Marketing list action: Market Research for GNOME and GNU/Linux

["John Williams" <JWilliams business otago ac nz>]

> Yes, thats a good question and to combine that with Elliot's 
> the primal
> questions so far are:
> 
> * Who is our target audience
> * What value can we provide them
> 
> In my opinion, I'm not particularly choosy about my audience here.  I
> would say it's:
[snip]

We can guess and opine all we want, but what are the facts?  I have
*never* seen any "real" [1] market research into:

(1) What potential GNOME and GNU/Linux users want
or
(2) The barriers to free software adoption, split by user segment


The FOSS Europe report was the only document that even came close to
addressing these issues.  Perhaps I am simply unaware of what has
already been done?  I see the need for primary research into these
questions.  Am I alone?

I can help construct surveys and questionnaires, analyse data etc.
However I don't have access to funds to pay for things like printing,
postage and data entry.  If there is a need for my services I would love
to contribute.

Cheers,

John.

[1] I mean: not based on secondary data, not "expert" opinion, not focus
groups or small non-representative or non-random samples.  I suppose I
mean large-scale primary research (mail-out self-completion
questionnaires, mall intercepts, telephone interviews etc.).

---
Research Analyst
Department of Marketing
Otago University

http://marketing.otago.ac.nz/Marketing/staff/williamsj.html