@proceedings {1449, title = {Using Multiple Case Studies to Analyse Open Source Software Business Sustainability in Sub-Saharan Africa}, volume = {378}, year = {2012}, month = {09/2012}, pages = {160-177}, publisher = {IFIP AICT}, abstract = {Amidst the debate about what sort of technology is appropriate for achieving sustainable development, Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) offers some solutions to today{\textquoteright}s technology problems for many developing countries. However, there is a paucity of empirical evidence to help us understand the potentials FOSS technologies have for small businesses in Sub-Saharan Africa. This research utilizes nine case studies data from seven African countries to find out how entrepreneurs are leveraging FOSS to help them create sustainable business based on openness. The findings show increasing awareness of the business potential of FOSS, and a business model incorporating both FOSS and proprietary software is needed to run a sustainable IT business in these countries. However, the lack of skilled FOSS developer base, the absence of appropriate policies, and poor payment habits by clients are just some of the factors affecting businesses. Other problems encountered, possible solutions to those problems and lessons to be learnt from each case study are also discussed. The research offers entrepreneurs, ICT practitioners, and policy makers the platform to understand the Why and How FOSS technologies are impacting the traditional way of doing business in Sub-Saharan Africa.}, author = {Sowe, Sulayman K. and McNaughton, Maurice} } @conference {1211, title = {Are FLOSS developers committing to CVS/SVN as much as they are talking in mailing lists? Challenges for Integrating data from Multiple Repositories}, booktitle = {3rd Workshop on Public Data about Software Development (WoPDaSD 2008)}, year = {2008}, month = {09/2008}, pages = {49-54}, abstract = {This paper puts forward a framework for investigating Free and Open Source Software (F/OSS) developers activities in both source code and mailing lists repositories. We used data dumps of fourteen pro jects from the FLOSSMetrics (FM) retrieval system. Our intentions are (i) to present a possible methodology, its advantages and disadvantages which can benefit future researchers using some aspects of the FM retrieval system{\textquoteright}s data dumps, and (ii) discuss our initial research results on the contributions developers make to both coding and lists activities.}, keywords = {cvs, cvsanaly, developers, email, email archives, flossmetrics, mailing list, mlstats, source code}, attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/49-542008.pdf}, author = {Sowe, Sulayman K. and Samoladas, Ioannis and Ioannis Stamelos and Lefteris Angelis} } @article {138, title = {Understanding knowledge sharing activities in free/open source software projects: An empirical study}, journal = {Journal of Systems and Software}, volume = {81}, number = {3}, year = {2008}, note = {"Our study utilized data from the Debian project lists archives.... The Debian project hosts over 100 lists on all aspects related to the project. From the Debian lists archives (Debian Mailing Lists) we selected two high volume mailing lists. The following lists are analyzed in our study: {\textbullet} Debian-user. This list is specifically dedicated to help and discussion among users of Debian who speak English. {\textbullet} Debian-devel. This list is specifically dedicated to discus- sion about technical development topics. Our data collection period for both lists was from January 2000 to December 2005. We obtained archived mbox files of the two lists. Each file is a single text file containing one month of archived email messages. Every email message has a unique message-id, together with other identification fields defined by the Internet Message Format (RFC) 2822 (Internet Message Format, 2001)."}, pages = {431-446}, abstract = {Free/Open Source Software (F/OSS) projects are people-oriented and knowledge intensive software development environments. Many researchers focused on mailing lists to study coding activities of software developers. How expert software developers interact with each other and with non-developers in the use of community products have received little attention. This paper discusses the altruistic sharing of knowledge between knowledge providers and knowledge seekers in the Developer and User mailing lists of the Debian project. We analyze the posting and replying activities of the participants by counting the number of email messages they posted to the lists and the number of replies they made to questions others posted. We found out that participants interact and share their knowledge a lot, their positing activity is fairly highly correlated with their replying activity, the characteristics of posting and replying activities are different for different kinds of lists, and the knowledge sharing activity of self-organizing Free/Open Source communities could best be explained in terms of what we called "Fractal Cubic Distribution" rather than the power-law distribution mostly reported in the literature. The paper also proposes what could be researched in knowledge sharing activities in F/OSS projects mailing list and for what purpose. The research findings add to {\textquoteright} our understanding of knowledge sharing activities in F/OSS projects. (C) 2007 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.