The Free Software Engineering Survey

Mine Survey Results

You can mark items here and check for the number of projects that selected these options simultaneously. Note that projects marked as incomplete WILL ALSO BE RETURNED.

1.1. Motivations

	a. The project was started primarily for personal reasons (had desire to learn, found technology interesting, etc).
	b. The project was started primarily to produce software to support another Open Source/Free Software project
	c. The project was started (or sponsored) by a company or organization.
	d. The project was started as part of academic (university) work or research.
	e. The project's intention from the beginning was to produce at least part of its software as Open Source/Free Software.
	f. The project began based on pre-existing Open Source/Free Software (code fork, etc.).
	g. The project began based on pre-existing proprietary/closed source software.

1.2. User Base

	a. Yourself.
	b. The project team
	c. Users that are not computer-proficient or non-technical.
	d. Users in specific fields of expertise (e.g. amateur radio enthusiasts, mathematicians, engineers, software developers). Please specify which in the comment box below.
	e. Users in a particular company, site or organization
	f. One or more specific commercial customers (sponsors/paying).
	g. The Free Software/Open Source community.
	h. The computing community.

1.3. Project age

	a. Less than 6 months
	b. 6 months to a year
	c. 1-2 years
	d. 2-5 years
	e. Over 5 years

1.4. Pre-existing standard

	a. Yes.
	b. No.

2.1. Team size

	a. 1
	b. 2-5
	c. 6-15
	d. 16-25
	e. 26-50
	f. More than 50

2.2. Leadership model

	a. The project has a single leader and a number of people that are formally responsible for parts of it.
	b. The project has a single leader, which delegates responsibility occasionally to others.
	c. The project is led by a core group or committee of people that is responsible for making decisions; there is no single leader.
	d. There is no effective leadership structure.
	e. This is a single-person project.

2.3. General team aspects

	a. Most people in the team know each other only through the Internet, and have never met physically/personally.
	b. Most people in the team work physically close, and meet personally with some frequency.
	c. The team includes people that have more than 5 years experience in serious software development.
	d. The project provides a high barrier of entry to new participants, even to those that are skilled in software development.
	e. A contributor to the project will often participate in more than one project activity: functionality definition, architectural design, designing user interfaces , coding, testing, project management, etc.
	f. Code contributors tend to work only on one specific language or technology used in the project (the one which they are most familiar with).

3.1. Defining Functionality

	a. The project's software explicitly mimics (or is significantly based upon) the functionality or behavior of an existing (proprietary or Free Software/Open Source) software package. If so, please specify which?
	b. A significant amount of effort is spent defining what the software functionality and behavior (the requirements) should be.
	c. This project has no end-users apart from the project team.
	d. There have been meetings or discussions with end-users to define significant parts of the software functionality or behavior.
	e. These meetings/discussions occur frequently, and can be considered an important part of defining the project's software.
	f. The software functionality is implemented according to what the team thinks is correct, without significant external end-user input.
	g. I believe much of the expected functionality and behavior is not completely known or understood by the project team as a whole.

3.2. Usability

	a. The user interfaces for the project are designed (or prototyped) and refined before actually being implemented.
	b. We have conducted serious usability tests and studies on the project's user interfaces.
	c. Developers are not allowed to implement or change the user interfaces before the implementation/change has been reviewed and approved.
	d. A part of the team is specifically in charge of UI design.
	e. We would like to invest more in usability, but we are hampered by lack of documentation and/or team knowledge on the subject.
	f. This project doesn't have any significant user interface.

3.3. Documentation

	a. We have produced documents that describe at least some of the expected functionality and behavior (requirements) of our software.
	b. The project produces and maintains documents for developers that describe how the code is organized (architecture), and/or how parts of it work.
	c. There is a reasonably complete coding standards guide that is actively followed by the team.
	d. There is documentation for the end-user available for the project's software (consider also third-party documents available).
	e. End-user documentation is provided to a large extent by people or groups external to the project team.
	f. A significant part of the available documentation is frequently updated and revised to be up to date.

3.4. Quality Assurance

	a. There is an [automated] test suite for the project's software, that is used to validate it.
	b. There is a test plan (a written document describing tests) for the project's software, that is used by the project team.
	c. Periodic (i.e. nightly, weekly) snapshots of the project's code (or binaries) are distributed and used as an significant means of testing the software.
	d. There is an active code review process, where code is read by other members of the team.
	e. The project team members have formal rules for integrating code changes into the main codebase, and review is a strict requirement.
	f. Usually, an unexpected amount of bugs are discovered after a version has been publically released (this includes public release candidates).
	g. There is a tendency (or policy) to release a public version only when it has been extensively tested by the team.

3.5. Tools

	a. A project hosting site such as Sourceforge.net, Savannah or Collab.net (mark all others applicable as well)
	b. One or more Web sites
	c. A WikiWikiWeb site (SWiki, TWiki, PHPWiki, ZWiki, etc.)
	d. A Frequently Asked Questions document
	e. A version control tool such as CVS, RCS, Subversion or Bitkeeper
	f. A bug database such as GNATS or Bugzilla
	g. One or more mailing lists
	h. Network news (NNTP)
	i. User forums/BBS
	j. IRC
	k. An instant messaging system like ICQ, Jabber or AIM

christian reis <kiko@async.com.br>