73 research outputs found

    “Release Early, Release Often”? An Empirical Analysis of Release Strategy in Open Source Software Co-Creation

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    “Release early, release often” is becoming a popular new product introduction strategy in open source software development. We study the influence of release strategies on the download market share of open source projects. Using a panel data set collected from Sourceforge.net, we find that while more frequent releases are associated with better subsequent download market share, the relationship is curvilinear. Too frequent releases could backfire due to the subtle effects on the demand and supply sides of open source software production. From the demand side, we find that releasing frequently may work less effectively in projects with higher adoption costs. From the supply side, fast releases may work less effectively in projects with weak community contributions. Even when the community contributions are strong, the restrictiveness of open source license moderates the effectiveness of releasing early and often. These results have implications for managing open source projects and research on open source software, open innovation, and software adoption

    CONCEPTUALIZING THE COMMONS-BASED PEERPRODUCTION OF SOFTWARE: AN ACTIVITY THEORETIC ANALYSIS

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    Commons-based peer-production (CBPP), as exemplified by community-based open source software (OSS) development, has been posited by Yochai Benkler as an alternative to hierarchies and markets for organizing the production of information goods. This study seeks to conceptualize viable CBPP through an Activity Theoretic analysis of 524 peer-reviewed OSS research artifacts. The analysis reveals the reliance of peer-production communities on complex systems of interrelated tools, rules, and roles as mediating components enabling communities to (i) exploit the two theorized advantages of CBPP (resource allocation and information processing) and (ii) overcome the two theorized challenges associated with this mode of production (motivation and organization). The study clarifies and extends extant understanding of CBPP in several significant ways, and concludes that in order for CBPP to be viable, participants must operate in a sustainable fashion that both enhances the commons and leaves the community intact

    The Open Source Way of Working: a New Paradigm for the Division of Labour in Software Development?

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    The interest the Open Source Software Development Model has recently raised amongst social scientists has resulted in an accumulation of relevant research concerned with explaining and describing the motivations of Open Source developers and the advantages the Open Source methodology has over traditional proprietary software development models. However, existing literature has often examined the Open Source phenomenon from an excessively abstract and idealised perspective of the common interests of open source developers, therefore neglecting the very important organisational and institutional aspects of communities of individuals that may, in fact, have diverse interests and motivations. It is the aim of this paper to begin remedying this shortcoming by analysing the sources of authority in Open Source projects and the hierarchical structures according to which this authority is organised and distributed inside them. In order to do so, a theoretical framework based on empirical evidence extracted from a variety of projects is built, its main concerns being the description and explanation of recruitment, enculturation, promotion and conflict resolution dynamics present in Open Source projects. The paper argues that 'distributed authority' is a principal means employed by such communities to increase stability, diminish the severity and scope of conflicts over technical direction, and ease the problems of assessing the quality of contributions. The paper also argues that distributed authority is principally derived from interpersonal interaction and the construction of trust between individuals drawn to the project by diverse interests that are mediated and moderated through participants' common interest in the project's successful outcome. The paper presents several conclusions concerning the governance of open source communities and priorities for future research.open source software, hierarchies, trust, teams, co-operation.

    Decoding the "Free/Open Source(F/OSS) Software Puzzle" a survey of theoretical and empirical contributions

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    F/OSS software has been described by many as a puzzle. In the past five years, it has stimulated the curiosity of scholars in a variety of fields, including economics, law, psychology, anthropology and computer science, so that the number of contributions on the subject has increased exponentially. The purpose of this paper is to provide a sufficiently comprehensive account of these contributions in order to draw some general conclusions on the state of our understanding of the phenomenon and identify directions for future research. The exercise suggests that what is puzzling about F/OSS is not so much the fact that people freely contribute to a good they make available to all, but rather the complexity of its institutional structure and its ability to organizationally evolve over time.F/OSS software, Innovation, Incentives, Governance, Intellectual Property Rights

    Applying the Open Source Development Model to Knowledge Work

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    This paper introduces a distinction between two different types of information goods in order to analyse the processes governing the review and integration of multi-authored contributions to information goods such as those produced through collaborations using the Internet as well as modular information goods such as open source software. It is argued that these distinctions are important because they suggest different organisational arrangements for producing such information goods. This method of analysing the nature of the information goods is employed to examine different organisational arrangements using the analogy of collaboration for traditional publication to identify actors and processes. The analysis of 'contributors' is extended from authorship to collectors and researchers. The paper examines a small survey of the governance procedures employed in projects that employ open source methods for collecting various types of information. We noted the prime role of the recruitment process in the relative success of the examples that we examined (ODP, Wikipedia, Nupedia, MathLearning, VRoma, and Web of Life). For these 'collection' efforts, the role of hierarchy in editing and review of project submissions appears to be important than in open source communities and may be an impediment to recruitment and project development. A number of directions for further research are identified.open source software, collaboration, hierarchies, trust, teams, co-operation

