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 considers the bearing of its findings on the existing literature and the...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Information economics and policy 2008-12, Vol.20 (4), p.364-398
Main Authors: David, Paul A., Shapiro, Joseph S.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Cluster analysis
Community
Community-based peer production
FLOSS projects
Hierarchical cluster analysis
Industrial organization
Micro-motives
Motivation
Motivational profiles
Open source software
Open-source software FLOSS projects Community-based peer production Population heterogeneity Micro-motives Motivational profiles Web-cast surveys Hierarchical cluster analysis
Population heterogeneity
Production
Programmers
Software
Studies
Systems development
Web-cast surveys
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Summary: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 considers the bearing of 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 beginning to work 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.
ISSN:0167-6245
1873-5975
DOI:10.1016/j.infoecopol.2008.10.001