Hi all, I am Nigel Nguyen, currently doing a dissertation that study about FOSS movement in New Zealand that focused on SME (small & medium size enterprise - that is business that have less than 19 staffs). I wonder if anyone from the list that run a business or the main decision maker / technology people that could help me to have an insight study in FOSS. Following are information about the study: ----------------- Overview This research is conducted to examine the status of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) adoption within New Zealand context, particularly the small and medium enterprises community. The report of this research is a compulsory dissertation for my Postgraduate of Electronic Commerce qualification. This research also aim at provide literature ground for later study on FOSS in New Zealand as well as to provide chance for FOSS developers learn about New Zealand business requirements. Who’s responsible? My name is Dung Trung (Nigel) Nguyen who undertake the responsibility for this entire research. You can contact me at 021 78 6769, email me at nigel(a)nigelnguyen.org. This research is supervised by Professor Robert J. McQueen who contact details is available on requested. What will you as a participant have to do and how long will it take? There will be a single interview which should take approximately half hour. The interview will be unstructured (non-directive), unbiased, yet still focus on the recent FOSS implementation in your organization. What will happen to the collected information? The interview responses will be used by the researcher to write a descriptive research report. Only the researcher and the supervisor of the study will be privy to source materials. Afterwards (30 days after final submission of the report), all physical material (notes, recorded tape) will be destroyed and/or erased. Some information, however, will be trimmed to be unidentifiable and transferred to digital format for later reference. No participants will be named in research reports unless explicit consent has been given, and every effort will be made to disguise the identity. Declaration to participant If you take part in the study, you have the right to: - Refuse to answer any particular question, and to withdraw from the study (all collected information will be destroyed immediately in this case) within 21 days from the interview day. - Ask any further questions about the study that occur to you during your participants. - Be given access to a summary of the findings from the study when it is concluded. - The Privacy Act 1993 will be applied in order to protect the interest of participants. -------------- If you are interested, please contact me off the list. I will then forward you some further (formal) documentation. Thank you for your help, time and attention, Nigel Nguyen