Hi Daniel,
I just took a look at your case study survey document. Charles is right, the layout looks really nice and professional!
I have a few questions/suggestions:
1.) If I was the owner or spokesperson of a company, I would be less interested in the license of the survey and the license for the content provided by me, but I'd like to know how the content would be used. For example, I might want to know where the content might show up in the end and in what context.
That's a good point, perhaps the license should be in the footer or on the last page?
This survey is for us all to use (i.e. all OOo teams, etc). So, as case studies are developed (through the BizDev project and Native Lang projects I think) we'll have able to showcase them in some appropriate way.
BTW, why did you choose the Creative Commons license?
Ok. As a bit of background, the Creative Commons licenses are a set of licenses, each with different goals, rather than just one. We chose the one we felt best suited some simple goals:
+ Allows derivates and further works. This is the "living document" aspect mentioned, and should be of good assistance for the Native Lang teams, and perhaps other non-OOo projects that may adapt it for themselves.
+ Allows usage for both commercial and non-commercial purposes, so businesses and groups wanting to develop their own OOo Case Studies are quite welcome too.
+ From memory, Louis mentioned having documentation released under a Creative Commons license allows it to go on the OOo website.
It's a bit embarrasing that I have to admit it here
and now, but I have to say that I did not pay too much
attention to the license in the past. Nevertheless, the
"You must give the original author credit." seems to
be strange to me for a living/working document like this!?
;)
+ Gives credit where it's due. It's been developed by Daniel, who recently came on board with us.
2.) If we want to use the survey data for statistical purposes too, we might want to use ranges and options for the number of employees and the industries. Based on my experience especially the industry data will be all over the place if we don't provide a set of option plus a comment field.
Good point. What grouping sizes do you suggest?
3.) Since the Sun logo was included in the XML spec and the default splash screen I'm a bit hesitant about making the following comment, but I think we should be very careful about where we include company logos and URL's in order to avoid a proliferation of logos and attributions.
Just imagine Sun would put a logo on every little document, screen and web page that Sun employees created. That's why I could not resist modifying the subject of this email. ;-)
Well said, and Sun has that option. Sun staff use their own judgement as to when they should, as do we. :)
This is even more true for documents to be distributed
by a variety of people and companies and documents
where different people from different companies have
contributed. If I added three questions, would that
mean that the Sun logo got added, too? What if
Novell and Red Hat contributed another five
questions?
Best you go and read the appropriate CC license, and then follow up from there.
Although there are some documents that contain a Sun logo, living/working documents (AFAIK) don't include a Sun logo, e.g.: http://tools.openoffice.org/releases/q-concept.pdf
But again, since the Sun logo appears in some locations I might be the wrong person to comment on this!?
As above. :)
4.) Question 6 might create some resistance among smaller
companies. "to establish your credibility with our
audience" does not sound to encouraging to SMB's who
might be one of our largest user groups.
Ok. What would be better wording... we're looking for them to provide some description of themselves, so that when it's used in marketing material it establishes the credibility in the eyes of the reader.
5.) I find the SWOT (strengths, weaknesses, ...) approach
a bit weird in this context, but maybe that's just
my personal taste. Especially the "threats" questions
feels kind of strange. I would phrase it more in the
way of "What do you like/dislike?" or "What makes
your life easier or more difficult?"
Don't you reckon it's reasonably likely they did a SWOT analysis before choosing to migrate to OOo, so it doesn't hurt to ask straight out?
6.) In the questions 4 and 5 you suggest that companies
have improved their profitability and that they
reduced their risks. Although both things might have
been the goal and/or outcome of a migration, we
might rephrase the questions a bit. People might
have had other reasons/experiences (e.g. multi-platform
requirements, strategic reasons).
Good point. Perhaps something like this instead:
***********
What is the greatest benefit your business realised through OpenOffice.org? For example, lower administration costs, no licensing costs.
***********
?
7.) I would be cautious about including the link to DDGTS
under eLearning, because twenty other companies from
this list might want to get listed too, which
obviously is not feasible. At least it should say
"e.g. www.digitaldistribution.com".
Exactly how many other proper OOo eLearning companies do you know of? ;)
They're welcome to make their own derivative of this document too, that's the purpose of the CC license we chose. :)
Hope this helps!?
:)
Regards and best wishes,
Justin Clift
-- Executive Director Digital Distribution Global Training Services Pty. Ltd. Premier OpenOffice.org and StarOffice Online Training providers http://www.digitaldistribution.com
--------------------------------------------------------------------- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
