I have received a number of questions regarding the survey, which I would like
to answer  publicly. If  you would like  to correct your  answers in  light of
these clarifications, please send me mail and I will delete your reply; do NOT
resend an answer before I have deleted your previous one.
 
1. LISTSERV maintainer means "LISTSERV postmaster". If you are a list owner or
   a file owner, you are not a LISTSERV maintainer.
 
2. The vendor mentioned  in the first section of the survey  would NOT be IBM.
   If IBM  bought LISTSERV, it would  be to throw  it away so that  it doesn't
   compete with  their GroupTalk (aka  GRAND) product.  It would be  a serious
   company, though, most probably based in  the US (as most of these companies
   are). I have a name in mind but don't want to give it at this stage.
 
3. The purpose of the question about  the amount of money you would be willing
   to pay for  LISTSERV is only to show  how much money I could have  got if I
   had decided that  from now on, LISTSERV  is no longer free  to the network.
   This is a  way to tell our politicians  "I've made a gift of  $nnnk to you,
   how dare you say that I'm 'blackmailing' you?".
 
   Please  be assured  that this  number would  NOT be  used to  determine the
   license fee if LISTSERV became a commercial product - the vendor would make
   its own  marketing study and  assign prices/discounts according to  its own
   policies. Therefore there  is no point in answering "$50"  in an attempt to
   lower  the average;  you  can't  obviously expect  to  get  a product  like
   LISTSERV for 50 dollars OTC, unless you  meant you'd be willing to pay only
   for the tapes, in which case this answer is valid.
 
4. Since the  aforesaid question does not  refer to what you  would expect the
   vendor to sell LISTSERV for, but to what your site would be willing to pay,
   please answer with the amount of money  your site would be willing to write
   on the check, not with what the license cost would be assuming 40% academic
   discount, etc.
 
5. The question on what you think LISTSERV  would cost your site if you had to
   re-create it was  perhaps not clear enough.  I didn't mean to  ask how much
   you would be  willing to invest to  write a piece of  software with similar
   functionality for the sole use of your institution, which may be interested
   only in part of  the functions provided by LISTSERV. I want  you to tell me
   how much  you think it would  cost you to  rewrite LISTSERV if you  had to,
   assuming  that your  management  asked you  for  a functionally  equivalent
   implementation and  was willing  to provide the  required credits.  This is
   only a way  to determine the financial  cost and value of  LISTSERV - there
   are other questions at the beginning about its functional value.
 
I would like to thank the 50 or  so people who have answered the survey so far
(which is  a lot  considering that  FINHUTC has  been down  for a  long time).
However, because of  the important standard deviation I have  observed on some
of the questions, and because of the  way the results are displayed as "total"
plus EARN vs  non-EARN, postmaster vs user, etc, I  cannot release the results
of the  survey unless I get  at least 150-200  answers, which should not  be a
problem if each LISTSERV site answered the survey.
 
  Eric