Identifying how determinants impact security-based open source software project success using rule induction

Abstract

Open Source Software (OSS) projects permit users the freedom to use their software code for any purpose. The code can be studied, modified and freely redistributed. Even though OSS is free, the profit potential of OSS projects is becoming very attractive to software development companies. The potential financial gain for a developer lies in the support/maintenance and proprietary add-on features they can provide for their product. While there is extensive academic literature on Information System (IS) success, there are no empirical studies identifying the determinants of OSS project success. The contribution of this research is a model for the success of security-based OSS projects based on a rule induction approach. This empirical study is based onthe analysis of publicly available data from a repository of OSS project data (SourceForge.net).