Dear friends: I am a faculty member at the Jones school of management at Rice University in Houston, Texas (you can verify this by a Google search on "Utpal Dholakia" or "Paul Dholakia"). Over the last year or so, we have been conducting a research project examining the growing phenomenon of "brand communities" --- groups organized around specific products or brands. Examples would be Harley Davidson riders, Mercedes drivers, Mac enthusiasts, etc. In this regard, Linux user groups offer another powerful instance of this interesting phenomenon --- that we wish to study from a sociological perspective. We are currently carrying out a survey of Linux user group and interent forum members, seeking their opinions on membership, their feelings and the value derived. The survey is posted the web at the following URL: http://www.surveypro.com/cgi-bin/surveypro/run_survey.cgi?id=2444 Please, PLEASE, please consider filling out the survey- Remember it will take only 10-15 minutes and be a great help to research, and only used for academic purposes. This is an _educational_ endeavor, Please help us by taking a few minutes. As a small token of appreciation, and in the spirit of the open-source movement, we will be donating a total of $500 to five groups or organizations nominated by our respondents (you will get a chance to nominate in the survey) Also, if anyone would like to send me contact info for any other groups/web sites where I might find individuals who might be interested in responding to the survey, it would be much appreciated. If you have any questions, please email me at dholakia@rice.edu. Thank you. Dr. Utpal (Paul) Dholakia Assistant Professor of Management Rice University http://www.ruf.rice.edu/~dholakia