Exploring the Impact of Socio-Technical Core-Periphery Structures in Open Source Software Development

In this paper we apply the social network concept of core-periphery structure to the sociotechnical structure of a software development team. We propose a socio-technical pattern that can be used to locate emerging coordination problems in Open Source projects. With the help of our tool and method called TESNA, we demonstrate a method to monitor the socio-technical core-periphery movement in Open Source projects. We then study the impact of different core-periphery movements on Open Source projects. We conclude that a steady core-periphery shift towards the core is beneficial to the project, whereas shifts away from the core are clearly not good. Furthermore, oscillatory shifts towards and away from the core can be considered as an indication of the instability of the project. Such an analysis can provide developers with a good insight into the health of an Open Source project. Researchers can gain from the pattern theory, and from the method we use to study the core-periphery movements

Endogenous space in the Net era

Libre Software communities are among the most interesting and advanced socio-economic laboratories on the Net. In terms of directions of Regional Science research, this paper addresses a simple question: “Is the socio-economics of digital nets out of scope for Regional Science, or might the latter expand to a cybergeography of digitally enhanced territories ?” As for most simple questions, answers are neither so obvious nor easy. The authors start drafting one in a positive sense, focussing upon a file rouge running across the paper: endogenous spaces woven by socio-economic processes. The drafted answer declines on an Evolutionary Location Theory formulation, together with two computational modelling views. Keywords: Complex networks, Computational modelling, Economics of Internet, Endogenous spaces, Evolutionary location theory, Free or Libre Software, Path dependence, Positionality.

From "community" to "commercial" FLOSS: The case of moodle

This is the post-print version of the final published article that is available from the link below. Copyright © 2010 ACM, Inc.This paper documents the evolution of Moodle, an advanced Content Management System, and its transition from a purely volunteer-based project to one driven by commercial interests and stakeholders. The study of its evolution provides evidence of the sustainability of its process: increasing amounts of provided effort by developers correspond to similarly increasing produced outputs to the Moodle system. It is also evident how this OSS system, apart from achieving the transition to a successful multisite, collaborative and community-based OSS project, depends more on its community than its commercial partners

REQUIREMENTS ENGINEERING (RE) EFFECTIVENESS IN OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE: THE ROLE OF SOCIAL NETWORK CONFIGURATIONS AND REQUIREMENTS PROPERTIES

As open source software (OSS) development projects have become popular, requirements engineering (RE) practices in OSS development have come under scrutiny for their marked difference. The current study views OSS RE as knowledge propagation expressed in coordinated sequences of action interrupted and shaped by the demands of an ever-changing environment resulting in multiple social network configurations. The attributes of environment are manifested in the changing nature of requirements that the projects are subjected to and based on the 6-V requirements model involving 6 properties of requirement knowledge such as volume or volatility. The diverse network configurations in OSS projects manifested in communication centrality responding to those demands, in turn, will have varying effects on OSS project effectiveness measured by the rate of task completion. We hypothesize that the volume of requirements and their velocity of change negatively moderate the positive effect of communication centrality on the project’s task completion whereas the variance (diversity) of requirements knowledge positively moderates the positive effect of communication centrality on task completion. The hypotheses of the study are tested using a sample of GitHub OSS projects and we find support to most hypotheses. Several implications for OSS governance are drawn

Computational Approaches for Analyzing Latent Social Structures in Open Source Organizing

Open source software represents a novel form of organizing that leaves digital trace data for organizational researchers to analyze using computational methods. Computational social science has emerged as an important approach to understanding patterns that represent latent social structures in sociological, organizational, and technical phenomena. Within the context of open and digitalized collaboration the clearest manifestation of computational social science has been social network analysis. While social network analysis is a powerful approach for understanding social phenomena in terms of their latent relational social structure, the network lens does not capture the entirety of social structures. Procedural social structures undergirding recurrent patterns of action form another important element of latent social structure. Analyzing such structures requires alternative methods able to deal with history-dependent patterning of activities. Therefore, we investigate the concepts of latent relational and procedural structures, and discuss computational approaches for analyzing patterns and interdependencies among such structures

Analysis of the core team role in open source communities

Open source software represents a new paradigm of software development based on a subjacent community. It is widely accepted in the literature the layered structure of open source communities, being the core group the most active contributors usually located at the center of the community. The tasks of this group include not only an intense activity in terms of contributions but also to promote participation among the rest of the community members. In this paper, the general role of this group is analyzed by modeling communities as Social Networks and applying Social Network Analysis techniques. Findings related their brokerage activity with open source software succes