I’m really dubious about this survey and its conclusions.
Firstly, the title is inaccurate - it’s Linux and BSD contributors specifically (to be fair, that’s in the subtitle).
Secondly, there are questions where the possible answers don’t fit the question at all eg “less effort”, “much effort” etc for “do you think it would be a good idea to move the distribution away from Github”
Lastly, they repeatedly conclude that “no opinion or neutral in the question … means participants hesitate to answer this question” but that seems like a really big stretch to me. Not having an opinion or not caring about something is not the same as not wanting to answer the question.
FWIW, my current employer is a happy (AFAIK) paid user of Github. No-one cares about the Microsoft acquisition.
It’s a good effort but if this was done as part of a university class, I hope the professor points out the fatal flaw in their research: the voluntary response bias. This is the kind of bias you get when you tell someone what the survey is about before they get a chance to decide whether or not to take it. The results of the survey end up biased because those with strong opinions on the topic are more likely to complete the survey than those with weak or no opinions. It’s probably fair to guess that in this particular case, those with the strongest opinions were opposed to the acquisition.
If it would have been Google, would people react the same way? I feel there’s a constant hanger around Microsoft, that is generally localized around its OS, but the Azure teams and this acquisition is showing great advances for Microsoft and hopefully a better future for everyone!
I think people would be much more upset if it had been Google, but really both companies have historically short attention spans.
The problem is that products which would be great successes if run as independent entities are frequently seen as distractions or failures inside large corporations like Google or Microsoft. And if they do decide to maintain an acquired product, the amount of value they need to juice from it is dramatically higher than would be needed by an independent org.
I’m really dubious about this survey and its conclusions.
Firstly, the title is inaccurate - it’s Linux and BSD contributors specifically (to be fair, that’s in the subtitle).
Secondly, there are questions where the possible answers don’t fit the question at all eg “less effort”, “much effort” etc for “do you think it would be a good idea to move the distribution away from Github”
Lastly, they repeatedly conclude that “no opinion or neutral in the question … means participants hesitate to answer this question” but that seems like a really big stretch to me. Not having an opinion or not caring about something is not the same as not wanting to answer the question.
FWIW, my current employer is a happy (AFAIK) paid user of Github. No-one cares about the Microsoft acquisition.
It’s a good effort but if this was done as part of a university class, I hope the professor points out the fatal flaw in their research: the voluntary response bias. This is the kind of bias you get when you tell someone what the survey is about before they get a chance to decide whether or not to take it. The results of the survey end up biased because those with strong opinions on the topic are more likely to complete the survey than those with weak or no opinions. It’s probably fair to guess that in this particular case, those with the strongest opinions were opposed to the acquisition.
If it would have been Google, would people react the same way? I feel there’s a constant hanger around Microsoft, that is generally localized around its OS, but the Azure teams and this acquisition is showing great advances for Microsoft and hopefully a better future for everyone!
I think people would be much more upset if it had been Google, but really both companies have historically short attention spans.
The problem is that products which would be great successes if run as independent entities are frequently seen as distractions or failures inside large corporations like Google or Microsoft. And if they do decide to maintain an acquired product, the amount of value they need to juice from it is dramatically higher than would be needed by an independent org.