Re: Software section ideas

[Roger Dingledine <arma@mit.edu>]

Aiee. I can't believe I'm still on Wednesday's mail. I'll try to make this
brief.

In message <36008312.3B8D5248@po-box.mcgill.ca>, pstong1@po-box.mcgill.ca writes:
>Hi again,
>     Short of writing a bunch of surveys about what software features
>are needed for a given type of program (which may well be a worthwhile
>task, but probably doesn't belong as part of an OS survey :), what sort
>of information could we glean from the survey to pass on to the
>community to help them make their labours more readily visible?
>     Some things have already been done to this end. There's the linux
>software map, Independance (www.independance.seul.org) and a few other
>places. Here are a few questions to try to tease out how folks find out
>about software and what they need to do - something we've been working
>on indirectly up 'till now. What other questions do we need?
>
>Where do you normally find out about software?
> - Word of mouth
> - Web sites
> - Store displays
> - Sales advice
> - Television advertising
>[Any others? This could help us get at how folks find out about software
>in the first place]

good question.

mailing lists (eg threepoint's lists)? newsgroups (eg cola)? this would
be a 'check all that apply', i suppose.

>Which of the following web sites have you visited in the last three
>months?
> - Apple.com
> - Linux software map
> - Microsoft.com
> - None of the above
>[Who else should be here?]

freshmeat, slashdot? intel? who's our target audience, what are we trying
to figure out? I've been to every one of these sites in the past three
months. I can go to the moon and back in three months. Is that a long time?

>What would you say the single most important task you use your computer
>for:
> - Word processing
> - Spreadsheets
> - Databases
> - Email
> - Web browsing
> - Programming
> - CAD
>[What else?]

er, my instinct says we're already asking this elsewhere, in the
user-type-categories and maybe other places too.

--Roger