The social structure of free and open source software development

Crowston, Kevin; Howison, James

doi:10.5210/fm.v10i2.1207

Cited by 364 publications

(318 citation statements)

References 11 publications

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“…In this line, probably the best known model about the organizational structure of Hbre software projects is the onion model [2,3,4], a visual analogy that represents how developers and users are positioned in communities. In this model, it is possible to differentiate among core developers (those who have a high involvement in the project), co-developers (with punctual, but frequent contributions), active users (that contribute only occasionally) and passive users [8,7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributor Turnover in Libre Software Projects

Robles

González-Barahona

2006

IFIP International Federation for Information Processing

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Abstract.A common problem that management faces in software companies is the high instability of their staff. In libre (free, open source) software projects, the permanence of developers is also an open issue, with the potential of causing problems amplified by the self-organizing nature that most of them exhibit. Hence, human resources in libre software projects are even more difficult to manage: developers are in most cases not bound by a contract and, in addition, there is not a real management structure concerned about this problem. This raises some interesting questions with respect to the composition of development teams in libre software projects, and how they evolve over time. There are projects lead by their original founders (some sort of "code gods"), while others are driven by several different developer groups over time (i.e. the project "regenerates" itself). In this paper, we propose a quantitative methodology, based on the analysis of the activity in the source code management repositories, to study how these processes (developers leaving, developers joining) affect libre software projects. The basis of it is the analysis of the composition of the core group, the group of developers most active in a project, for several time lapses. We will apply this methodology to several large, well-known libre software projects, and show how it can be used to characterize them. In addition, we will discuss the lessons that can be learned, and the validity of our proposal.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contributor Turnover in Libre Software Projects

Robles

González-Barahona

2006

IFIP International Federation for Information Processing

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“…A noteworthy contribution in this sense, although not directly addressing the evolution of developer communities, is the onion model [5], which shows how developers and users are positioned in communities. This model differentiates among core developers (those who have a high involvement in the project), codevelopers (with specific but frequent contributions), active users (contributing only occasionally) and passive users [18,7,13].…”

Section: Related Researchmentioning

confidence: 99%

Using Social Network Analysis Techniques to Study Collaboration between a FLOSS Community and a Company

Martínez-Romo¹,

Robles

González-Barahona

et al. 2008

IFIP – The International Federation for Information Processing

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Abstract. Because of the sheer volume of information available in FLOSS repositories, simple analysis have to face the problems of filtering the relevant information. Hence, it is essential to apply methodologies that highlight that information for a given aspect of the project. In this paper, some techniques from the social sciences have been used on data from version control systems to extract information about the development process of FLOSS projects with the aim of highlighting several processes that occur in FLOSS projects and that are difficult to obtain by other means. In particular, the collaboration between the FLOSS community and a company has been studied by selecting two projects as case studies. The results highlight aspects such as efficiency in the development process, release management and leadership turnover.

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“…Much of the research devoted to measuring the relative numbers of the members occupying these differentiated roles has taken the form of careful and quite detailed case studies of specific projects (e.g. Mockus et al, 2000), while the early empirical efforts to implement the "onion model" were confined to static, cross-section analyses (e.g., Crowston and Howison 2005) that precluded observation of developers' moving backwards and forwards between non-adjacent layers of the "onion", or concurrently occupying the same role in more than one project, or taking quite different roles in each of several projects.…”

Section: Role Differentiation Among Developers: the Background Of Relmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dynamics of innovation in an "open source" collaboration environment: lurking, laboring, and launching FLOSS projects on SourceForge

David¹,

Rullani²

2008

Industrial and Corporate Change

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Standard-Nutzungsbedingungen:Die Dokumente auf EconStor dürfen zu eigenen wissenschaftlichen Zwecken und zum Privatgebrauch gespeichert und kopiert werden.Sie dürfen die Dokumente nicht für öffentliche oder kommerzielle Zwecke vervielfältigen, öffentlich ausstellen, öffentlich zugänglich machen, vertreiben oder anderweitig nutzen.Sofern die Verfasser die Dokumente unter Open-Content-Lizenzen (insbesondere CC-Lizenzen) zur Verfügung gestellt haben sollten, gelten abweichend von diesen Nutzungsbedingungen die in der dort genannten Lizenz gewährten Nutzungsrechte. Terms of use: Documents in Accepted for publication in INDUSTRIAL AND CORPORATE CHANGE AbstractA systems analysis perspective is adopted to examine the critical properties of the Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) mode of innovation, as reflected on the SourceForge platform (SF.net). This approach re-scales March's (1991) framework and applies it to characterize the "innovation system" of a "distributed organization" of interacting agents in a virtual collaboration environment, rather than to innovation within a firm. March (1991) views the process of innovation at the organizational level as the coupling of sub-processes of exploration and exploitation. Correspondingly, the innovation system of the virtual collaboration environment represented by SF.net is an emergent property of two "coupled" processes: one involves the interactions among agents searching the locale for information and knowledge resources to use in designing novel software products (i.e., exploration), and the other involves the mobilization of individuals' capabilities for application in the software development projects that become established on the platform (i.e., exploitation). The micro-dynamics of this system are studied empirically by constructing transition probability matrices representing the movements of 222,835 SF.net users among 7 different activity states, which range from "lurking" (not contributing or contributing to projects without becoming a member) to "laboring" (joining one or more projects as members), and to "launching" (founding one or more projects) within each successive 6-month interval. The estimated probabilities are found to form first-order Markov chains describing ergodic processes. This makes it possible the computation of the equilibrium distribution of agents among the states, thereby suppressing transient effects and revealing persisting patterns of project-joining and projectlaunching. The latter show the FLOSS innovation system on SF.net to be highly dissipative: a very large proportion of the registered "developers" fail to become even minimally active on the platform. There is nevertheless an active core of mobile project-joiners, and a (still smaller) core of project founders who persist in creating new projects. The structure of these groups' interactions (as displayed within the 3-year period examined) is investigated in detail, and it is shown that it would be sufficient to sustain both the exploration and exploitation phases of the pla...

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The social structure of free and open source software development

Cited by 364 publications

References 11 publications

Contributor Turnover in Libre Software Projects

Contributor Turnover in Libre Software Projects

Using Social Network Analysis Techniques to Study Collaboration between a FLOSS Community and a Company

Dynamics of innovation in an "open source" collaboration environment: lurking, laboring, and launching FLOSS projects on SourceForge

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