On the Geographic Allocation of Open Source Software Activities

Open source software (OSS) is marked by free access to the software and its source code. OSS is developed by a 'community' consisting of thousands of contributors from all over the world. Some research was undertaken in order to analyze how global the OSS community actually is, i.e. analyze the geographic origin of OSS developers. But as members of the OSS community differ in their activity levels, information about the allocation of activities are of importance. Our paper contributes to this as we analyze not only the geographic origin of (active) developers but also the geographic allocation of OSS activities. The paper is based on data from the SourceForge research Data Archive, referring to 2006. We exploit information about the developers' IP address, email address and indicated time-zone. This enables us to properly assign 1.3 million OSS developers from SourceForge to their countries, that are 94% of all registered ones in 2006. In addition we have information about the number of posted messages which is a good proxy for activity of each developer. Thus we can provide a detailed picture of the world-wide allocation of open source activities. Such country data about the supply-side of OSS is a valuable stock for both, cross-country studies on OSS, as well as country-specific research and policy advice.Open Source Software, Geographical Location, Open Source Activities

The Geography of Open Source Software: Evidence from GitHub

Open Source Software (OSS) plays an important role in the digital economy. Yet although software production is amenable to remote collaboration and its outputs are easily shared across distances, software development seems to cluster geographically in places such as Silicon Valley, London, or Berlin. And while recent work indicates that OSS activity creates positive externalities which accrue locally through knowledge spillovers and information effects, up-to-date data on the geographic distribution of active open source developers is limited. This presents a significant blindspot for policymakers, who tend to promote OSS at the national level as a cost-saving tool for public sector institutions. We address this gap by geolocating more than half a million active contributors to GitHub in early 2021 at various spatial scales. Compared to results from 2010, we find a significant increase in the share of developers based in Asia, Latin America and Eastern Europe, suggesting a more even spread of OSS developers globally. Within countries, however, we find significant concentration in regions, exceeding the concentration of workers in high-tech fields. Social and economic development indicators predict at most half of regional variation in OSS activity in the EU, suggesting that clusters of OSS have idiosyncratic roots. We argue that policymakers seeking to foster OSS should focus locally rather than nationally, using the tools of cluster policy to support networks of OSS developers

LEARNING IN OPEN-SOURCE SOFTWARE (OSS) DEVELOPMENT: HOW ORGANIZATIONAL AND NATIONAL CULTURE IMPACT DEVELOPERS’ LEARNING

Participants in an OSS/FLOSS development project often span national and organizational boundaries, as developers from different countries and corporations join the project. A project team’s national and organizational culture creates opportunities for learning from others, but may also lead to conflict and inhibit learning. This research examines developers’ learning in an OSS project, and the cultural context in which learning takes place. We focus on single- and doubleloop learning and examine the impact of the team’s national and organizational culture on a developer’s learning. Archival and survey data are collected from two large-scale Sourceforge projects. This research can contribute to the OSS literature by examining the impact of team interactions on developers’ learning. Practically, administrators and managers stand to gain insight into the learning benefits of participation in OSS projects, and thus better assess their value as a training ground for global software development

Dynamics of Innovation in an “Open Source” Collaboration Environment: Lurking, Laboring and Launching FLOSS Projects on SourceForge

A systems analysis perspective is adopted to examine the critical properties of the Free/Libre/Open Source Software (FLOSS) mode of innovation, as reflected on the SourceForge platform (SF.net). This approach re-scales March’s (1991) framework and applies it to characterize the “innovation system” of a “distributed organization” of interacting agents in a virtual collaboration environment. The innovation system of the virtual collaboration environment is an emergent property of two “coupled” processes: one involves interactions among agents searching for information to use in designing novel software products, and the other involves the mobilization of individual capabilities for application in the software development projects. Micro-dynamics of this system are studied empirically by constructing transition probability matrices representing movements of 222,835 SF.net users among 7 different activity states. Estimated probabilities are found to form first-order Markov chains describing ergodic processes. This makes it possible to computate the equilibrium distribution of agents among the states, thereby suppressing transient effects and revealing persisting patterns of project-joining and project-launching.innovation systems, collaborative development environments, industrial districts, exploration and exploitation dynamics, open source software, FLOSS, SourceForge, project-joining, project-founding, Markov chain analysis.

