Will you please help with my research on OSS work...

Hi All,

  I'm Geoff, a long time postgresql user and been a reasonably regular
participant on #gentoo and #postgresql on freenode for several years
now, helping out new folks where I can. I'm a student (phd) at the
University of Technology, Sydney in Australia. (I've also been a
subscriber to this list for at least thirty minutes now! :-) )

  I'm working on a thesis that examines the nature of OSS work as
represented by the people who actually DO the work (that's you!). I
hope that my approach will be somewhat unique because I'm a career geek
who can hold an intelligent technical conversation, not just some random
academic with a white coat and a clipboard!

  If you do any form of work on Open Source Software (and its variants,
(Free, Open, Free Libre, you name it) then I'd like to talk to you, please.

  I'm interested in talking to *anyone* who contributes by writing code,
testing code, using code, providing support online (here, on freenode,
elsewhere), in person, advocacy, moderating, organizing, advertising,
shooting the breeze or ANYTHING that somehow contributes to or benefits
OSS. No matter how small your contribution to OSS, your perspective is
important to me.

  In a nutshell, I'd like to chat online via some form of instant messaging
(irc is great, just about anything else is fine) for about an hour or two.
A few months later I'd like to catch up again to ask you to check my
interpretations and make corrections. I don't need to know your real name,
and I don't want demographic details.

  More details of what I need from you are at
<http://geoffbreach.com/consent>

  Papers that I've already written about OSS are at
<http://geoffbreach.com/writing>

  The backstory on some of that writing is at
<http://www.geoffbreach.com/research>

  There's also a (nearly) infinite list of ways to contact me on
the 'consent' page I've listed above. I'm 'geoffb' on
irc.freenode.net, geoff@breach.com.au on email and MSN and
geoff.breach@gmail.com on Jabber/GTalk. Please feel free to ask
me *anything* you need to know before (or after) you go ahead and
sign up. (I'm on freenode via a caching proxy so I can access
seamlessly from anywhere. If I don't respond immediately to your
PM it's because I'm /away. I'll be back soon!)

  Thanks (very much) in advance,

Geoff
(geoffb @ freenode)