    The need for evidence innovation in educational technology evaluation

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    More complex and chaotic methods are being adopted in the development of technology to enhance learning and teaching in higher education today in order to achieve innovation in teaching practice. However, because this type of development does not conform to a linear process-driven order, it is notoriously difficult to evaluate its success as a holistic educational initiative. It is proposed that there are five factors that impact on effective educational technology evaluation, which contributes to insubstantial evidence of positive outcomes, these being: premature timing; inappropriate software evaluation techniques and models; lack of shared understanding of the terminology or the semantics of education technology; the growing complexity of agile and open development; and the corporatisation of higher education. This paper suggests that it is no longer helpful for policy makers to evaluate whether educational technology project outcomes were successful or unsuccessful but instead they should use agile evaluation strategies to understand the impact of the product, process and outcomes in a changing context. It is no longer useful to ask the question, ‘did the software work?’ The key is for software developers and policy-makers to ask ‘what type of software works, in which conditions and for whom?’ To understand this, the software development community needs to look at adopting evaluation strategies from the social science community. For example, realist evaluation supplies context driven and evidence-based techniques, exploring outcomes that tend towards the social rather than technical. It centres on exploring the ‘mechanisms’, ‘contexts’ and ‘outcomes’ associated with an intervention and is a form of theory-driven evaluation that is the theory and reasoning of its stakeholders that is rooted in practitioner wisdom

    Coopetition in an open-source way : lessons from mobile and cloud computing infrastructures

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    An increasing amount of technology is no longer developed in-house. Instead, we are in a new age where technology is developed by a networked community of individuals and organizations, who base their relations to each other on mutual interest. Advances arising from research in platforms, ecosystems, and infrastructures can provide valuable knowledge for better understanding and explaining technology development among a network of firms. More surprisingly, recent research suggests that technology can be jointly developed by rival competing firms in an open-source way. For instance, it is known that the mobile device makers Apple and Samsung continued collaborating in open-source projects while running expensive patent wars in the courts. On top of multidisciplinary theory in open-source software, cooperation among competitors (aka coopetition) and digital infrastructures, I (and my coauthors) explored how rival firms cooperate in the joint development of open-source infrastructures. While assimilating a wide variety of paradigms and analytical approaches, this doctoral research combined the qualitative analysis of naturally occurring data (QA) with the mining of software repositories (MSR) and social network analysis (SNA) within a set of case studies. By turning to the mobile and cloud computing industries in general, and the WebKit and OpenStack opensource infrastructures in particular, we found out that qualitative ethnographic materials, combined with social network visualizations, provide a rich medium that enables a better understanding of competitive and cooperative issues that are simultaneously present and interconnected in open-source infrastructures. Our research contributes back to managerial literature in coopetition strategy, but more importantly to Information Systems by addressing both cooperation and competition within the development of high-networked open-source infrastructures.YhĂ€ suurempaa osaa teknologiasta ei enÀÀ kehitetĂ€ organisaatioiden omasta toimesta. Sen sijaan, olemme uudella aikakaudella jossa teknologiaa kehitetÀÀn verkostoituneessa yksilöiden ja organisaatioiden yhteisössĂ€, missĂ€ toimitaan perustuen yhteiseen tavoitteeseen. Alustojen, ekosysteemien ja infrastruktuurien tutkimuksen tulokset voivat tuottaa arvokasta tietĂ€mystĂ€ teknologian kehittĂ€misestĂ€ yritysten verkostossa. Erityisesti tuore tutkimustieto osoittaa ettĂ€ kilpailevat yritykset voivat yhdessĂ€ kehittÀÀ teknologiaa avoimeen lĂ€hdekoodiin perustuvilla kĂ€ytĂ€nnöillĂ€. Esimerkiksi tiedetÀÀn ettĂ€ mobiililaitteiden valmistajat Apple ja Samsung tekivĂ€t yhteistyötĂ€ avoimen lĂ€hdekoodin projekteissa ja kĂ€vivĂ€t samaan aikaan kalliita patenttitaistoja eri oikeusfoorumeissa. Perustuen monitieteiseen teoriaan avoimen lĂ€hdekoodin ohjelmistoista, yhteistyöstĂ€ kilpailijoiden kesken (coopetition) sekĂ€ digitaalisista infrastruktuureista, minĂ€ (ja kanssakirjoittajani) tutkimme miten kilpailevat yritykset tekevĂ€t yhteistyötĂ€ avoimen lĂ€hdekoodin infrastruktuurien kehityksessĂ€. Sulauttaessaan runsaan joukon paradigmoja ja analyyttisiĂ€ lĂ€hestymistapoja case-joukon puitteissa, tĂ€mĂ€ vĂ€itöskirjatutkimus yhdisti luonnollisesti esiintyvĂ€n datan kvantitatiivisen analyysin ohjelmapakettivarastojen louhintaan ja sosiaalisten verkostojen analyysiin. Tutkiessamme mobiili- ja pilvipalveluiden teollisuudenaloja yleisesti, ja WebKit ja OpenStack avoimen lĂ€hdekoodin infrastruktuureja erityisesti, havaitsimme ettĂ€ kvalitatiiviset etnografiset materiaalit yhdistettyinĂ€ sosiaalisten verkostojen visualisointiin tuottavat rikkaan aineiston joka mahdollistaa avoimen lĂ€hdekoodin infrastruktuuriin samanaikaisesti liittyvien kilpailullisten ja yhteistyökuvioiden hyvĂ€n ymmĂ€rtĂ€misen. Tutkimuksemme antaa oman panoksensa johdon kirjallisuuteen coopetition strategy -alueella, mutta sitĂ€kin enemmĂ€n tietojĂ€rjestelmĂ€tieteeseen, lĂ€pikĂ€ymĂ€llĂ€ sekĂ€ yhteistyötĂ€ ettĂ€ kilpailua tiiviisti verkostoituneessa avoimen lĂ€hdekoodin infrastruktuurien kehitystoiminnassaUma crescente quantidade de tecnologia nĂŁo Ă© desenvolvida internamente por uma sĂł organização. Em vez disso, estamos em uma nova era em que a tecnologia Ă© desenvolvida por uma comunidade de indivĂ­duos e organizaçÔes que baseiam suas relaçÔes umas com as outras numa rede de interesse mĂștuo. Os avanços teĂłrico decorrentes da pesquisa em plataformas computacionais, ecossistemas e infraestruturas digitais fornecem conhecimentos valiosos para uma melhor compreensĂŁo e explicação do desenvolvimento tecnolĂłgico por uma rede de multiplas empresas. Mais surpreendentemente, pesquisas recentes sugerem que tecnologia pode ser desenvolvida conjuntamente por empresas rivais concorrentes e de uma forma aberta (em cĂłdigo aberto). Por exemplo, sabe-se que os fabricantes de dispositivos mĂłveis Apple e Samsung continuam a colaborar em projetos de cĂłdigo aberto ao mesmo tempo que se confrontam em caras guerras de patentes nos tribunais. Baseados no conhecimento cientĂ­fico de software de cĂłdigo aberto, de cooperação entre concorrentes (tambĂ©m conhecida como coopetição) e de infraestruturas digitais, eu e os meus co-autores exploramos como empresas concorrentes cooperam no desenvolvimento conjunto de infraestruturas de cĂłdigo aberto. Ao utilizar uma variedade de paradigmas e abordagens analĂ­ticas, esta pesquisa de doutoramento combinou a anĂĄlise qualitativa de dados de ocorrĂȘncia natural (QA) com a anĂĄlise de repositĂłrios de softwares (MSR) e a anĂĄlise de redes sociais (SNA) dentro de um conjunto de estudos de casos. Ao investigar as industrias de technologias mĂłveis e de computação em nuvem em geral, e as infraestruturas em cĂłdigo aberto WebKit e OpenStack, em particular, descobrimos que o material etnogrĂĄfico qualitativo, combinado com visualizaçÔes de redes sociais, fornece um meio rico que permite uma melhor compreensĂŁo das problemas competitivos e cooperativos que estĂŁo simultaneamente presentes e interligados em infraestruturas de cĂłdigo aberto. A nossa pesquisa contribui para a literatura em gestĂŁo estratĂ©gica e coompetição, mas mais importante para literatura em Sistemas de Informação, abordando a cooperação e concorrĂȘncia no desenvolvimento de infraestruturas de cĂłdigo aberto por uma rede the indivĂ­duos e organizaçÔes em interesse mĂștuo