Coexisting Intellectual Property Right Regimes: the Case of Open and Closed Source Software

Die Dissertation beschäftigt sich theoretisch und empirisch mit der Koexistenz von Open Source und Closed Source Prinzipien am Beispiel Software. Es werden kulturelle und rechtliche Einflussfaktoren auf Open Source Software (OSS) untersucht und die Koexistenz von OSS mit Closed Source Software (CSS) theoretisch begründet. Ein Schwerpunkt liegt auf OSS- und CSS-basierten Geschäftsmodellen: Strategische Aspekte und die Marktgleichgewichte mit OSS und CSS Firmen werden untersucht und darauf aufbauend wirtschaftspolitische Maßnahmen analysiert. Abschließend richtet sich der Fokus auf Gründungen im IT-Sektor. Die Arbeit vertieft das Verständnis von OSS und CSS als wirtschaftliches Phänomen. Es zeigt sich, dass die Koexistenz vorteilhaft ist, und z.B. eine einseitige staatliche Förderung von OSS-Firmen durch Subventionen oder die Beschaffungspolitik abzulehnen ist

Community-Based Production of Open Source Software: What Do We Know About the Developers Who Participate?

This paper seeks to close an empirical gap regarding the motivations, personal attributes and behavioral patterns among free/libre and open source (FLOSS) developers, especially those involved in community-based production, and its findings on the existing literature and the future directions for research. Respondents to an extensive web-survey’s (FLOSS-US 2003) questions about their reasons for work on FLOSS are classified according to their distinct “motivational profiles” by hierarchical cluster analysis. Over half of them also are matched to projects of known membership sizes, revealing that although some members from each of the clusters are present in the small, medium and large ranges of the distribution of project sizes, the mixing fractions for the large and the very small project ranges are statistically different. Among developers who changed projects, there is a discernable flow from the bottom toward the very small towards to large projects, some of which is motivated by individuals seeking to improve their programming skills. It is found that the profile of early motivation, along with other individual attributes, significantly affects individual developers’ selections of projects from different regions of the size range.Open source software, FLOSS project, community-based peer production, population heterogeneity, micro-motives, motivational profiles, web-cast surveys, hierarchical cluster analysis

Copyright versus Patents: the Open Source Software Legal Battle

Open Source Software is often viewed as an anti-intellectual property regime. By contrast, we argue how IP law is at the heart of open source model since licenses that organize the innovation and business relationships between developers, distributors and end-users are based on copyright law. The proliferation of software patents can, however be seen as a threat for the development and deployment of open source software. We present the nature of the threat and review a series of initiatives undertaken by the open source community to address them effectively. These initiatives, such as the redesign of licenses and the creation of patent commons, are a testiment to a genuinely creative use of IP law by the open source community, not its undermining.Open Source Software; Patent; Hold-Up; Copyright; Copyleft; Intellectual Property

FLOSSSim: Understanding the Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) Development Process through Agent-Based Modeling

abstract: Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) is the product of volunteers collaborating to build software in an open, public manner. The large number of FLOSS projects, combined with the data that is inherently archived with this online process, make studying this phenomenon attractive. Some FLOSS projects are very functional, well-known, and successful, such as Linux, the Apache Web Server, and Firefox. However, for every successful FLOSS project there are 100's of projects that are unsuccessful. These projects fail to attract sufficient interest from developers and users and become inactive or abandoned before useful functionality is achieved. The goal of this research is to better understand the open source development process and gain insight into why some FLOSS projects succeed while others fail. This dissertation presents an agent-based model of the FLOSS development process. The model is built around the concept that projects must manage to attract contributions from a limited pool of participants in order to progress. In the model developer and user agents select from a landscape of competing FLOSS projects based on perceived utility. Via the selections that are made and subsequent contributions, some projects are propelled to success while others remain stagnant and inactive. Findings from a diverse set of empirical studies of FLOSS projects are used to formulate the model, which is then calibrated on empirical data from multiple sources of public FLOSS data. The model is able to reproduce key characteristics observed in the FLOSS domain and is capable of making accurate predictions. The model is used to gain a better understanding of the FLOSS development process, including what it means for FLOSS projects to be successful and what conditions increase the probability of project success. It is shown that FLOSS is a producer-driven process, and project factors that are important for developers selecting projects are identified. In addition, it is shown that projects are sensitive to when core developers make contributions, and the exhibited bandwagon effects mean that some projects will be successful regardless of competing projects. Recommendations for improving software engineering in general based on the positive characteristics of FLOSS are also presented.Dissertation/ThesisPh.D. Computer Science 201