that data is highly > questionable for lots of reasons outlined in any survey research > methods textbook. > > BUT, a good demographic study of FreeBSD users would be extremely > valuable to have...so all you statistics junkies, start thinking > of a way to come up with a *representative* sample the user > population. > > -john You would enjoy what the Linux people use to estimate the size of the installed base. Check out RedHat's web page, the document may still be there. Frank > > > To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org > with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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