Hi Ben,
I don't know whether your request is legitimate or not, but you are doing a bad job at making it look legitimate. Frankly, it *looks* like a scam to me (I'm not saying that it is). I am just replying in case this is really a study project you are trying to conduct, in which case it seems you could use some advice.
Your project apparently requires downloading, installing, and running some sort of software tool, which is an inherent security risk for those people who actually do it. The URL that you list is not an offical website of your university. Also, neither of the main e-mail contacts listed in the PDF file on that website are e-mail addresses at the University of Newcastle. A quick search of the university's staff directory did not turn up a Dr Whitehouse, who supposedly supervises the study. Again, that doesn't have to mean anything, but it will certainly discourage people from participating.
Anyway, I'd caution anyone considering downloading and running this survey tool. If this is indeed a legitimate effort to collect data about open source licensing, I'd recommend to redesign the e-mail and use e-mail addresses and URLs that are more easily verifiable.
Mirko
> [Apologies for the off-topic message; no further emails will be sent]
> You are invited to participate in an academic research project that I am
> conducting into open source component licensing. The research is part of
> my Doctorate of Business Administration degree at the University of
> Newcastle, Australia, and is being supervised by Dr Len Whitehouse. The
> research is entirely non-commercial, and full results will be made
> freely available to any person who is interested. It is hoped that the
> research will offer useful information about how component licensing is
> approached in practice.
> We are looking for Java software developers who are working on either
> commercial or open source projects. Participation in the research is
> entirely voluntary, and privacy has been carefully addressed to ensure
> that participants cannot be identified. The research has received an
> ethics clearance from the university.
> Participation will usually take less than 30 minutes. If you
> participate, you may optionally view a licensing compliance assessment
> report for your project. This may be of general interest or assist in
> planning licensing compliance strategies.
> If you are interested in learning more about the research, please visit
> http://research.acegitech.com. At that location you will find the
> Research Information Sheet that fully explains the research and provides
> you with details on how to participate or ask further questions. Please
> note that data collection is scheduled to end on 4 June 2007.
> Thank you for taking the time to read this email, and I hope that you
> will consider participating.
> Kind regards
> Ben Alex
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