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Another checkpoint
git-svn-id: https://shorewall.svn.sourceforge.net/svnroot/shorewall/trunk@3689 fbd18981-670d-0410-9b5c-8dc0c1a9a2bb
This commit is contained in:
paulgear
parent
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97b5c9602e
@ -39,12 +39,12 @@
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<para>In early March 2006, i @@@ embarked on the jorney of surveying
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Shorewall users. Initially this sprang from my own curiosity: it seemed to
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me that the systems at work on which i was using Shorewall were bigger and
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more complex than a lot of the ones others were using, and i wanted to
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find out if there were people out there who used it like i did. As started
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thinking about the question's i would ask, i realised that i could ask a
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few more questions that might help us as a project to understand a bit
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more about all of our users.</para>
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me that some of the systems at work on which i was using Shorewall were
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bigger and more complex than a lot of the ones others were using, and i
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wanted to find out if there were people out there who used it like i did.
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As started thinking about the questions i would ask, i realised that i
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could ask a few more questions that might help us as a project to
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understand a bit more about all of our users.</para>
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<para>I used <ulink url="http://www.zoomerang.com">Zoomerang</ulink> to
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create the survey. It has a number of tools that make it really easy to
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@ -53,7 +53,8 @@
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great to see a practical free software alternative that we could
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self-host. A number of free content management systems such as <ulink
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url="http://drupal.org">Drupal</ulink> have a survey module, but when i
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last looked at them, they</para>
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last looked at them, they were much more limited and harder to use than
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Zoomerang.</para>
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<section>
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<title>Take the survey</title>
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@ -76,103 +77,196 @@
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Results analysis</title>
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<title>Detailed results analysis</title>
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<para></para>
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<para>An important note about this survey is that it has a very small
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sample size (103 complete responses at the time of writing), so any
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conclusions drawn should be considered tentative. Additionally, since the
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survey was open to multiple responses, it could be that some people
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answered the questions about themselves more than once, despite
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instructions to the contrary in the introduction page.</para>
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<para>If you notice any errors in this analysis, or have any suggestions
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about how to improve it, please contact the author at <ulink
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url="mailto:pgear@shorewall.net">pgear@shorewall.net</ulink>.</para>
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<section>
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<title>Summary</title>
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<title>Organisations</title>
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<para></para>
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<para>Small organisations dominate the spectrum of Shorewall users. The
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largest group (44%) was 1-10 users - mostly SOHO LANs based on the
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comments in that section. Ninety percent (90%) of Shorewall
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installations are in organisations with less than 500 users. The results
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for the questions about organisational size and the number of users
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serviced by Shorewall match fairly closely, which seems to indicate that
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the majority of Shorewall systems are servicing the entire organisation
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in question. Some anomalies seem to have crept in, e.g. some responses
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indicated that their Shorewall system serviced more users than exist in
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their organisation. There may be some good reasons for this that i
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haven't anticipated.</para>
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<section>
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<title>Organisations</title>
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<para>The vast majority (84%) of Shorewall systems are administered by
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only one person. One question that needs to be asked is, "Why?" Possible
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reasons for this might be:</para>
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<para>Small organisations dominate the spectrum of Shorewall users.
