%0 Journal Article %J Software Process–Improvement and Practice %D 2006 %T Information systems success in Free and Open Source Software development: Theory and measures %A Kevin Crowston %A Howison, James %A Hala Annabi %K bug fixing %K developers %K downloads %K FLOSS %K flossmole %K page views %K popularity %K project success %K size %K sourceforge %K success %K team size %X 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’s effectiveness in team building, the speed of the project at responding to bug reports and the project’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. %B Software Process–Improvement and Practice %V 11 %P 123–148 %R 10.1002/spip.259 %> https://flosshub.org/sites/flosshub.org/files/CrowstonHowisonAnnabi2006.pdf %0 Journal Article %J Management Science %D 2006 %T Location, Location, Location: How Network Embeddedness Affects Project Success in Open Source Systems %A Grewal, Rajdeep %A Lilien, Gary L. %A Mallapragada, Girish %K affiliation network %K age %K developers %K latent class analysis %K network embeddedness %K open source software %K page views %K perl %K project success %K registration %K sourceforge %X The community-based model for software development in open source environments is becoming a viable alternative to traditional firm-based models. To better understand the workings of open source environments, we examine the effects of network embeddedness---or the nature of the relationship among projects and developers---on the success of open source projects. We find that considerable heterogeneity exists in the network embeddedness of open source projects and project managers. We use a visual representation of the affiliation network of projects and developers as well as a formal statistical analysis to demonstrate this heterogeneity and to investigate how these structures differ across projects and project managers. Our main results surround the effect of this differential network embeddedness on project success. We find that network embeddedness has strong and significant effects on both technical and commercial success, but that those effects are quite complex. We use latent class regression analysis to show that multiple regimes exist and that some of the effects of network embeddedness are positive under some regimes and negative under others. We use project age and number of page views to provide insights into the direction of the effect of network embeddedness on project success. Our findings show that different aspects of network embeddedness have powerful but subtle effects on project success and suggest that this is a rich environment for further study. %B Management Science %I INFORMS %C Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS), Linthicum, Maryland, USA %V 52 %P 1043–1056 %8 July %U http://portal.acm.org/citation.cfm?id=1246148.1246155 %R 10.1287/mnsc.1060.0550