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214
Motivation of software developers in Open Source projects: an Internet-based survey of contributors to the Linux kernel
- Research Policy
, 2003
"... The motives of 141 contributors to a large Open Source Software project (the Linux kernel) was explored with an internet-based questionnaire study. Measured factors were both derived from discussions within the Linux community as well as from models from social sciences. Participants' engagemen ..."
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Cited by 272 (6 self)
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The motives of 141 contributors to a large Open Source Software project (the Linux kernel) was explored with an internet-based questionnaire study. Measured factors were both derived from discussions within the Linux community as well as from models from social sciences. Participants' engagement was particularly determined by their identification as a Linux developer, by pragmatic motives to improve own software, and by their tolerance of time investments. Moreover, some of the software development was accomplished by teams. Activities in these teams were particularly determined by participants' evaluation of the team goals as well as by their perceived indispensability and self-efficacy. Running Head: MOTIVATION IN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE PROJECTS Key Words: Open Source Software, Linux, Virtual Teams, Motivation, VIST Model Author notes * Correspondence should be addressed to Guido Hertel, University of Kiel, Institut fuer Psychologie, Olshausenstr. 40, D-24 098 Kiel, Germany. Phone: +49 431 880 2980. Fax: +49 431 880 1559. E-mail: hertel@psychologie.uni-kiel.de. * We thank SuSe Germany for sponsoring a number of lottery prizes for the participants in this study.
Expertise Networks in Online Communities: Structure and Algorithms
- In Proceedings of WWW2007
"... Web-based communities have become important places for people to seek and share expertise. We find that networks in these communities typically differ in their topology from other online networks such as the World Wide Web. Systems targeted to augment web-based communities by automatically identifyi ..."
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Cited by 181 (9 self)
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Web-based communities have become important places for people to seek and share expertise. We find that networks in these communities typically differ in their topology from other online networks such as the World Wide Web. Systems targeted to augment web-based communities by automatically identifying users with expertise, for example, need to adapt to the underlying interaction dynamics. In this study, we analyze the Java Forum, a large online help-seeking community, using social network analysis methods. We test a set of network-based ranking algorithms, including PageRank and HITS, on this large size social network in order to identify users with high expertise. We then use simulations to identify a small number of simple simulation rules governing the question-answer dynamic in the network. These simple rules not only replicate the structural characteristics and algorithm performance on the empirically observed Java Forum, but also allow us to evaluate how other algorithms may perform in communities with different characteristics. We believe this approach will be fruitful for practical algorithm design and implementation for online expertise-sharing communities. Categories and Subject Descriptors
The Power of Gifts: Organizing Social Relationships in Open Source Communities
- WHO IS NOT DEVELOPING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE 635
, 2001
"... Abstract. In writings on the open source software development model, it is often argued that it is successful as a result of the gift economy that embraces activ-ities in online communities. However, the theoretical foundations for this argument are seldom discussed and empirically tested. Starting ..."
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Cited by 109 (1 self)
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Abstract. In writings on the open source software development model, it is often argued that it is successful as a result of the gift economy that embraces activ-ities in online communities. However, the theoretical foundations for this argument are seldom discussed and empirically tested. Starting with the ‘classic ’ theories of gift giving, we discuss how they need to be developed in order to explain gift-giving practices in digital domains. In this paper, we argue that the gift economy is important, not only because it creates openness, but also because it organizes relationships between people in a certain way. Open source software development relies on gift giving as a way of getting new ideas and prototypes out into circu-lation. This also implies that the giver gets power from giving away. This power is used as a way of guaranteeing the quality of the code. We relate this practice to how gifts, in the form of new scientific knowledge, are given to the research com-munity, and how this is done through peer review processes.
SuggestBot: Using Intelligent Task Routing to Help People Find Work in Wikipedia
- Find Work in Wikipedia. Intelligent User Interfaces (IUI
, 2007
"... Member-maintained communities ask their users to perform tasks the community needs. From Slashdot, to IMDb, to Wikipedia, groups with diverse interests create communitymaintained artifacts of lasting value (CALV) that support the group’s main purpose and provide value to others. Said communities don ..."