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The largest group (44%) was 1-10 users - mostly SOHO LANs, based on
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the comments in that section. Ninety percent of Shorewall
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installations are in organisations with less than 500 users.</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>Most of the organisations in which it is used are small, thus
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most of them will only have one person skilled in the area of packet
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filtering firewalls. This seems a likely scenario, but a cross
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correlation of the results of questions 1 and 2 with question 3
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indicates that the number of administrators is fairly uniform across
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all sizes of organisation and user base.</para>
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</listitem>
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<para>The results for the questions about organisational size and the
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number of users serviced by Shorewall closely match, which seems to
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indicate that the majority of those 90% of Shorewall systems are
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servicing the entire organisation in question.</para>
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<listitem>
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<para>Shorewall works so well that people don't have to touch it
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much. Obviously, this is the preferred interpretation of the
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Shorewall project team. :-)</para>
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</listitem>
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<para>Some anomalies seem to have crept in, e.g. some responses
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indicated that their Shorewall system serviced more users than exist
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in their organisation. There may be some good reasons for this that
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i'm not aware of.</para>
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<listitem>
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<para>Shorewall is too hard for new users to comprehend, so one
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skilled person in an organisation tends to get the job maintaining
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it. Equally obviously, this is a non-preferred interpretation. :-)
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However, being a firewall generator, Shorewall is not likely to
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attract the same sort of users as a web browser or music
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player.</para>
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</listitem>
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<para>The vast majority (84%) of Shorewall systems are administered by
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only one person. Possible reasons for this might be:</para>
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<listitem>
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<para>Shorewall administrators are a closed bunch and don't like
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sharing their job around. Given the nature of firewalls and packet
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filtering, this doesn't seem far-fetched.</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>Most of the organisations in which it is used are small, and
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so most of them will only have one person skilled in the area of
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packet filtering firewalls. This seems a likely scenario, but a
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cross</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Shorewall is too hard for new users to comprehend, so one
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skilled person in an organisation tends to get the job maintaining
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it.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Shorewall works so well that people don't have to touch it
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much. (This is obviously the preferred interpretation of the
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Shorewall project team. :-)</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Shorewall administrators are a closed bunch and don't like
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sharing their job around. Given the nature of packet filtering,
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this doesn't seem far-fetched.</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para>This question doesn't seem to have an easy answer. In
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retrospect, since there were no responses indicating 10 or more
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administrators, i could have made the granularity of this question
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better. Possibly we can follow this up with a further, smaller survey
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specifically about the people and organisations who use
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Shorewall.</para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title></title>
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<para></para>
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</section>
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<para>There doesn't seem to be an easy answer to thus question. In
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retrospect, since there were no responses indicating 10 or more
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administrators, i could have made the granularity of this question
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better. A question about a person's role in the organisation may also
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have been helpful. Possibly we could follow up with a smaller survey,
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specifically about the people and organisations who use
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Shorewall.</para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>asdf</title>
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<title>Users</title>
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<para>asdf</para>
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<para>Unsurprisingly, 97% of survey respondents were male. Or to put it
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another way: suprisingly, there are actually 3 female Shorewall users.
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Being male seems to be an occupational hazard of life in the IT
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industry, and even more so in the more "nerdy" specialisations like
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Linux and security. :-)</para>
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<para>The largest age group of users is 25-34 years (42% of all
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respondents). There were no retirees (65 and over) or minors (under 18)
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in the responses. The distribution of all remaining age groups was
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fairly even.</para>
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<para>The largest group of users in terms of education was those with a
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Bachelor's degree, followed by those with a high school education.
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Fifty-seven percent (57%) of Shorewall users have a Bachelor's degree or
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better. Many users' highest qualifications are not in an IT-related
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discipline (42%). This remains fairly constant across the spectrum when
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correlated with the highest level of qualifications.</para>
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<para>Almost two-thirds of users (62%) use Shorewall as part of their
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paid employment. Of these, 12% (7 of 58) do not use Shorewall as part of
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their official duties. Cross correlation with level of education
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revealed no major variances in this trend depending on level of
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education.</para>
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<para>The majority of users (73%) began using the Internet in the 1990s.
