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Free/Open Source Software Development: Recent Research Results and Emerging Opportunities
, 2007
"... The focus of this paper is to review what is known about free and open source software development (FOSSD) work practices, development processes, project and community dynamics, and other socio-technical relationships. It focuses on exploring how FOSS is developed and evolved based on an extensive r ..."
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Cited by 76 (24 self)
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The focus of this paper is to review what is known about free and open source software development (FOSSD) work practices, development processes, project and community dynamics, and other socio-technical relationships. It focuses on exploring how FOSS is developed and evolved based on an extensive review of a set of empirical studies of FOSSD projects that articulate different levels of analysis. These characterize what has been analyzed in FOSSD studies across levels that examine (i) why individuals participate; (ii) resources and capabilities supporting development activities; (iii) how cooperation, coordination, and control are realized in projects; (iv) alliance formation and inter-project social networking; (v) FOSS as a multi-project software ecosystem, and (vi) FOSS as a social movement. Next, there is a discussion of limitations and constraints in the FOSSD studies so far. Last, attention shifts to identifying emerging opportunities for future FOSSD studies that can give rise to the development of new software engineering tools or techniques, as well as to new empirical studies of software development.
Coordination of free/libre open source software development
, 2005
"... the state of the literature. We develop a framework for organizing the literature based on the input-mediatoroutput-input (IMOI) model from the small groups literature. We present a quantitative summary of articles selected for the review and then discuss findings of this literature categorized into ..."
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Cited by 75 (28 self)
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the state of the literature. We develop a framework for organizing the literature based on the input-mediatoroutput-input (IMOI) model from the small groups literature. We present a quantitative summary of articles selected for the review and then discuss findings of this literature categorized into issues pertaining to inputs (e.g., member characteristics, technology use and project characteristics), processes (software development and social processes), emergent states (e.g., trust and task related states) and outputs (e.g. team performance, FLOSS implementation and project evolution). Based on this review, we suggest topics for future research, as well as identifying methodological and theoretical issues for future inquiry in this area, including issues relating to sampling and the need for more longitudinal studies.
Core and periphery in free/libre and open source software team communications
- In Proceedings of the 39th Hawai’i International Conference on System System
"... The concept of the core group of developers is important and often discussed in empirical studies of FLOSS projects. This paper examines the question, “how does one empirically distinguish the core? ” Being able to identify the core members of a FLOSS development project is important because many of ..."
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Cited by 35 (5 self)
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The concept of the core group of developers is important and often discussed in empirical studies of FLOSS projects. This paper examines the question, “how does one empirically distinguish the core? ” Being able to identify the core members of a FLOSS development project is important because many of the processes necessary for successful projects likely involve core members differently than peripheral members, so analyses that mix the two groups will likely yield invalid results. We compare 3 analysis approaches to identify the core: the named list of developers, a Bradford’s law analysis that takes as the core the most frequent contributors and a social network analysis of the interaction pattern that identifies the core in a core-and-periphery structure. We apply these measures to the interactions around bug fixing for 116 SourceForge projects. The 3 techniques identify different individuals as core members; examination of which individuals are identified leads to suggestions for refining the measures. All 3 measures though suggest that the core of FLOSS projects is a small fraction of the total number of contributors. 1.
Understanding Requirements for Open Source Software
, 2008
"... This study presents findings from an empirical study directed at understanding the roles, forms, and consequences arising in requirements for open source software (OSS) development efforts. Five open source software development communities are described, examined, and compared to help discover wha ..."
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Cited by 18 (7 self)
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This study presents findings from an empirical study directed at understanding the roles, forms, and consequences arising in requirements for open source software (OSS) development efforts. Five open source software development communities are described, examined, and compared to help discover what differences may be observed. At least two dozen kinds of software informalisms are found to play a critical role in the elicitation, analysis, specification, validation, and management of requirements for developing OSS systems. Subsequently, understanding the roles these software informalisms take in a new formulation of the requirements development process for OSS is the focus of this study. This focus enables considering a reformulation of the requirements engineering process and its associated artifacts or (in)formalisms to better account for the requirements when developing OSS systems. Other findings identify how OSS requirements are decentralized across multiple informalisms, and to the need for advances in how to specify the capabilities of existing OSS systems.
Bug Fixing Practices within Free/ Libre Open Source Software Development Teams
, 2008
"... Free/libre open source software (FLOSS, e.g., Linux or Apache) is primarily developed by distributed teams. Developers contribute from around the world and coordinate their activity almost exclusively by means of email and bulletin boards, yet some how profit from the advantages and evade the challe ..."
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Cited by 17 (2 self)
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Free/libre open source software (FLOSS, e.g., Linux or Apache) is primarily developed by distributed teams. Developers contribute from around the world and coordinate their activity almost exclusively by means of email and bulletin boards, yet some how profit from the advantages and evade the challenges of distributed software development. In this article we investigate the structure and the coordination practices adopted by development teams during the bug-fixing process, which is considered one of main areas of FLOSS project success. In particular, based on a codification of the messages recorded in the bug tracking system of four projects, we identify the accomplished tasks, the adopted coordination mechanisms, and the role undertaken by both the FLOSS development team and the FLOSS community. We conclude with suggestions for further research.
Understanding the Development of Free ECommerce/E-Business Software: A Resource-Based View
- Emerging Free/Open Source Software Practices. IDEA Group Publishing
, 2007
"... This study seeks to identify and characterize the array of social and technical resources needed to support the development of open source software supporting E-Commerce (EC) or E-Business (EB) capabilities. This entails a case study within a virtual organization that has undertaken an organizationa ..."