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Cited by 93 (14 self)
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Member-maintained communities ask their users to perform tasks the community needs. From Slashdot, to IMDb, to Wikipedia, groups with diverse interests create communitymaintained artifacts of lasting value (CALV) that support the group’s main purpose and provide value to others. Said communities don’t help members find work to do, or do so without regard to individual preferences, such as Slashdot assigning meta-moderation randomly. Yet social science theory suggests that reducing the cost and increasing the personal value of contribution would motivate members to participate more. We present SuggestBot, software that performs intelligent task routing (matching people with tasks) in Wikipedia. SuggestBot uses broadly applicable strategies of text analysis, collaborative filtering, and hyperlink following to recommend tasks. SuggestBot’s intelligent task routing increases the number of edits by roughly four times compared to suggesting random articles. Our contributions are: 1) demonstrating the value of intelligent task routing in a real deployment; 2) showing how to do intelligent task routing; and 3) sharing our experience of deploying a tool in Wikipedia, which offered both challenges and opportunities for research.
Challenges of open innovation: the paradox of firm investment in open-source software. R&D Management 36, 319-331. The results of EIM's Research Programme on SMEs and Entrepreneurship are published in the following series: Research Reports and Publieksrap
, 2006
"... Open innovation is a powerful framework encompassing the generation, capture, and employment of intellectual property at the firm level. We identify three fundamental challenges for firms in applying the concept of open innovation: finding creative ways to exploit internal innovation, incorporating ..."
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Cited by 76 (0 self)
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Open innovation is a powerful framework encompassing the generation, capture, and employment of intellectual property at the firm level. We identify three fundamental challenges for firms in applying the concept of open innovation: finding creative ways to exploit internal innovation, incorporating external innovation into internal development, and motivating outsiders to supply an ongoing stream of external innovations. This latter challenge involves a paradox, why would firms spend money on R&D efforts if the results of these efforts are available to rival firms? To explore these challenges, we examine the activity of firms in open source software to support their innovation strategies. Firms involved in open source software often make investments that will be shared with real and potential rivals. We identify four strategies firms employ — pooled R&D/product development, spinouts, selling complements and attracting donated complements — and discuss how they address the three key challenges of open innovation. We conclude with suggestions for how similar strategies may apply in other industries and offer some possible avenues for future research on open innovation. 1
Coordination of free/libre open source software development
, 2005
"... 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 ..."
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Cited by 75 (28 self)
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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.
Don’t look now, but we’ve created a bureaucracy: the nature and roles of policies and rules in Wikipedia.
- In CHI ’08: Proceeding of the twenty-sixth annual SIGCHI conference on Human factors in computing systems,
, 2008
"... ABSTRACT Wikis are sites that support the development of emergent, collective infrastructures that are highly flexible and open, suggesting that the systems that use them will be egalitarian, free, and unstructured. Yet it is apparent that the flexible infrastructure of wikis allows the development ..."
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Cited by 59 (0 self)
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ABSTRACT Wikis are sites that support the development of emergent, collective infrastructures that are highly flexible and open, suggesting that the systems that use them will be egalitarian, free, and unstructured. Yet it is apparent that the flexible infrastructure of wikis allows the development and deployment of a wide range of structures. However, we find that the policies in Wikipedia and the systems and mechanisms that operate around them are multi-faceted. In this descriptive study, we draw on prior work on rules and policies in organizations to propose and apply a conceptual framework for understanding the natures and roles of policies in wikis. We conclude that wikis are capable of supporting a broader range of structures and activities than other collaborative platforms. Wikis allow for and, in fact, facilitate the creation of policies that serve a wide variety of functions.
Understanding knowledge sharing activities in free/open source software projects
- Journal of Systems and Software
, 2007
"... Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) projects are people-oriented and knowledge intensive software development environments. Many researchers focused on mailing lists to study coding activities of software developers. How expert software developers interact with each other and with non-developers in th ..."
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Cited by 33 (3 self)
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Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) projects are people-oriented and knowledge intensive software development environments. Many researchers focused on mailing lists to study coding activities of software developers. How expert software developers interact with each other and with non-developers in the use of community products have received little attention. This paper discusses the altruistic sharing of knowledge between knowledge providers and knowledge seekers in the Developer and User mailing lists of the Debian project. We analyze the posting and replying activities of the participants by counting the number of email messages they posted to the lists and the number of replies they made to questions others posted. We found out that participants interact and share their knowledge a lot, their positing activity is fairly highly correlated with their replying activity, the characteristics of posting and replying activities are different for different kinds of lists, and the knowledge sharing activity of self-organizing Free/Open Source communities could best be explained in terms of what we called ‘‘Fractal Cubic Distribution’ ’ rather than the power-law distribution mostly reported in the literature. The paper also proposes what could be researched in knowledge sharing activities in F/OSS projects mailing list and for what purpose. The research findings add to our understanding of knowledge sharing activities in F/OSS projects.
