Subject: [RFC v4] Git User's Survey 2008 (cover letters)

From: Jakub Narebski <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 30 Aug 2008 03:33:45 +0200

This is fourth (and hopefully last) revision of proposed questions 
and announcement for Git User's Survey 2008.  This time is mainly about 
creating good cover (announcement) letter, and about where to announce 
the survey.

Survey would be at Survs.com, is spite of its deficiencies like 
requiring JavaScript to submit (which might get corrected before 
planned start of survey); it has some nice features which survey.net.nz 
(the site which was used for 2006 and 2007 surveys) doesn't have.
Moving to other _free_ web survey site now would be difficult...

You can view current version of survey at provided survey link (see 
below); unfortunately proposed questions (and answers) diverged a bit 
from what was entered at Survs.com.  It would be possible nevertheless 
to get current version of questions, comments, and possible answers, if 
required.

Questions that remains: where to send announcement about this survey, 
and what should be written in such announcement. I am thinking about 
asking to put announcement about Git User's Survey 2008 at the 
following places (in parenthesis there are people who, I think,
I can ask to put announcement about survey):
 * git.or.cz, Git Homepage (Petr 'Pasky' Baudis)
 * git-scm.com, alternate Git Homepage (Scott Chacon)
 * http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/FrontPage (it is wiki, after all)
 * #git channel subject (one of channel admins, but who?)
 * git.kernel.org (John 'Warthog9' Hawley)
 * repo.or.cz (Petr 'Pasky' Baudis)
 * gitorious.org (???)
 * github.com (???)
 * ...
What are other git hosting sites, or blogs, or other sites where to ask 
to put announcement about this survey?

Below there is new version of announcement email:
-- >8 --
To: [email-masked], (probably other sites).
Subject: [ANNOUNCE] Git User's Survey 2008

Hello all,

We would like to ask you a few questions about your use of the Git
version control system. This survey is mainly to understand who is
using Git, how and why.

The results will be published to the Git wiki and discussed on the git
mailing list.

The survey would be open from 1 September till 10 October.

Please devote a few minutes of your time to fill this simple
questionnaire, it will help a lot the git community to understand your
needs, what you like of git, and of course what you don't like  of it.

The survey can be found here:
  http://www.survs.com/survey?id=M3PIVU72&channel=2WXE4BVTW8
-------
Note that above channel is currently _closed_. If you want to take
a peek at current version of the survey, use "test" channel:
  http://www.survs.com/survey?id=M3PIVU72&channel=9XYYGHJ77G
(it should be open, unless I am modifying some questions).  You can find 
summary analysis (without answers to free-form questions) at:
  http://www.survs.com/shareResults?survey=M3PIVU72&rndm=OKJQ45LAG8

Stephan Beyer proposed the following announcement template for news on 
{Open Source,programming,Linux}-related news sites (with some small 
modifications by me):
-- >8 --
Subject: Git User's Survey 2008 Begins

Two weeks after the major release of Git version 1.6.0,
the Git community starts a survey containing 60 questions
that can help to understand the users' needs, behavior,
and what they like and dislike about Git.

<a href="http://git.or.cz">Git</a> is a distributed source code
management system (or in other words: distributed version control 
system) that was initially written by Linus Torvalds for the Linux 
kernel development after the proprietary BitKeeper system stopped being
free of charge in 2005.  Quickly Git gained popularity and other Open 
Source projects like
<a href="http://www.x.org/wiki/Development/git">X.org</a>,
<a href="http://git.videolan.org/">VLC</a> or
<a href="http://www.winehq.org/site/git">WINE</a>
began to use it.

There have already been user surveys in
<a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey">2006</a> and
<a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey2007">2007</a>.
Since then, a lot has changed.

Git users are called upon to answer the questions until Oct 10, 2008.
After that date, the results can be found on the
<a href="http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey2008">Git Wiki</a>
in CSV format, and later in some evaluated form.

Link: http://www.survs.com/survey?id=M3PIVU72&channel=2WXE4BVTW8
  or: http://tinyurl.com/gitsurvey2008 (a short link, not yet generated)
  or: http://git.or.cz/gitwiki/GitSurvey2008
-- 8< --

And below there is proposed announcement to be put on git-relates sites, 
like Git Homepage (git.or.cz and git-scm.com), GitWiki (FrontPage), and 
git hosting sites (repo.or.cz, kernel.org, freedesktop.org, gitorious, 
github,...
-- >8 --
<a href="...">The Git User's Survey</a> is up!

Please devote a few minutes of your time to fill this simple 
questionnaire.  It will help the Git community to understand your 
needs, what you like of  Git, and, of course, what you don't like of 
it.
-- 8< --
What is lacking is how the request/announcement _email_ to be send to 
administrators of those sites would look like.  Help, please?

P.S. In 2006 I think the announcement was put only on git mailing list, 
in 2007 beside putting it on repo.or.cz, git.kernel.org and GitWiki it 
was send to mailing lists (and newsgroups) for many different projects 
which use git for development, as SCM of choice.  But the number of 
such projects has grown enormously.  I wonder if we should send survey 
announcements also to individual mailing lists for different projects, 
like WINE, OLPC, X.Org, etc.

-- 
Jakub Narebski
Poland