Hello everyone from the worldwide Linux community,

My name is Yordan Dimitrov Minev and I am an undergraduate student
majoring in Mathematics and Computer Science at St. Lawrence 
University,
Canton, NY. Along with my adviser Professor Robert Torres, this summer 
I
am working on an academic research-project investigating the trends in
the open source/free software, entitled "Will the penuin break the
windows?" 


Some of the issues I am interested in researching are the reasons that
people use and develop for Linux, the ideological differences between
the free software foundation and the open source foundation, and the
reasons some computer users are dissatisfied with proprietary,
closed-source software.


Aiming to understand how the Linux users feel about the open source
software, I developed a web-based survey, and I kindly ask all of you 
to
participate. You can start the survey by going to
http://myslu.stlawu.edu/~ydmine03/survey.html It shoud not take you 
more
than 15-30 minutes. I would like to ask all of you who are
administrators of Linux user groups to forward this e-mail to the
members of your user group. Also, feel free to forward this e-mail to
other Linux user groups you colaborate with. My aim is to get as many
respondents as possible. Furthermore, I would be delighted to have
respondents with different levels of computer experience.


In the coming weeks, after analysing the results from the survey, I 
will
write a paper and I will make a short presentation on the topic at St.
Lawrence University. I would like to stress that the purpose of this
survey is solely educational. I fully assure you that the results I
obtain and all materials from this project will never be sold; rather,
they will remain freely available at
http://myslu.stlawu.edu/~ydmine03/survey.html. Your privacy will also 
be
protected, and at no time will I publish, give away, or sell your
personal information or e-mail address.


Lastly, I would like to appologize for not sending you a survey in your
native language. Speaking primarily a language other than English
myself, I very much appreciate the diversity of cultures and languages
in the contemporary world.


Thank you very much for participating in my survey. If you have any
questions, concerns, or comments, please do not hessitate to contact me
(ydmine03@stlawu.edu) or my adviser for this project, Professor Robert
Torres (rtorres@stlawu.edu). Either one of us would be happy to answer
your questions or address your concerns.

Regards,

Yordan Minev