Free/Libre And Open Source Software Projects Research Articles

Understanding participation and corporatization in service of diversity in free/libre and open source software development projects

Issues associated with a lack of diversity and inclusivity persist in the domain of free/libre and open source software (FLOSS) development and in software development generally. Researchers have suggested that the corporatization of FLOSS affords opportunities for creating an inclusive workforce. To understand the potential for firms to increase diversity, we conducted a mixed-methods study of diversity and corporate engagement in FLOSS projects. We integrate the results of a qualitative survey and a big data analysis to understand developer perceptions of corporate engagement and its association with gender and geographic diversity. In the qualitative component, we collected responses from 64 FLOSS contributors to elicit their perspectives on corporate engagement. In the quantitative component, we analyzed GitHub data from 38 projects and 9,990 contributors to investigate differences in participation and diversity based on corporate engagement. We find that contributors vary across dimensions that can inform diversity interventions: stances toward corporations and orientation towards individual/collective benefits. Our results suggest that corporate engagement may limit a project's contributor base and geographic diversity. Yet, organizations subsidizing FLOSS have opportunities to increase access to projects which would benefit diversity. This research serves to identify individual and organizational factors which may harm and help diversity initiatives.

Uncovering the Periphery: A Qualitative Survey of Episodic Volunteering in Free/Libre and Open Source Software Communities

Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) communities are composed, in part, of volunteers, many of whom contribute infrequently. However, these infrequent volunteers contribute to the sustainability of FLOSS projects, and should ideally be encouraged to continue participating, even if they cannot be persuaded to contribute regularly. Infrequent contributions are part of a trend which has been widely observed in other sectors of volunteering, where it has been termed “episodic volunteering” (EV). Previous FLOSS research has focused on the Onion model, differentiating core and peripheral developers, with the latter considered as a homogeneous group. We argue this is too simplistic, given the size of the periphery group and the myriad of valuable activities they perform beyond coding. Our exploratory qualitative survey of 13 FLOSS communities investigated what episodic volunteering looks like in a FLOSS context. EV is widespread in FLOSS communities, although not specifically managed. We suggest several recommendations for managing EV based on a framework drawn from the volunteering literature. Also, episodic volunteers make a wide range of value-added contributions other than code, and they should neither be expected nor coerced into becoming habitual volunteers.

Ideological shifts in open source orchestration: examining the influence of licence choice and organisational participation on open source project outcomes

ABSTRACT Though volunteer-driven Free (Libre) and Open Source Software (FLOSS) development were founded on the ideological beliefs of “openness” and “absence of any commercial appropriation”, in recent years, FLOSS movement has witnessed two ideological shifts. First, the emergence of “permissive FLOSS licences” that allow commercial appropriation of the collaboratively developed code, and second, “organisational ownership” of FLOSS projects. Because ideological beliefs shape the motivational needs of the volunteer contributors, and motivational needs influence the dominant work structures, it is expected that ideological shifts could influence the mechanisms through which work is orchestrated in FLOSS projects. Motivated by the need to understand the impact of these ideological shifts, we theorise the mechanisms through which the two ideological shifts alter the influence of FLOSS work structures on project outcomes of popularity and survival. Adopting an instrument variable approach, our analysis of projects hosted on GitHub confirms the significance of both the ideological shifts with some interesting contextual differences across the two project outcomes. Specifically, we find that the ideological shift pertaining to licence type has a significant influence on both the examined project outcomes, whereas organisational ownership has a significant influence only on the popularity of FLOSS projects.

Preliminary steps toward a general theory of internet-based collective-action in digital information commons: Findings from a study of open source software projects

This paper presents some of the findings from a 5-year empirical study of FOSS (free/libre and open source software) commons, completed in 2011. FOSS projects are Internet-based common property regimes where the project source code is developed over the Internet. The resulting software is generally distributed with a license that provides users with the freedoms to access, use, read, modify and redistribute the software. In this study we used three different and very large datasets (approximately 107,000; 174,000 and 1400 cases respectively) with information on FOSS projects residing in Sourceforge.net, one of the largest, if not the largest, FOSS repository in the world. We employ various quantitative methods to uncover factors that lead some FOSS projects to ongoing collaborative success, while others become abandoned. After presenting some of our study’s results, we articulate the collaborative “story” of FOSS that emerged. We close the paper by discussing some key findings that can contribute to a general theory of Internet-based collective-action and FOSS-like forms of digital online commons.

Preliminary steps toward a general theory of internet-based collective-action in digital information commons: Findings from a study of open source software projects

This paper presents some of the findings from a 5-year empirical study of FOSS (free/libre and open source software) commons, completed in 2011. FOSS projects are Internet-based common property regimes where the project source code is developed over the Internet. The resulting software is generally distributed with a license that provides users with the freedoms to access, use, read, modify and redistribute the software. In this study we used three different and very large datasets (approximately 107,000; 174,000 and 1400 cases respectively) with information on FOSS projects residing in Sourceforge.net, one of the largest, if not the largest, FOSS repository in the world. We employ various quantitative methods to uncover factors that lead some FOSS projects to ongoing collaborative success, while others become abandoned. After presenting some of our study’s results, we articulate the collaborative “story” of FOSS that emerged. We close the paper by discussing some key findings that can contribute to a general theory of Internet-based collective-action and FOSS-like forms of digital online commons.

Making an Open Source Case for Offshoring Commentary

The paper is an account of the possibilities that expanded international offshoring could have for the Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) movement. Based on existing survey data, this paper argues that at a numeric level, the continued spread of software development jobs into new areas of the world could create the foundation from which expanded international involvement in FLOSS could evolve. By drawing a parallel between the amount of available employment and education in an area to the overall participation of developers in FLOSS activities, I argue here that expanding the number of participants in the high-tech sector could increase the number of developers in other countries who choose to participate in open source projects. This analysis posits a kind of symbiotic relationship between commercial and private sector software development, which has not previously been taken. While these modes of software production continue to expand internationally, we gain a unique opportunity for expanding our understanding of the consequences of offshoring. Furthermore, the liberatory promise of FLOSS projects can only be realized if educated and motivated individuals are present in other countries. Without this expansion, it will remain an activity dominated by America and Western Europe

Tragedy of the FOSS commons? Investigating the institutional designs of free/libre and open source software projects

Free/Libre and Open Source Software projects (FOSS) are a form of Internet-based commons. Since 1968, when Garrett Hardin published his famous article “Tragedy of the Commons” in the journal Science, there has been significant interest in understanding how to manage commons appropriately, particularly in environmental fields. An important distinction between natural resource commons and FOSS commons is that the “tragedy” to be avoided in natural resources is over-harvesting and the potential destruction of the resource. In FOSS commons the “tragedy” to be avoided is project abandonment and a “dead” project. Institutions – defined as informal norms, more formalized rules, and governance structures – are mechanisms that have been shown to help overcome tragedies in some environmental commons situations. The goal of this paper is to more formally describe the concept of FOSS institutions and to conduct a preliminary examination of FOSS projects in order to shed light into institutions, their composition and importance to the projects. We report findings from an initial set of interviews of FOSS developers and find that in commons settings that need to encourage contribution rather than control over-appropriation, the institutional designs appear to be extremely lean and as unobtrusive as possible. To the FOSS programmers we interviewed, institutional structure adds transaction costs and hinders collective action. This is markedly different from traditional environmental commons settings.