Re: [ossig] New Telephone Survey is in the works on Governments policies on OSS

[Seah Hong Yee <hongyee@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

To answer to a survey with a lot malformed questioned and will be sure to 
contribute to a bunch of nonsense result, I kind of think this would be a 
waste of my time. 

On Tuesday 30 November 2004 16:03, Yoon Kit Yong wrote:
> I received a telephone call yesterday
> by "Central Force" (or something) regarding
> a market research survey they are doing
> regarding the state of Local Software Developers
> and the Governments policies on promoting them.
>
> I was initially reluctant to take the survey due to the fact
> that it would be another 15 minutes of my life down the drain,
> but since I have some interest in the local software scene,
> I told the surveyor (?) Id try it out for 5 minutes and if its not
> interesting, Im hanging up.
>
> So the interview goes on like this:
> Question:
> "How do you find the Governments policies on locally
> developed software. Do you agree that they should have a preference to it?
> 1- Totally Agree, 2 Somewhat Agree, 3 Disagree, 4 Totally Disagree, 5
> Other."
>
> etc etc...
>
> It only started getting interesting when this question appeard.
>
> "Should the government have policies on what type of licensings
> of the sofware they procure or should they let the market decide?"
>
> The question may not have been 100% word for word as above,
> but the confusing terms and different points were represented,
> similar to that question above.
>
> So I took some time out to explain to the interviewer that
> I dont understand the question, because its actually about two things,
> 1) licensing and 2) market forces.
>
> I felt it was a loaded question, in the sense that users as us
> would always choose the 'market decide' option,
> thus indicating that we are rejecting that license issue.
> I also explained to the interviewer that the question is wrong
> because with regards to the Govts policy to PREFER OSS,
> The Government IS the Market. i.e. they have the right to chose
> what license/product to procure.
>
> At this point in time, I asked her Who this survey is for,
> Who wrote the questions and Who is sponsoring it.
> Surprise surprise, she said its being done for the "Business Software
> Alliance"
>
> Ah...
>
> There were about 15-20 questions, some were straightforward,
> but the last few are real crackers!
>
> The Last One which got me was:
>
> "Do you agree that having the sourcecode for the product
> does not guarantee the security of a product as
> it is important that the administrator to install patches, bug fixes
> and correctly secure the machine?"
>
> I was silent on the phone for 20 seconds.
> I couldnt answer at all, because my mind was twisted trying to
> comprehend this hefty question. I quietly told the researcher
> that this question is 'funny'. Its again, questioning two things,
> 1) availability of sourcecode doesnt provide security and
> 2) security by patching.
>
> So I asked if I can give two responses to this Question:
> "Disagree" AND "Agree" respectively.
>
> A less vigilant interviewee would pick up on the last segment
> of the question "..important to install patches .. " and
> respond with a "Totally Agree".
> The Less Scrupulous Researcher would take the
> "... having the sourcecode does not guarantee security ..."
> and report that 85% of respondents INSIST that OpenSource
> is NOT Secure!
>
> hahah... I asked the interviewer for a copy of the report when
> its published. I really cant wait for it to appear.
>
> If you do get a call from this 'researchers' please take the time
> out and listen to their questions carefuly, answer carefully,
> and post up any interesting ones here. Its quite entertaining ...
>
> yk.
>
>
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