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Cited by 10 (7 self)
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This study seeks to identify and characterize the array of social and technical resources needed to support the development of open source software supporting E-Commerce (EC) or E-Business (EB) capabilities. This entails a case study within a virtual organization that has undertaken an organizational initiative to develop, deploy, and support free/open source software systems for EC or EB services, like those supporting Enterprise Resource Planning. The objective this study is to identify and characterize the resource-based software product development capabilities that lie at the center of the initiative, rather than the software itself, or the effectiveness of its operation in a business enterprise. By learning what these resources are, and how they are arrayed into product development capabilities, we can provide the knowledge needed to understand what resources are required to realize the potential of Free EC and EB software applications. In addition, the resource-based view draws attentions to those resources and capabilities that provide potential competitive advantages and disadvantages of the organization in focus. Introduction and Background
A study of the relationships between source code metrics and attractiveness in free software projects
- In: Brazilian Symposium on Software Engineering (SBES
, 2010
"... Abstract—A significant number of Free Software projects has been widely used and considered successful. However, there is an even larger number of them that cannot overcome the initial steps towards building an active community of users and developers. In this study, we investigated whether there ar ..."
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Cited by 8 (4 self)
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Abstract—A significant number of Free Software projects has been widely used and considered successful. However, there is an even larger number of them that cannot overcome the initial steps towards building an active community of users and developers. In this study, we investigated whether there are relationships between source code metrics and attractiveness, i.e., the ability of a project to attract users and developers. To verify these relationships, we analyzed 6,773 Free Software projects from the SourceForge.net repository. The results indicated that attractiveness is indeed correlated to some source code metrics. This suggests that measurable attributes of the project source code somehow affect the decision to contribute to and adopt a Free Software. The findings described in this paper show that it is relevant for project leaders to monitor source code quality, particularly a few objective metrics, since these can have a positive influence in projects chances of forming a community of contributors and users around their software, enabling further enhancement in quality. I.
Defining, understanding, and supporting open collaboration: Lessons from the literature. American Behavioral Scientist
, 2013
"... The past twenty years have seen broad popularization of a relatively novel kind of human enterprise: open collaboration. Open collaboration projects are distributed, collaborative efforts made possible because of changes in information and communication technology that facilitate cooperative activit ..."
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Cited by 7 (2 self)
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The past twenty years have seen broad popularization of a relatively novel kind of human enterprise: open collaboration. Open collaboration projects are distributed, collaborative efforts made possible because of changes in information and communication technology that facilitate cooperative activities. The groundswell of open collaboration could be felt in the open source movement of the 90s but became unmistakable with the growth of projects like Wikipedia and, in particular, the maturation of research to help explain how and why such systems work, who participates, and when they might fail. By now thousands of scholars have written about open collaboration systems, many hundreds of thousands of people have participated in them, and millions of people use products of open collaboration every day. This special issue of American Behavioral Scientist assembles interdisciplinary scholarship that examines different aspects of open collaboration and the diverse systems that support it. The goal of this short introductory piece is to define open collaboration and contextualize a set of articles that span multiple disciplines and methods in a common vocabulary and history. We provide a definition of open collaboration and situate the phenomenon within an interrelated set of scholarly and ideological movements. We then examine the properties of open collaboration systems that have given rise to research and review major areas of scholarship, including the works in this issue, and close with a
Social Network Structure as a Critical Success Condition for Virtual Communities
"... Virtual communities have become an important new organizational form and yet relatively little is known about the conditions which lead to their success. In an attempt to address this knowledge gap, a particular subset of virtual communities- open source software project communities- is investigated ..."
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Cited by 5 (0 self)
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Virtual communities have become an important new organizational form and yet relatively little is known about the conditions which lead to their success. In an attempt to address this knowledge gap, a particular subset of virtual communities- open source software project communities- is investigated and four hypotheses are asserted which relate social network structure to community success. The hypotheses, which are based on social network theory and related research, suggest that success is supported by high levels of affiliation with other communities, moderate levels of density within the network of community conversations, moderate levels of density in the communications between peripheral members and core members, and low levels of density in the communications between administrators and the rest of the community. Empirical research is underway to test these hypotheses based on a sample of over 200 open source software project communities.
The Effects of Diversity in Global, Distributed Collectives: A Study of User Participation in Open Source Projects
"... Diversity is a defining characteristic of global collectives on the Internet. Although there is substantial evidence to suggest that diversity can have profound implications for a variety of outcomes including performance, member engagement, and withdrawal behavior, prior research has examined the e ..."
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Cited by 4 (0 self)
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Diversity is a defining characteristic of global collectives on the Internet. Although there is substantial evidence to suggest that diversity can have profound implications for a variety of outcomes including performance, member engagement, and withdrawal behavior, prior research has examined the effects of diversity predominantly in the context of organizational workgroups or virtual teams. In this paper we use a diversity lens to investigate the success of non-traditional virtual work groups exemplified by open source software (OSS) projects. We build on the diversity literature to propose that three types of diversity: separation, variety and disparity diversity, influence user participation in OSS projects both directly, and through an effect on contributions to the software project. To the degree that OSS projects are critically dependent on human capital, user participation is a key outcome. We instantiate the operational definitions of the three forms of diversity to the specific and unique context of open source projects. Using archival data from 337 projects hosted on SourceForge.net, we find that variety diversity, as measured by diversity in both project roles and participant tenure, positively affects user participation. These effects are partially mediated by project contributions. The impact of separation diversity, operationalized as diversity in the languages spoken by participants, is not significant. Disparity diversity, reflecting variations in participant activity, has a negative influence on user participation. We discuss how understanding the nuanced effects of different kinds of diversity in OSS development contexts both advances the literature on diversity and OSS and provides practical implications for OSS participants.
