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.

Some free software projects have been extremely successful. This rise to prominence can be attributed to the high quality and suitability of the software. This quality and suitability is achieved through an elaborate peer-review process performed by a large community of users, who act as co-developers to identify and correct software defects and add features. Although this process is crucial to the success of free software projects, there is more to the free software development than the creation of a ‘bazaar’. In this paper we draw on existing free software projects to define a lifecycle model for free software. This paper then explores each phase of the lifecycle model and agrees that, while the bazaar phase attracts the most attention, it is the initial modular design that accommodates diverse interventions. Moreover, it is the period of transition from the initial group to the larger community based development that is crucial in determining whether a free software project will succeed or fail. 2

Projects where developers are geographically distributed and with high personnel turnover are usually considered to be hard to manage. Any organisation that successfully handles such projects merits closer analysis so that lessons can be learned and good practice disseminated. Open Source Software projects represent such a case. One important factor is good configuration management practices. In this paper, the authors examine the configuration management process for some Open Source Software projects and analyse how process, tool support, and people aspects of configuration management contribute to this success. Finally, we discuss best practices and how lessons learned from Open Source Software can be transferred to more traditional ways of developing software. 1.

Extreme Programming (XP) is becoming popular as a software development method and there is quite a lot of literature describing its philosophy and practices. However, in all of this literature Software Configuration Management (SCM) is almost never mentioned explicitly, leaving XP practitioners with the impression that SCM is not needed and SCM people with the impression that XP is not sound from an SCM perspective. We carried out a more profound analysis of XP and its practices seen from an SCM perspective. We found that in general XP and its practices do not go against common SCM standards, if we take into consideration that the XP context is different from that of more traditional projects. However, some SCM aspects need to be made explicit and a number of SCM-specific sub-practices need to be added to make XP a complete and sound development method seen from an SCM perspective. We report on how we implemented “our findings ” on several dozen XP projects and our experience from doing this through several iterations. 1.