Re: 2006 LinuxQuestions.org Members Choice Awards

["Santiago Roza" <santiagoroza gmail com>]

On 2/19/07, John Williams <john williams lists gmail com> wrote:


> Around 1,000 is sufficient if all we want to do is compare
> two or three percentages (e.g. GNOME, KDE, Windows) with a margin of
> error of around +/- 3% at the 95% confidence level.

problem is that our market share (and maybe even the entire gnu/linux
market share) is probably around that 3% margin, so we'd be talking
about a 100% error margin.


> The hard part is getting the sampling frame right.  It basically
> consists of sending invitations to participate to people such that every
> computer user, regardless of which OS or DE they use, has an equal
> chance of receiving the invitation.  If you can come up with a way of
> doing that I, for one, am all ears.

what about (us) giving away pamphlets in the streets of a few dozen
cities?  sounds a little too simple, but could work... how many times
were you stopped (in a very similar way) for some kind of survey?

problem is that these kinds of surveys would be biased towards people
who care about answering them = people who care too much about their
computers = above-average technically skilled/interested people =
people who are more likely to run gnu/linux.


--
Santiago Roza
santiagoroza gmail com