@article {flosswp405,
	title = {Self-organization of teams for free/libre open source software development},
	journal = {Information and Software Technology Journal},
	volume = {49},
	number = {564-575},
	year = {2007},
	note = {"First, the data from these projects that we needed for analysis had to be publicly available (ruling out projects that limit access to their email lists or trackers). Second, we chose the projects that had more than 7 members"..."projects that have attracted numerous developers beyond the initial project founders, are continuing to release software, have numerous downloads and have an active user community that provides feedback"
"3 FLOSS projects were selected for analysis, namely Gaim, eGroupWare and Compiere ERP."

all had sourceforge hosting

Data: "The primary data used for our study were interactions on the main developer communication forum, either a developer mailing list or web-based discussion forum."

Analysis: "For this project, we inductively content-analyzed developer email interactions to identify the task assignment mechanisms used in the process. We coded each instance of task assignment identified on three dimensions: who assigned the task, to whom, and how"
},
	abstract = {This paper provides empirical evidence about how free/libre open source software development teams self-organize their work. Following a case study methodology, we examined developer interaction data from three active and successful FLOSS projects using qualitative research methods, specifically inductive content analysis, to identify the task-assignment mechanisms used by the participants. We found that "self-assignment" was the most common mechanism across three FLOSS projects. This 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.},
	keywords = {case study, compiere, coordination, DESIGN, distributed teams, egroupware, email, email archives, forum, free/libre open source software development, gaim, INTERNET, mailing list, metadata, qualitative research methods, self-organizing teams, sourceforge, SYSTEMS, task assignment, WORK},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/task_assignment_final.pdf},
	author = {Kevin Crowston and Li, Qing and Kangning Wei and Eseryel, U. Yeliz and Howison, James}
}
@article {90,
	title = {Core and periphery in Free/Libre and Open Source software team communications},
	journal = {Proceedings of the 39th Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences-Volume 06},
	year = {2006},
	abstract = {The concept of the core group of developers is important and often discussed in empirical studies of FLOSS projects. This paper examines the question, "how does one empirically distinguish the core?" Being able to identify the core members of a FLOSS development project is important because many of the processes necessary for successful projects likely involve core members differently than peripheral members, so analyses that mix the two groups will likely yield invalid results. 

