What a strange, skewed survey. It seems to pre-suppose a single reason you'd participate in Open Source, then asks a bunch of questions so that you can answer "yes, that's right".<p>None of those questions have an answer I can check that applies to me.<p>As an example, take the Internationalization library for ASP.NET that I released as Open Source last year. Sure, it's nice to give back to the community and all that, but there's a business reason there as well. It's hosted on one of my product domains, so having developers link to the project has measurable SEO benefits. Weighing that benefit against the negligible competitive advantage of keeping it in-house was the main part of the decision, along with the fact that it was comparably easy to break out as a reusable piece.<p>"Goodwill" might have weighed slightly, but "Esteem", "Self-Actualization" and all the other tick marks from that survey were never part of the equation.<p>This isn't limited to small projects, either. Pick any big-name OS project, and chances are you'll find a big corporation or two behind it, promoting (and funding) it to further their own business need.
I participate in open source mainly as a way of making my hobby projects available to others who might have similar interests, and also as a means of keeping my skills and knowledge up to date. I could spend my time making commercial closed source applications, but for me intellectual curiosity and sharing information (a status/gift economy) trumps the desire to make money.
Added this in the comment box:<p>I'm not actually employed by anybody - there ARE people on Open Source who are self-employed. You should add that as an option.<p>Also - You might want to consider making the last question (about what need OpenSource fullfills) into a multiple-choice question. I would tick the last three boxes, but had to settle for the most important (that might have been your goal, of course).<p>Lastly - Call it Free and Open Source Software. There are people who care about the distinction.
The last question is beyond my understanding. Most of time, I hack on FOSS because I need some features, which aren't there. Or I need to fix some bugs developers had no time to take care of, but which prevent me from using the software. Sometimes I give patches to upstream, sometimes I decide that I'm too lazy for communication, or that patches aren't worth publishing.<p>I do that for my job (I'm being paid for making things work, and we use lots of FOSS software) and I do that on my own leisure-time too (be it some project, or just toying around). But I really don't see any answer to describe something to describe my "I hack to get this working in a way I want" utilitarian needs.<p>Add: And if I dig deeper, to the reasons why I want it to work, there are too many reasons. Sometimes it's just a part of my job, sometimes I just want to fullfill my interests, sometimes I want to help someone or do something that would matter.
Good luck! Please post your results when done.<p>Edit: Also, some of the things I checked did not apply to me 100%. I am assuming this is because while they are different in my eyes, they are equivalent in the test giver's eyes.<p>Remember you are surveying programmers which means T&F equals F. So if you want many programmers to check yes to something that partially applies, you should specify that.<p>If my assumptions are correct, I would change "Tick all that apply <i>" to say "Tick all that partially or fully apply </i>"<p>I would remove validation on that page as well or add a nothing applies option to the questions.
If you say that you do not participate in open source projects, then you cannot complete the survey because the required questions at the bottom are not appropriate.<p>I am guessing it was done on purpose, but mentioning it just in case.
There seems to be a validation on the second "All that apply" question preventing no answers. That seems a little strange as I would hardly say those are universal and everyone has to feel at least one.
Did anyone answer that they participate in open source project to "belong"? Because it is a big part for me.<p>I think it would have been better if I could choose multiple answers to the last question.
"participate" needs to be defined.<p>I consider using and spreading the use of as participating. I'm sure many do not. (btw neither they nor I are wrong)