Thursday, October 25, 2012

Free Software survey



I was going to interview a friend of mine who's a free software expert, but since he doesn't exist, I instead asked ten people on Omegle three questions pertaining to free software. Here are the logs:

You: Do you know what free and open source software is?
Stranger: no
You: Do you know the difference between the ideas "free as in beer" and "free as in speech"?
Stranger: yes
You: What free software do you use, if any?
Stranger: pandora


 You: Do you know what free and open source software is?
Stranger: yes
You: Do you know the difference between the ideas "free as in beer" and "free as in speech"?
Stranger: the first is declaration of independence the second illusion
You: What free software do you use, if any?
Stranger: keynote

You: Do you know what free and open source software is?
Stranger: Slightly
You: Do you know the difference between the ideas "free as in beer" and "free as in speech"?
Stranger: Yes
You: What free software do you use, if any?
Stranger: Microsoft Paint :D

You: Do you know what free and open source software is?
Stranger: yes
You: Do you know the difference between the ideas "free as in beer" and "free as in speech"?
Stranger: yes
Stranger: freedom to edit essentially
Stranger: cost vs rights
You: What free software do you use, if any?
Stranger: vlc media player, ubuntu, used debian for a spell but didn't like it too much, used k window software, firefox, thunderbird, audacity I think is open source
Stranger: a fair bit

You: Do you know what free and open source software is?
Stranger: hell no
You: Do you know the difference between the ideas "free as in beer" and "free as in speech"?
Stranger: what kind of questions are these
You: What free software do you use, if any?
Stranger: microsoft word

You: Do you know what free and open source software is?
Stranger: yes
You: Do you know the difference between the ideas "free as in beer" and "free as in speech"?
Stranger: i guess i do
You: What free software do you use, if any?
Stranger: utorrent

You: Do you know what free and open source software is?
Stranger: nope
You: Do you know the difference between the ideas "free as in beer" and "free as in speech"?
Stranger: I believe so
You: What free software do you use, if any?
Stranger: beat master, audio shark, audiacity, WMM
Stranger: utorrent

You: Do you know what free and open source software is?
Stranger: no
You: Do you know the difference between the ideas "free as in beer" and "free as in speech"?
Stranger: yes
You: What free software do you use, if any?
Stranger: cant discuss that.

You: Do you know what free and open source software is?
Stranger: no
You: Do you know the difference between the ideas "free as in beer" and "free as in speech"?
Stranger: no
You: What free software do you use, if any?
Stranger: none

You: Do you know what free and open source software is?
Stranger: yes
You: Do you know the difference between the ideas "free as in beer" and "free as in speech"?
Stranger: yes
You: What free software do you use, if any?
Stranger: none


The survey showed that most people are completely unfamiliar with free and open source software, and even some of the people who answered "yes" seemed to not actually know what it is.

Image Source: "logo;" "Omegle logo;" http://omegle.com/static/logo.png

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