The open source development model has become a paradigm shift from traditional in-house closed-source software development model, with many successes. Traditionally, open source projects were characterized essentially by their individual volunteer developers. Such tradition has changed significantly with the participation of many organizations in particular. However, there exists a knowledge gap concerning how open source developer communities evolve. In this paper, we present some observations on open source developer communities. In particular, we analyze git repositories of 20 well-known open source projects, with over 3 million commit activities in total. The analysis has been carried out in three respects, productivity, diversity and growth using the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient, diversity index and the Gompertz logistic curves, respectively. We find out that (a) the Spearman's rank correlation coefficient between active contributors and commit activities reveals how changes in the size of the developer community impacts the productivity of the community; (b) the diversity index of an open source developer community reveals the structure of the community; and (c) the growth of open source developer communities can be described using different phases of growth curves as in many organic matters.
In recent years, open source software has received increasing level of attention from the academic community. Extensive literature exists on what open source software is @cite_15 , economical considerations such as intellectual property @cite_43 and personal motivation @cite_35 @cite_16 , how individual and organizations join and contribute to open source projects @cite_37 , as well as the impact of community participation on the performance of commercial companies @cite_17 . Most of these research papers have adopted a methodology that is qualitative rather than quantitative, and it is difficult to generalize the result. As a contrary, this paper focuses on quantitative analysis. The large amount of open source projects being included in this paper allows us to generalize the result.
@cite_35 @cite_37 @cite_43 @cite_15 @cite_16 @cite_17
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Display Omitted ContextNumerous open source software projects are based on volunteers collaboration and require a continuous influx of newcomers for their continuity. Newcomers face barriers that can lead them to give up. These barriers hinder both developers willing to make a single contribution and those willing to become a project member. ObjectiveThis study aims to identify and classify the barriers that newcomers face when contributing to open source software projects. MethodWe conducted a systematic literature review of papers reporting empirical evidence regarding the barriers that newcomers face when contributing to open source software (OSS) projects. We retrieved 291 studies by querying 4 digital libraries. Twenty studies were identified as primary. We performed a backward snowballing approach, and searched for other papers published by the authors of the selected papers to identify potential studies. Then, we used a coding approach inspired by open coding and axial coding procedures from Grounded Theory to categorize the barriers reported by the selected studies. ResultsWe identified 20 studies providing empirical evidence of barriers faced by newcomers to OSS projects while making a contribution. From the analysis, we identified 15 different barriers, which we grouped into five categories: social interaction, newcomers' previous knowledge, finding a way to start, documentation, and technical hurdles. We also classified the problems with regard to their origin: newcomers, community, or product. ConclusionThe results are useful to researchers and OSS practitioners willing to investigate or to implement tools to support newcomers. We mapped technical and non-technical barriers that hinder newcomers' first contributions. The most evidenced barriers are related to socialization, appearing in 75 (15 out of 20) of the studies analyzed, with a high focus on interactions in mailing lists (receiving answers and socialization with other members). There is a lack of in-depth studies on technical issues, such as code issues. We also noticed that the majority of the studies relied on historical data gathered from software repositories and that there was a lack of experiments and qualitative studies in this area. Abstract The motives of 141 contributors to a large Open Source Software (OSS) 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. The success of the Linux operating system has demonstrated the viability of an alternative form of software development: open source software, which challenges traditional assumptions about software markets. Understanding what drives open source developers to participate in open source projects is crucial for assessing the impact of open source software. The article identifies two broad types of motivations that account for their participation in open source projects. The first category includes internal factors such as intrinsic motivation and altruism, and the second category focuses on external rewards such as expected future returns and personal needs. The article also reports the results of a survey administered to open source programmers. We review the empirical research on Free Libre and Open-Source Software (FLOSS) development and assess the state of the literature. We develop a framework for organizing the literature based on the input-mediator-output-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 practices, social processes, and firm involvement practices), emergent states (e.g., social states 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 identify methodological and theoretical issues for future inquiry in this area, including issues relating to sampling and the need for more longitudinal studies.