Attractiveness of free and open source software projects: theoretical importance and strategies for management

Thousands of Free and Open Source Software Projects (FSP) were, and continually are, created on the Internet. This scenario increases the number of opportunities to collaborate to the same extent that it promotes competition for users and contributors, who can guide projects to superior levels, unachievable by founders alone. Thus, given that the main goal of FSP founders is to improve their projects by means of collaboration, the importance to understand and manage the capacity of attracting users and contributors to the project is established. To support researchers and founders in this challenge, the concept of attractiveness is introduced in this paper, which develops a theoretical-managerial toolkit about the causes, indicators and consequences of attractiveness, enabling its strategic management

SimCode: Agent-based Simulation Modelling of Open-Source Software Development

We present an original modeling tool, which can be used to study the mechanisms by which free/libre and open source software developers’ code-writing efforts are allocated within open source projects. It is first described analytically in a discrete choice framework, and then simulated using agent-based experiments. Contributions are added sequentially to either existing modules, or to create new modules out of existing ones: as a consequence, the global emerging architecture forms a hierarchical tree. Choices among modules reflect expectations of peer- regard, i.e. developers are more attracted a) to generic modules, b) to launching new ones, and c) to contributing their work to currently active development sites in the project. In this context, we are able – particularly by allowing for the attractiveness of “hot spots”-- to replicate the high degree of concentration (measured by Gini coefficients) in the distributions of modules sizes. The latter have been found by empirical studies to be a characteristic typical of the code of large projects, such as the Linux kernel. Introducing further a simple social utility function for evaluating the mophology of “software trees,” it turns out that the hypothesized developers’ incentive structure that generates high Gini coefficients is not particularly conducive to producing self-organized software code that yields high utility to end-users who want a large and diverse range of applications. Allowing for a simple governance mechanism by the introduction of maintenance rules reveals that “early release” rules can have a positive effect on the social utility rating of the resulting software trees.

A risk-based MADM model for selecting free-libre open source software tools in the domain of IT service management

The availability of free-libre open source software (FLOSS) has stimulated their organizational implementation in many countries. The main attractiveness for it is the free-cost license of usage regarding with acquisition of COTS (components of the shelf) commercial software, among other factors such as: maturity status, available technical community support, popularity, and compliance to international standards. However, not of the all FLOSS tools released from such FLOSS development projects achieve the expected qualities, and thus organizations interested in using them must conduct a careful evaluation-selection process. With this in mind, several evaluation-selection frameworks for FLOSS have been reported in the literature and some studies have identified a set of organizational factors associated to successful and failed utilizations of FLOSS tools in organizations. In this research, we elaborate a FLOSS Evaluation-Selection model by combining both sets of literature on FLOSS evaluation models and FLOSS implementation models. This model is implemented with a MADM (Multi-Attribute Decision-Making) risk-based mechanism. We illustrate this model with the evaluation-selection of a FLOSS tool in the domain of Information Technology Service Management (ITSM). Hence, this paper contributes to our body of knowledge with the provision of a simplified evaluation-selection model for FLOSS tools derived from two core sets of FLOSS literatures, under an innovative risk-based approach

Management information systems in an open source software context

This article it's a descriptive incursion on the MIS(management information systems) field, with the purpose of defining this concept and making an analysis on how the need of a company for an MIS can pe satisfied using OSS(open source software). The analysis is build on a series of pros and cons, with examples on OpenErp where possible. OpenErp is an OSS for resource planning, that presents some of the MIS functionalities.MIS, OSS, management information system, open source software, ERP,

The Dynamics of Co-Creation in the Video Game Industry: The Case of World of Warcraft

These latest years have seen both an increasing development of Users Generated Content (UGC) on the Internet and a growing number of free transactions of these contents through online communities. The video game industry shares this general trend and we shall examine it in detail through the example of a worldwide success game, World of Warcraft (WoW). This massively multiplayer online (MMO) game exhibits two specific economic characteristics. The first one is that the original content is produced by a game developer who keeps intellectual property rights while leaving open to players some possibilities to modify that original content into an enhanced content. We call this innovation process, which involves both the participation of the producer and of consumers, co-creation. Based on a typology of the different UGC in WoW, we specify the meaning of co-creation and put forward some arguments on the players' motivations to co-create and their consequences on the attractiveness of the gameplay to the players' community. The second characteristic is that co-creation is not limited to the design of the game before its marketing. It is a continuous interaction between players and developer even after its marketing. This dynamic process requires both regulatory actions by the developer and a new industrial organization to distribute these UGC through the WoW players' community.open innovation, online community, video game, innovative user, customization

Singapore's Regionalization Blueprint: The Empirics of the Case for Selective Intervention

Conference theme: Bridging with the Other: The Importance of Dialogue in International Business</p

The chosen questions of the downtown cultural space revitalisation in the context of increasing Polish cities attractiveness

Cultural space revitalisation is a specific kind of city centre renewal. It especially aims atimproving a degradad urban structure in the aspect of spatial and social attractiveness. In the paper, the author deals with questions of directing a city centre revitalisation process in the right way. In author’s opinion it is needed to prove the necessity of the search for solutions to the current spatial problems within a city centre simultaneously considering some extra questions. Having reached the proper level of social and economic stabilization, other kinds of problems will be addressed subsequently. Therefore, it is necessary to think about the future right now, and programme long-term and interdisciplinary strategies for the city downtown development. In conlusion, it is essential to provide the right spatial politics to stimulate the realization of a compact city idea