All,

I wonder how many others interpret the Migration Survey as I do.   Am I off
base on this?
http://www.interex.org/advocacy/survey/migrationresults01.html


Denys Beauchemin wrote:
> During the prior 2 weeks, Interex had done a survey to
> find out the extent of the problems in the membership.
>  What became apparent with the survey are two things:
>  1- the majority of sites is going to migrate;
> 2- their main concern is the lack of information or
> direction for this migration.

What I find inexplicable is the failure of the survey to take a serious
measure of the level of interest in 'homesteading' on the HP e3000 and in
the OpenMPE or similar proposal.   I submit that to draw more than a passing
conclusion about these issues from the results of the 'Migration Survey'
violates basic principles of opinion research and analysis.   Regarding
OpenMPE INTEREX would be ill-advised to regard the results of that survey as
anything more than a very crude and inadequate indication of interest.

In contrast I would call attention to the System Improvement Ballot (SIB)
item that the MPE Forum has written for the next SIB ballot.
<< CSY facilitate transfer and / or licensing of MPE, MPE sub-systems,
and associated supporting documentation, software, and firmware to
other entities;  on a timeline that allows those entities an opportunity
to continue uninterrupted enhancement of MPE after October 2003
"end of HP sales";  and to continue to provide maintenance support
after 2006 "end of HP support". >>

The reasons why I characterize the Migration Survey as crude and inadequate
for the purposes stated one would hope are common sense but to be clear I
list them below.
1.  The title selects out 'homesteaders'.  "Migration Survey" implies that
the survey is only of interest to those planning on migrating off of the
'3000.
2.  The title creates a bias.   The title clearly tends to prefer the
migration option.
3.  The 'stay with the HP e3000' option was buried near the end of the
survey among a long list of alternatives.   I quickly reviewed the entire
survey and completely missed the option the first time through.   I only
caught it when I reread the survey before emailing a pointed note about the
oversight.
4.  The survey never mentions the OpenMPE proposal or CSY's statements
regarding turning MPE over to a 3rd party.  The survey does not attempt to
determine how CSY's response might influence the decision to migrate or
stay.
5.  The survey does not directly ask about staying with MPE as a separate
question.
6.  Instead of a direct question the survey only includes a "Stay on MPE" as
a inappropriate option to the question "What Operating System(s)/Platform(s)
will your organization most likely migrate to (multiples allowed)?"

Cortlandt Wilson
(650) 966-8555

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