Hello Fedora!
Hi!
First, I’d like to introduce myself. My name is Diana and I am an anthropologist currently in the midst of attaining my Masters degree in Applied Anthropology from the University of North Texas. As a part of my studies I will be working with Fedora, and hopefully many of you, to better understand the culture that surrounds open source software development.
As an applied anthropologist I want to stress that I will be doing research FOR and with the Fedora community not ON the Fedora community. My goal is to find ways to make your lives as open source developers better! And, if by some chance it can’t get any better than it already is, find out why it is so great so other open source groups can follow your lead.
My research methods will include participant observation, which means I will be hanging out with you all as you do what you do both in an online and offline context, interviews, and surveys. I will be using this blog as my major means of communication with everyone and as a way to make my research both open and transparent.
When my research concludes I will be providing the community with a report as to the findings of my explorative study so that everyone has access to them and can hopefully find ways to use them to your benefit.
As a side note for all anthropologists aspiring to do research online, I am documenting my entire process and will be providing a side report as my contribution to open anthropology.
For those of you who will be in Toronto for the developer conference in December, I will be there as well and will be providing a topic for discussion so that we can all get to know each other a bit better.
I want to stress that participation in this study is strictly voluntary! If for some reason you do not want to participate, or would like to speak to me in confidence, I will be more than happy to oblige.
You can contact me here by leaving a comment, or by emailing me Diana [@] cyber-anthro.com.
I look forward to working with all of you and to any feedback you may have, even this early in the process!
November 20, 2009 @ 12:00 pm
Welcome to the Fedora community, Diana!
November 20, 2009 @ 1:18 pm
I’m actually quite interesting to see what comes out of your study and I look forward to hear more about it 🙂
Good luck !
November 21, 2009 @ 8:20 am
Welcome Diana! I concur with pingou. Hope you can publish some or all of the results from your research.
November 21, 2009 @ 10:46 pm
Welcome, Diana! It’s great to see you online – next, IRC. 😉
As a side note for all anthropologists aspiring to do research online, I am documenting my entire process and will be providing a side report as my contribution to open anthropology.
As one of those future grad students, I thank you heartily!
November 23, 2009 @ 6:53 pm
Thanks especially for your approach and open process.
> When my research concludes I will be providing the community with a report
> as to the findings of my explorative study so that everyone has access to
> them and can hopefully find ways to use them to your benefit.
I appreciate your scientific approach and use of open anthropology. As in other sciences, we know there is an unavoidable interaction between the observer and the observed. Sometimes it is turned on itself, with roles reversing, or occurring simultaneously. What I’ve read from you shows that you understand that studying a FLOSS community is an opportunity to embrace that observerobserved relationship because of the very nature of the community. The community exploits that relationship, showing itself fully, inviting observation, and inviting observer to become observed.
Keep it coming, follow the release early, release often methodology, we may all be surprised at the results.