| Authors: |
Kevin Crowston
and Kangning Wei
and Qing Li
and U. Yeliz Eseryel
and James Howison
|
| Editors: |
David E. Avison
and Dennis F. Galletta
|
| URL: |
http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/crowstonhowison.pdf |
| Description: |
dblp |
| Tags: |
coordination
development
free
methodology
open
software
source
|
| Abstract: |
The apparent success of free/libre open source software (FLOSS) development projects such as Linux, Apache,
and many others has raised the question, what lessons from FLOSS development can be transferred to mainstream
software development? In this paper, we use coordination theory to analyze coordination mechanisms
in FLOSS development and compare our analysis with existing literature on coordination in proprietary
software development. We examined developer interaction data from three active and successful FLOSS
projects and used content analysis to identify the coordination mechanisms used by the participants. We found
that there were similarities between the FLOSS groups and the reported practices of the proprietary project
in the coordination mechanisms used to manage task-task dependencies. However, we found clear differences
in the coordination mechanisms used to manage task-actor dependencies. While published descriptions of
proprietary software development involved an elaborate system to locate the developer who owned the relevant
piece of code, we found that “self-assignment” was the most common mechanism across three FLOSS projects.
This coordination mechanism is consistent with expectations for distributed and largely volunteer teams. We
conclude by discussing whether these emergent practices can be usefully transferred to mainstream practice
and indicating directions for future research. |
@inproceedings{conf/icis/CrowstonWLEH05,
title = {Coordination of Free/Libre Open Source Software Development.},
author = {Kevin Crowston and Kangning Wei and Qing Li and U. Yeliz Eseryel and James Howison},
booktitle = {ICIS},
crossref = {conf/icis/2005},
editor = {David E. Avison and Dennis F. Galletta},
publisher = {Association for Information Systems},
url = {http://opensource.mit.edu/papers/crowstonhowison.pdf},
year = {2005},
description = {dblp},
abstract = {The apparent success of free/libre open source software (FLOSS) development projects such as Linux, Apache,
and many others has raised the question, what lessons from FLOSS development can be transferred to mainstream
software development? In this paper, we use coordination theory to analyze coordination mechanisms
in FLOSS development and compare our analysis with existing literature on coordination in proprietary
software development. We examined developer interaction data from three active and successful FLOSS
projects and used content analysis to identify the coordination mechanisms used by the participants. We found
that there were similarities between the FLOSS groups and the reported practices of the proprietary project
in the coordination mechanisms used to manage task-task dependencies. However, we found clear differences
in the coordination mechanisms used to manage task-actor dependencies. While published descriptions of
proprietary software development involved an elaborate system to locate the developer who owned the relevant
piece of code, we found that “self-assignment” was the most common mechanism across three FLOSS projects.
This coordination mechanism is consistent with expectations for distributed and largely volunteer teams. We
conclude by discussing whether these emergent practices can be usefully transferred to mainstream practice
and indicating directions for future research.},
date = {2006-04-20},
keywords = {coordination development free methodology open software source }
}
::