Poll: You Prefer Noncommercial Software

According to our Software Preference Poll, FOSS Force visitors will use commercially developed software, especially if it’s the best software for the job, but would prefer to use community developed, noncommercial software. Absolutely none of our visitors said they’d prefer commercial software.

The poll, which ran from May 13, 2013 through 12:21 am EDT on June 7, posed the question, “Do you prefer open source software that’s commercially or community developed and distributed?” Those taking the poll were given three answers from which to make one choice:

1. I prefer community developed non-commercial software
2. I prefer commercially developed software
3. I have no preference–it depends on the software

A total of 66 people took this poll. As was our common practice at the time we began this poll, voters were blocked from voting multiple times by IP address.

The majority of the people taking this poll, 56% or 37 votes, indicated they preferred community developed software. A sizable minority, 44% or 29 votes, said they had no preference; it depended on the software. Absolutely no one taking the poll said they preferred commercial software over noncommercial.

These results, of course, are consistent with what might be expected from visitors to a site for FOSS users. We assume that if we were to ask the same question on a site aimed at Windows users, we’d probably get the answer, “What the hell is community developed software?”

Another poll called The Internet and the Law, was designed to run within our April 17 article on President Obama’s threatened veto of CISPA. The poll closed on May 1 and was taken by 51 people.

This poll asked, “Are you concerned about your online legal rights?” Participants could choose one of the following four answers and were only allowed to vote once per IP address:

1. Yes, very concerned
2. No, I’m not concerned at all
3. I am somewhat concerned
4. Other

Those who chose the last option, “Other,” were able to enter an answer into a text box.

As it turned out, the text box was unnecessary as no one chose to answer “Other.” Indeed, the voting on this question was about as unanimous as possible. 92% of you, or 47 votes, said you were “very concerned” about your online rights. Three of you, representing 6% of the votes cast, said you were “somewhat concerned” and only one of you, or 2%, weren’t concerned at all.

Although this was a tiny sampling, we hope our lawmakers are paying attention.