}, keywords = {debian, email, email archives, mailing list}, attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/JSS_0.pdf}, author = {Sowe, Sulayman K. and Ioannis Stamelos and Lefteris Angelis} } @book {1803, title = {Emerging Free and Open Source Software PracticesVolunteers in Large Libre Software Projects}, series = {Emerging Free and Open Source Software Practices}, year = {2007}, pages = {1 - 24}, publisher = {IGI Global}, organization = {IGI Global}, abstract = {Most libre (free, open source) software projects rely on the work of volunteers. Therefore, attracting people who contribute their time and technical skills is of paramount importance, both in technical and economic terms. This reliance on volunteers leads to some fundamental management challenges: Volunteer contributions are inherently difficult to predict, plan, and manage, especially in the case of large projects. In this chapter we present an analysis of the evolution over time of the human resources in large libre software projects, using the Debian project, one of the largest and most complex libre software projects based mainly in voluntary work, as a case study. We have performed a quantitative investigation of data corresponding to roughly seven years, studying how volunteer involvement has affected the software released by the project, and the developer community itself. }, doi = {10.4018/978-1-59904-210-7.ch001}, url = {http://www.igi-global.com/chapter/volunteers-large-libre-software-projects/10080}, author = {Gregorio Robles and Gonz{\'a}lez-Barahona, Jes{\'u}s M. and Martin Michlmayr}, editor = {Sowe, Sulayman K. and Stamelos, Ioannis G. and Samoladas, Ioannis} } @conference {1214, title = {A Preliminary Analysis of Publicly Available FLOSS Measurements: Towards Discovering Maintainability Trends}, booktitle = {2nd Workshop on Public Data about Software Development (WoPDaSD 2007)}, year = {2007}, note = {used SourceKibitzer data downloaded from FLOSSmole}, month = {2007}, abstract = {The spread of free/libre/open source software (FLOSS) and the openness of its development model offer researchers a valuable source of information regarding software data. The creation of large portals, which host a vast amount of FLOSS projects make it easy to create large datasets with valuable information regarding the FLOSS development process. In addition initiatives such as FLOSSMole provide researchers with a single point and continuing access to those data. Up to now the majority of datasets from FLOSSMole offered data regarding the development process and not the code itself. From February 2007 FLOSSMole offers data donated by SourceKibitzer, which contain source code metrics for FLOSS projects written in Java. In this paper we provide a premilinary analysis on those data using machine learning techniques, such as classification rules and decision trees. Using the first available data from February 2007, we tried to build rules that can be used in order to estimate the future values of metrics offered for March. Here we present some preliminary results that are encouraging and deserve to be further analyzed in future releases of SourceKibitzer datasets. }, keywords = {decision tree, flossmole, java, machine learning, metrics, sourcekibitzer}, attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/Samolades2007.pdf}, author = {Samoladas, Ioannis and Bibi, Stamatia and Ioannis Stamelos and Sowe, Sulayman K. and Deligiannis, Ignatios} } @article {flosswp325, title = {Identifying Knowledge Brokers that Yield Software Engineering Knowledge in OSS Projects}, journal = {Information and Software Technology}, volume = {46}, year = {2006}, note = {Uses the Debian mailing lists "kde", "mentor", and "user". the collection period was from January 2001 to September 2004}, month = {11/2006}, pages = {1025-1033}, abstract = {Much research on open source software development concentrates on developer lists and other software repositories to investigate what motivates professional software developers to participate in open source software projects. Little attention has been paid to individuals who spend valuable time in lists helping participants on some mundane yet vital project activities. Using three Debian lists as a case study we investigate the impact of knowledge brokers and their associated activities in open source projects. Social network analysis was used to visualize how participants are affiliated with the lists. The network topology reveals substantial community participation. The consequence of collaborating in mundane activities for the success of open source software projects is discussed. The direct beneficiaries of this research are in the identification of knowledge experts in open source software projects.}, keywords = {debian, email, email archives, expertise, knowledge sharing, mailing list, project success, social network analysis}, doi = {10.1016/j.infsof.2005.12.019}, attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/IST-Vol-48-11-2006.pdf}, author = {Sowe, Sulayman K. and Ioannis Stamelos and Lefteris Angelis} }