@inbook {1586, title = {FLOSS Project Effectiveness Measures}, booktitle = {Successful OSS Project Design and Implementation}, year = {2011}, pages = {149-168}, publisher = {Gower}, organization = {Gower}, abstract = {In this chapter, we develop and illustrate measures of the effectiveness of FLOSS projects. FLOSS is a broad term used to embrace software that is developed and released under either a {\textquotedblleft}free software{\textquotedblright} or an {\textquotedblleft}open source{\textquotedblright} license. While the free software and the open source movements are distinct, both kinds of licenses allow users to obtain and distribute the software{\textquoteright}s original source without charge (software is {\textquotedblleft}free as in beer{\textquotedblright}) and to inspect, modify, and redistribute modifications to the source code. While the open source movement views these freedoms pragmatically (as a development methodology), the free software movement emphasizes the meaning of {\textquotedblleft}free as in speech,{\textquotedblright} which is captured by the French/Spanish libre, and one of their methods of supporting those freedoms is {\textquotedblleft}copyleft,{\textquotedblright} famously embodied in the General Public License, meaning that derivative works must be made available under the same license terms as the original. This chapter focuses on development practices in distributed work, which are largely shared across the movements. For example, many (though by no means all) FLOSS developers contribute to projects as volunteers without working for a common organization or being paid. We therefore use the acronym FLOSS to refer collectively to free/libre and open source software. It is important to develop measures of effectiveness for FLOSS projects for at least two reasons. First, having such measures should be useful for FLOSS project managers in assessing their projects. In some cases, FLOSS projects are sponsored by third parties, so measures are useful for sponsors to understand the return on their investment. Second, FLOSS is an increasingly visible and copied mode of systems development. Millions of users depend on FLOSS systems such as Linux and on the Internet, which is itself heavily dependent on FLOSS tools, but as Scacchi (2002a, p. 1) notes, {\textquotedblleft}little is known about how people in these communities coordinate software development across different settings, or about what software processes, work practices, and organizational contexts are necessary to their success.{\textquotedblright} An EU/NSF workshop on priorities for FLOSS research identified the need both for learning from open source modes of organization and production that could perhaps be applied to other areas and for a concerted effort on open source in itself, for itself (Ghosh 2002). But to be able to learn from teams that are working well, we need to have a definition of working well. In the following sections of the chapter, we will first discuss several measures of project effectiveness, and then the procedure we used to obtain data with which to operationalize these measures, followed by the details of the analysis approach. We then present the results of this analysis and discuss the implications of these results. We then illustrate how these measures can be used to compare projects as part of a research study. We conclude with some suggestions for future research. }, url = {http://library.trec.co.ir/pdfTemp/97805660879501.pdf$\#$page=164}, author = {Kevin Crowston and Howison, James} }