Research Priorities in Open Source Software Development James D. Herbsleb Institute for Software Research, International School of Computer Science Carnegie Mellon University Pittsburgh, PA, USA

Motivations, Decision-Making FLOSS, BCG clarify general motivation for participation How do key developers decide where to allocate their resources? –User innovation model –Personal reputation model –Product needs model How do individual motivations sum to give the development its trajectory? Not quite a market, not quite a hierarchy, perhaps a network

Limitations Product structure, architecture What does not get built? –Developers only meeting own needs? –Differences between developer/users and general users? Effects of scale –Hypothesis: with larger scale, coordination needs force adoption of “commercial” development techniques Possible to increase participation by non-core developers?

Adoption and Patronage Commercial organizations need ways to assess risk of adopting open source New forms of virtual organization What effects on OSS culture, individual motivation, economic network? How will competitive pressures, business motivations affect development? –Cause branching, fragmentation? –Evolve toward joint ventures, away from community ownership?

Collaboration Technology Possible effects: –Better management of dependencies, more participation of periphery –More and richer communication among developer/users –Activity monitors: different choices about what to work on -- easily identify neglected areas –Social network monitors: increase sense of community, attract more developers

Backup follows

Collaboration Technology Example