    Open Principles in New Business Models for Information Systems

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    Open source software and open innovation are an important resource for today’s industries. Communities collaboratively create different kind of publicly available value, boosting innovation and also technology. However, whereas this value is generated and captured by various involved parties, the outcomes are, in many cases, commercialized by companies who build their business models on this openness. Thus, current business model representations used for these open systems mainly focus on the commercial side of companies, not directly regarding the value creation and distribution by the underlying communities. This results in a lack of potential representation of alternative value created by individuals and communities that are not necessarily aiming for direct monetary compensation. In this work, we show, by the example of open source projects, how communities create value and their potential to be represented by the upcoming domain of new business models. The emerging idea of new business models, based on sharing, collaboration, and the circular economy, not only considers economical viewpoints, but also social and ecological. New trends in research are intensively starting to investigate these models and how they can be brought to practice. The co-creation of value, collaboration of various actors, and following a shared vision are just some of the identified overlaps that are also essential for a potential representation of open communities. This first review unveils that new business models and open source software projects have a variety of aspects in common. We highlight the potential of open communities to be seen as new business models themselves, instead of just being a pure enabler for firms’ business models. This approach is leaving room to explore new organizational and economical aspects of open ecosystems, enhancing the understanding of co-creative communities and the definition of collaborative value

    The e-World as an enabler to learn

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    Thesis (S.M.)--Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Technology and Policy Program, 2001.This electronic version was submitted by the student author. The certified thesis is available in the Institute Archives and Special Collections.Includes bibliographical references (p. 128-132).by Frédéric Mahoué.S.M
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