@article {1864, title = {Roles and politeness behavior in community-based free/libre open source software development}, journal = {Information \& Management}, year = {2016}, month = {11/2016}, abstract = {Community-based Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development relies on contributions from both core and peripheral members. Prior research on core{\textendash}periphery has focused on software coding-related behaviors. We study how core{\textendash}periphery roles are related to social-relational behavior in terms of politeness behavior. Data from two FLOSS projects suggest that both core and peripheral members use more positive politeness strategies than negative strategies. Further, core and peripheral members use different strategies to protect positive face in positive politeness, which we term respect and intimacy, respectively. Our results contribute to FLOSS research and politeness theory. }, keywords = {Core{\textendash}periphery structure, open source software development, Politeness behavior}, issn = {03787206}, doi = {10.1016/j.im.2016.11.006}, url = {https://crowston.syr.edu/sites/crowston.syr.edu/files/Group_maintenance\%20paper\%20to\%20share.pdf}, author = {Kangning Wei and Kevin Crowston and Eseryel, U.Yeliz and Robert Heckman} } @article {flosswp403, title = {Free/Libre Open Source Software: What We Know and What We Do Not Know}, journal = {ACM Computing Surveys}, volume = {44}, year = {2012}, publisher = {ACM}, edition = {2}, abstract = {We review the empirical research on Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development and assess the state of the literature. Our review is organized around an input-mediator-output-input (IMOI) model. We start with a description of the articles selected for the review. We then discuss findings of this literature categorized into issues pertaining to inputs (e.g., member characteristics, technology use and project characteristics), processes (software development and social processes), emergent states (e.g., trust and task related states) and outputs (e.g. team performance, FLOSS implementation and project evolution). Based on this review, we suggest research questions, including methodological and theoretical issues, to guide future inquiry in this area.}, attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/floss_review_paper.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston and Kangning Wei and Howison, James and Andrea Wiggins} } @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} } @proceedings {89, title = {Coordination of Free/Libre Open Source Software development}, year = {2005}, note = {"The data used for the study were interactions on the main developer communication venue, either a developer mailing list or online forum" sourceforge }, address = {Las Vegas, NV, USA}, 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 {\textquotedblleft}self-assignment{\textquotedblright} 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.}, keywords = {case study, compiere, coordination, egroupware, email, email archives, FLOSS, gaim, mailing list}, attachments = {https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/CrowstonWeiLiEseryelHowison.pdf}, author = {Kevin Crowston and Kangning Wei and Li, Qing and Eseryel, U. Yeliz and Howison, James} }