Hi, I'd like to introduce myself to the community and give you some background to a research study I'll be conducting. My name is Barry Smyth and I'm a Masters student in DIT Kevin st studying knowledge management. During a case studies seminar on open source software which included a piece by Laura i got an idea for my dissertation. I was fascinated by the genuine enthusiasm of people within the open source community. From a knowledge management perspective this can help give an insight into what motivates people to share knowledge. My dissertation is on the motivational drivers and barriers of volunteers in the open source community and a comparison of these results with those done of professional virtual communities. I'll be looking for help from people within the Ubuntu community to firstly understand all the methods that knowledge is communicated. I'll also require help in identifying the motivational drivers and barriers within your community and then comprising interview questions and surveys. My time frame is to have have the surveys completed and sent out in mid July. Laura has already been of a great help and i can't thank her enough. I'll be in touch again shortly after i get to know the Ubuntu world a bit better about help from the community in investigating those motivational drivers. Anyone who is interested in seeing my full proposal drop me a mail and I'll send it on to you. Kind Regards Barry Smyth