We compare 3 analysis approaches to identify the core: the named list of developers, a Bradford{\textquoteright}s law analysis that takes as the core the most frequent contributors and a social network analysis of the interaction pattern that identifies the core in a core-and-periphery structure. We apply these measures to the interactions around bug fixing for 116 SourceForge projects. The 3 techniques identify different individuals as core members; examination of which individuals are identified leads to suggestions for refining the measures. All 3 measures though suggest that the core of FLOSS projects is a small fraction of the total number of contributors.},
	keywords = {bug fixing, contributions, contributors, core, developers, social network analysis, sourceforge, team},
	author = {Kevin Crowston and Kangning Wei and Li, Qing and Howison, James}
}
@article {Crowston:2006a,
	title = {Hierarchy and centralization in Free and Open Source Software team communications},
	journal = {Knowledge, Technology \& Policy},
	volume = {18},
	number = {4},
	year = {2006},
	pages = {65{\textendash}85},
	abstract = {Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams provide an interesting and convenient setting for studying distributed work. We begin by answering perhaps the most basic question: what is the social structure of these teams? Based on a social network analysis of interactions represented in 62,110 bug reports from 122 large and active projects, we find that some OSS teams are highly centralized, but contrary to expectation, others are not. Projects are mostly quite hierarchical on four measures of hierarchy, consistent with past research but contrary to the popular image of these projects. Furthermore, we find that the level of centralization is negatively correlated with project size, suggesting that larger projects become more modular. The paper makes a further methodological contribution by identifying appropriate analysis approaches for interaction data. We conclude by sketching directions for future research.},
	keywords = {apache, bug fixing, bug tracking, FLOSS, project success, savannah, social network analysis, sourceforge, team size, teams},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/CrowstonHierarchyAndCentralization.pdf},
	author = {Kevin Crowston and Howison, James}
}
@article {Crowston:2006,
	title = {Information systems success in Free and Open Source Software development: Theory and measures},
	journal = {Software Process{\textendash}Improvement and Practice},
	volume = {11},
	number = {2},
	year = {2006},
	note = {"we continue our examination of success measures using data from Sourceforge..."
"e chose the number of developers (assessed from the records of the project and from bug fixing logs), bug-fixing time, and popularity (assessed from the number of downloads and viewings of project Web pages, and inclusion in distributions). These measures were chosen because they span the reconsidered FLOSS development process discussed above, including inputs (number of developers), process (speed of bug fixing) and output (popularity)."},
	pages = {123{\textendash}148},
	abstract = {Information systems success is one of the most widely used dependent variables in information systems (IS) research, but research on Free/Libre and Open Source software (FLOSS) often fails to appropriately conceptualize this important concept. In this paper, we reconsider what success means within a FLOSS context. We first review existing models of IS success and success variables used in FLOSS research and assess them for their usefulness, practicality and fit to the FLOSS context. Then, drawing on a theoretical model of group effectiveness in the FLOSS development process, as well as an online discussion group with developers, we present additional concepts that are central to an appropriate understanding of success for FLOSS. In order to examine the practicality and validity of this conceptual scheme, the second half of our paper presents an empirical study that demonstrates its operationalization of the chosen measures and assesses their internal validity. We use data from SourceForge to measure the project{\textquoteright}s effectiveness in team building, the speed of the project at responding to bug reports and the project{\textquoteright}s popularity. We conclude by discussing the implications of this study for our proposed extension of IS success in the context of FLOSS development and highlight future directions for research.},
	keywords = {bug fixing, developers, downloads, FLOSS, flossmole, page views, popularity, project success, size, sourceforge, success, team size},
	doi = {10.1002/spip.259},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/CrowstonHowisonAnnabi2006.pdf},
	author = {Kevin Crowston and Howison, James and Hala Annabi}
}
@conference {708,
	title = {Social dynamics of free and open source team communications},
	booktitle = {OSS2006: Open Source Systems (IFIP 2.13)},
	series = {IFIP International Federation for Information Processing },
	volume = {203/2006},
	year = {2006},
	month = {06/2006},
	pages = {319 - 330},
	publisher = {Springer},
	organization = {Springer},
	abstract = {This paper furthers inquiry into the social structure of free and open source software (FLOSS) teams by undertaking social network analysis across time. Contrary to expectations, we confirmed earlier findings of a wide distribution of centralizations even when examining the networks over time. The paper also provides empirical evidence that while change at the center of FLOSS projects is relatively uncommon, participation across the project communities is highly skewed, with many participants appearing for only one period. Surprisingly, large project teams are not more likely to undergo change at their centers.
},
	keywords = {bug fixing, bug reports, bug tracker, bug tracking, bugs, communications, Dynamic social networks, FLOSS teams, Human Factors, social network analysis, software development, sourceforge},
	issn = {978-0-387-34225-2},
	doi = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/0-387-34226-5_32},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/Social\%20dynamics\%20of\%20free\%20and\%20open\%20source\%20team.pdf},
	author = {Howison, James and Inoue, Keisuke and Kevin Crowston}
}
@proceedings {flosswp181,
	title = {The perils and pitfalls of mining SourceForge},
	year = {2004},
	month = {05/2004},
	pages = {7-11},
	abstract = {SourceForge provides abundant accessible data from Open Source Software development projects, making it an attractive data source for software engineering research. However it is not without theoretical peril and practical pitfalls. In this paper, we outline practical lessons gained from our spidering, parsing and analysis of SourceForge data. SourceForge can be practically difficult: projects are defunct, data from earlier systems has been dumped in and crucial data is hosted outside SourceForge, dirtying the retrieved data. These practical issues play directly into analysis: decisions made in screening projects can reduce the range of variables, skewing data and biasing correlations. SourceForge is theoretically perilous: because it provides easily accessible data items for each project, tempting researchers to fit their theories to these limited data. Worse, few are plausible dependent variables. Studies are thus likely to test the same hypotheses even if they start from different theoretical bases. To avoid these problems, analyses of SourceForge projects should go beyond project level variables and carefully consider which variables are used for screening projects and which for testing hypotheses.},
	keywords = {Data Collection, sourceforge},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/howison04msr.pdf},
	author = {Howison, James and Kevin Crowston}
}
@conference {flosswp180,
	title = {Towards a Portfolio of FLOSS project Success Measures},
	booktitle = {Workshop on Open Source Software Engineering, International Conference on Software Engineering},
	year = {2004},
	month = {May},
	abstract = {Project success is one of the most widely used dependent variables in information systems research. However, conventional measures of project success are difficult to apply to Free/Libre Open Source Software projects. In this paper, we present an analysis of four measures of success applied to SourceForge projects: number of members of the extended development community, project activity, bug fixing time and number of downloads. We argue that these four measures provide different insights into the collaboration and control mechanisms of the projects.},
	keywords = {bug fixing, developers, downloads, project success, sourceforge, team, team size},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/crowston04towards.pdf},
	author = {Kevin Crowston and Hala Annabi and Howison, James and Chengetai Masango}
}
@article {flosswp59,
	title = {Open Source Software Projects as Virtual Organizations: Competency Rallying for Software Development},
	journal = {IEE Proceedings Software},
	volume = {149},
	number = {1},
	year = {2002},
	pages = {3{\textendash}17},
	abstract = {The contribution of this paper is the identification and testing of factors important for the success of Open Source Software (OSS) projects. We present an analysis of OSS communities as virtual organizations and apply Katzy and Crowston{\textquoteright}s (2000) competency rallying (CR) theory to the case of OSS development projects. CR theory suggests that project participants must develop necessary competencies, identify and understand market opportunities, marshal competencies to meet the opportunity and manage a short-term cooperative process. Using data collected from 7477 OSS projects hosted by the SourceForge system (http://sourceforge.net/), we formulate and test a set of specific hypotheses derived from CR theory.},
	keywords = {competencies, competency rallying, coordination, project success, sourceforge, virtual organizations},
	attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/crowston.pdf},
	author = {Kevin Crowston and Barbara Scozzi}
}
