From tiwana at iastate.edu Thu Jun 11 14:17:41 2009 From: tiwana at iastate.edu (tiwana at iastate.edu) Date: 11 Jun 2009 14:17:41 -0700 Subject: [Xhtmlmp] =?utf-8?q?Firefox_research_study_-_request_for_input_-_?= =?utf-8?q?Modify_Headers?= Message-ID: <7nq8je$43a9gk@mail1.surveymonkey.com> Dear Mr. Hunt: I am writing to request 8-10 minutes of your expertise for a research study being conducted by Iowa State University. I have been closely following your skilled software development work on the Firefox extension, "Modify Headers." This is the extension hosted at addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/967. The goal of this research study is to assess how: (1) browser architecture modularity, (2) technical autonomy given to developers, and (3) developer support tools jointly influence extension evolution. (A quick Google name search (Amrit Tiwana) or my earlier research papers & books at www.bus.iastate.edu/tiwana will point you to our prior foundational research on software architecture and modular systems design.) We've identified you as part of a small group of extension developers who have made significant contributions to open source software development. This is based primarily on the widespread adoption as well as the favorable reviews from Firefox users of the Modify Headers extension. We have picked only a handful of major extension developers in each category. Your expertise alone can help us understand this issue. We hope that you will be able help us in this research study by responding to the short survey below: http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=3wehO_2fM_2fcIMq3_2bk5x2MnyQ_3d_3d As a small token of our appreciation, we will send you a Starbucks gift card redeemable at Starbucks caf?s in the US and Canada. Your inputs will directly help advance our collective understanding of how software design modularity influences extension developers' work. We assure you that this is solely an academic research study with no commercial agenda whatsoever. Your responses to the survey will remain 100% anonymous and confidential. We will be immensely grateful if you would please help us by sparing a few minutes to respond. Regards, Professor Amrit Tiwana Union Pacific Professor of Management Information Systems Iowa State University College of Business 2340 Gerdin Business Building Ames, Iowa 50011, USA Fax: 515-294-2534 email: tiwana at iastate.edu Telephone: 515-294-8198 URL: http://www.bus.iastate.edu/tiwana PS: Please do not forward this message. If you are absolutely unable to help, you can use the link below to permanently remove yourself from our research contact list: http://www.surveymonkey.com/optout.aspx?sm=3wehO_2fM_2fcIMq3_2bk5x2MnyQ_3d_3d