TOWARDS A THEORY ON THE SUSTAINABILITY AND PERFORMANCE OF FLOSS COMMUNITIES

With the emergence of Free/Libre and Open Source Software as a significant force that is reshaping the software industry, it becomes more important to reassess conventionally held wisdom about software development. Recent literature on the FLOSS development process suggests that our previously held knowledge about software development might be obsolete. We specifically highlight the tension between the views embodied by the Linus\u27 Law and Brooks\u27 Law. Linus\u27 Law was forwarded by Eric Raymond and suggests that the FLOSS development process benefits greatly from large numbers of developers. Brooks\u27 Law, which is part of currently held wisdom on software development, suggests that adding developers is detrimental to the progress of software projects. Raymond explains that the distributed nature of the FLOSS development process and the capacity of source code to convey rich information between developers are the main causes of the obsolescence Brooks\u27 Law in the FLOSS development context. By performing two separate studies, we show how both views of software development can be complementary. Using the lens of Transaction Cost Theory (TCT) in the first study, we identify the characteristics of the development knowledge as being the main factors constraining new members from contributing source code to FLOSS development projects. We also conceptualize of these knowledge characteristics as being analogous to what Brooks\u27 described as the ramp-up effect. We forward the argument, and offer empirical validation, that managing these characteristics of knowledge would result in an increase the number of contributors to a FLOSS projects. The second study is concerned with the impact if having these new members added to the development team in a FLOSS project. Using the lens of Organizational Information Processing Theory (OIPT), we forward the argument, and offer empirical validation, that more contributors can be detrimental to progress if the committers of a FLOSS project are overwhelmed. Our findings also suggest that large development teams are indeed possible in FLOSS, however, they must be supported by proper source code design and community structures

Open Source: Concepts, Benefits, and Challenges

With the emergence of free and open source software (F/OSS) projects (e.g. Linux) as serious contenders to well-established proprietary software, advocates of F/OSS are quick to generalize the superiority of this approach to software development. On the other hand, some well-established software development firms view F/OSS as a threat and vociferously refute the claims of F/OSS advocates. This article represents a tutorial on F/OSS that tries objectively to identify and present open source software\u27s concepts, benefits, and challenges. From our point of view, F/OSS is more than just software. We conceptualize it as an IPO system that consists of the license as the boundary of the system, the community that provides the input, the development process, and the software as the output. After describing the evolution and definition of F/OSS, we identify three approaches to benefiting from F/OSS that center on (1) the software, (2) the community, and (3) the license respectively. Each approach is fit for a specific situation and provides a unique set of benefits and challenges. We further illustrate our points by refuting common misconceptions associated with F/OSS based upon our conceptual framework

Towards a theory on the sustainability and performance of FLOSS communities

With the emergence of Free/Libre and Open Source Software as a significant force that is reshaping the software industry, it becomes more important to reassess conventionally held wisdom about software development. Recent literature on the FLOSS development process suggests that our previously held knowledge about software development might be obsolete. We specifically highlight the tension between the views embodied by the Linus' Law and Brooks' Law. Linus' Law was forwarded by Eric Raymond and suggests that the FLOSS development process benefits greatly from large numbers of developers. Brooks' Law, which is part of currently held wisdom on software development, suggests that adding developers is detrimental to the progress of software projects. Raymond explains that the distributed nature of the FLOSS development process and the capacity of source code to convey rich information between developers are the main causes of the obsolescence Brooks' Law in the FLOSS development context. By performing two separate studies, we show how both views of software development can be complementary. Using the lens of Transaction Cost Theory (TCT) in the first study, we identify the characteristics of the development knowledge as being the main factors constraining new members from contributing source code to FLOSS development projects. We also conceptualize of these knowledge characteristics as being analogous to what Brooks' described as the ramp-up effect. We forward the argument, and offer empirical validation, that managing these characteristics of knowledge would result in an increase the number of contributors to a FLOSS projects. The second study is concerned with the impact if having these new members added to the development team in a FLOSS project. Using the lens of Organizational Information Processing Theory (OIPT), we forward the argument, and offer empirical validation, that more contributors can be detrimental to progress if the committers of a FLOSS project are overwhelmed. Our findings also suggest that large development teams are indeed possible in FLOSS, however, they must be supported by proper source code design and community structures