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A smaller majority (61%) have been using the Internet for more than 12
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years (1994 or earlier). (The single response indicating use of the
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Internet (then ARPANET) since the 1960s seems to be an error.)</para>
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<para>The majority of users (70%) began using Linux after it reached a
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certain stage of maturity - around or after the release of kernel 2.0
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(1996). However, nearly all respondents (97%) have been using Linux for
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5 years or more, with almost half (47%) having 10 or more years
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experience with it. It seems fair to say that as a rule, Shorewall
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attracts people with plenty of experience.</para>
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<para>Around one third of users (30%) have been using Shorewall for more
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than 5 years, with two-thirds (66%) having used it since the 1.x series
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(2003 or earlier). It seems fair to say that Shorewall users seem to
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stick with the product once they are familiar with it. On the other
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hand, it seems that Shorewall is not attracting large numbers of new
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users, which is a concern for the future of the project.</para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Hardware</title>
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<para>Ninety-three percent (93%) of users run Shorewall on i386 family
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hardware, with a further 6% running it on x86-64/EM64T platforms. One
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response was received indicating use of Shorewall on MIPS (Linksys WRT
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platform). No responses were received for any other hardware platform.
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While this is not surprising given Intel's</para>
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<para>A good spread of CPU power is shown in the survey responses. The
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largest group was 400-999 MHz (30%), with only 16% of responses
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indicating less than 400 MHz, with the same number greater than 2500
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MHz. A number of responses in the field for additional information
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suggested that the machines used were either recycled desktops, or
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systems that were specifically built to do the job, and had been running
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in that role for a number of years.</para>
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<para>RAM configuration seemed to mostly mirror CPU power, with the
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majority (52%) of systems having between 256 and 1023 MB. A bias towards
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higher RAM figures (only 11% of systems have less than 128 MB; 28% have
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1024 MB or more) reflects the more server-oriented workload that many
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Shorewall systems run (see section @@@ below). (Note that there is an
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error in the released version of the survey for this question: it was a
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multiple choice question rather than single choice, and thus there were
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more results than expected. However, the number of errors doesn't seem
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to be significant.)</para>
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<para>Shorewall systems on the whole tend toward smaller OS hard disks,
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with 42% having disks 39 GB or smaller. The largest group by a small
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margin was 80-159 GB at 23%, with 10-39 GB and 0-9 GB coming in a close
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second and third at 22% and 20% respectively.</para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Network</title>
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<para></para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>asdf</title>
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<section>
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<title>Software</title>
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<para>asdf</para>
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<para>asdf</para>
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<para></para>
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<para></para>
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<para></para>
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</section>
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<para></para>
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</section>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Possible implications for free software projects</title>
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<title>Conclusions</title>
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<para></para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Possible implications for the Shorewall project</title>
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<para></para>
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<para></para>
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<section>
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<title></title>
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<para></para>
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<para></para>
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</section>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title>Possible implications for other free software projects</title>
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<para></para>
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</section>
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@ -180,48 +274,66 @@
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<section>
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<title>Lessons learned about surveys</title>
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<para>asdf</para>
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<para>things i did right</para>
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<para></para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>Treat it like releasing free software:</para>
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<section>
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<title>Things i did right</title>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>release early and often</para>
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</listitem>
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<para></para>
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<listitem>
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<para>make branches when you release alpha and beta versions, and
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bring the lessons you learned in those versions into the main
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trunk</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>Treat it like releasing free software:</para>
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<para>things i did wrong</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>release early and often</para>
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</listitem>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>Start small and work towards what you want to know. I tried to
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do everything in one survey, and ended up confusing some
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people.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>make branches when you release alpha and beta versions,
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and bring the lessons you learned in those versions into the
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main trunk</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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</section>
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<listitem>
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<para>asdf</para>
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</listitem>
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<section>
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<title>Things i did wrong</title>
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<listitem>
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<para>Be prepared beforehand</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para></para>
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<para>asdf</para>
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<itemizedlist>
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<listitem>
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<para>Start small and work towards what you want to know. I tried to
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do everything in one survey, and ended up confusing some
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people.</para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para></para>
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</listitem>
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<listitem>
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<para>Be prepared beforehand</para>
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</listitem>
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</itemizedlist>
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<para></para>
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</section>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title></title>
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<para></para>
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</section>
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<section>
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<title></title>
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<para></para>
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</section>
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</article>
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Block a user