Robustness of Multi-Project Knowledge Collaboration Network in Open Source Community

Abstract

Multi-project parallelism is an important feature of open source communities (OSCs), and multi-project collaboration among users is a favorable condition for an OSC’s development. This paper studies the robustness of this type of community. Based on the characteristics of knowledge collaboration behavior and the large amount of semantic content generated from user collaboration in open source projects, we construct a directed, weighted, semantic-based multi-project knowledge collaboration network. Using analysis of the KCN’s structure and user attributes, nodes are divided into knowledge collaboration nodes and knowledge dissemination nodes that participate in either multi- or single-project collaboration. From the perspectives of user churn and behavior degradation, two types of failure modes are constructed: node failure and edge failure. Based on empirical data from the Local Motors open source vehicle design community, we then carry out a dynamic robustness analysis experiment. Our results show that the robustness of our constructed network varies for different failure modes and different node types: the network has (1) a high robustness to random failure and a low robustness to deliberate failure, (2) a high robustness to edge failure and a low robustness to node failure, and (3) a high robustness to the failure of single-project nodes (or their edges) and a low robustness to the failure of multi-project nodes (or their edges). These findings can be used to provide a more comprehensive and targeted management reference, promoting the efficient development of OSCs.

Robustness of open source community multi-project knowledge collaboration network based on structural hole theory

“…Description of failure process. In the multi-project KCN, our previous research [52] divided nodes and designed failure modes based on the number of users participating in projects. However, according to node attribute analysis, the node that participated in the most projects will not necessarily be the node with the highest out-strength or betweenness.…”

“…However, none of the above studies considered the multi-project OSC network. In subsequent research, Zhang [ 52 ] divided nodes based on their structural characteristics and project characteristics; they then investigated the robustness of the multi-project OSC network under node failure and edge failure, but they did not consider the impact of node failure at the structural hole position or its edge failure on the network when dividing nodes.…”

Towards Evaluating the Robustness of the Open-Source Product Community under Multiple Attack Strategies

“…Robustness is the ability of a system to maintain a certain performance level under parameter perturbations [6]. Many scholars evaluate this robustness using complex network design attack strategies [7][8][9][10][11][12], which involve the mapping of attacks on network systems based on real-world scenarios. Yang et al [13] proposed five attack strategies based on the degree and capacity of nodes, targeting Barabási-Albert (BA), Watts-Strogatz small world (WS), and Erdös-Rényi (ER) networks, and Cui et al [14] considered intra-degree priority and inter-degree priority attack modes as network attack strategies.…”