Carlos Denner Santos

A Study of the Relationships between Source Code Metrics and Attractiveness in Free Software Projects

A significant number of Free Software projects has been widely used and considered successful. However, there is an even larger number of them that cannot overcome the initial step towards building an active community of users and developers. In this study, we investigated whether there are relationships between source code metrics and attractiveness, i.e., the ability of a project to attract users and developers. To verify these relationships, we analyzed 6,773 Free Software projects from the SourceForge.net repository. The results indicated that attractiveness is indeed correlated to some source code metrics. This suggests that measurable attributes of the project source code somehow affect the decision to contribute and adopt a Free Software project. The findings described in this study show that it is relevant for project leaders to monitor source code quality, most specifically a few objective metrics, since these can have a positive influence in their chances of forming a community of contributors and users around the software, enabling further enhancement in its quality.

Intellectual property policy and attractiveness: a longitudinal study of free and open source software projects

This paper reports early findings of a longitudinal study designed to evaluate the impact of changes in the intellectual property policy of 756 free and open source projects on their attractiveness over 44 months.

Information technology governance in public organizations: how perceived effectiveness relates to three classical mechanisms

Information technology (IT) governance has received a lot of attention lately, with a growing strategic importance currently being given to IT by both public and private organizations. This justifies the existence of a body of scientific literature on IT governance, to which this paper belongs and makes an attempt to contribute to. Towards that end, an empirical study was performed involving 57 public organizations of the Brazilian federal administration, examining the relationship between three governance mechanisms – IT steering committee, IT solution manager, and IT investment portfolio management process and IT governance effectiveness. Based on the literature review, a conceptual model was developed to express the causal relations that these constructs were expected to hold with one another. Through a custom-designed questionnaire submitted to over 180 federal public employees, the causal model was tested using mediation analysis and mostly confirmed. Results indicate that Portfolio Management should always be taken into account for analyses that aim to evaluate the effects of IT steering committees and solution managers on IT governance effectiveness. This means that a nonexistent or an underperforming Portfolio Management Process can lead to a reduction or cancellation of the potential positive contributions of the other two mechanisms to IT governance. By informing decision makers and public managers at some of the main federal public organizations in the country on how to plan and deploy IT to promote a more effective governance, the conclusions presented herein fill a previous knowledge gap in the complementarity and the joint effectiveness of three IT governance mechanisms on the IT dynamics of key public organizations.

MOTIVATION TO CREATE FREE AND OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS AND HOW DECISIONS IMPACT SUCCESS

As a consequence of the success of free and open source software such as Linux, organizations started to rethink development practices and opensource their applications. To opensource software means to release its source code open to the general public in the Internet. That has become an increasingly common strategy in the industry over the last years (e.g., Netscape-Navigator, IBM-Eclipse, and CAIXA-Curupira). However, what motivates organizations to commit their resources to publicize proprietary software is yet to be fully understood; and it is only after this motivation is comprehended that it will become possible to define, measure, and study success. This paper fulfills this gap in the literature by proposing a theoretical model that satisfies technical (software quality) and organizational (business value) requirements at the same time, defining what would be, thus, return on investment and how to achieve it. Specifically, the model proposes that, in opensourcing software, organizations should attempt (1) to attract users and developers, and (2) to receive contributions from them, mainly because achieving these goals makes it more likely to expand the user base and build an active community that constantly improves the software. To work towards these goals, this paper develops awareness of how (a) software architecture (modularity and interdependence), (b) programming language and integrated development environment, and (c) sponsor’s reputation and degree of commitment can influence a project’s dynamics. Key-words: open source software; free software; software development; technology adoption; business strategy; software quality; software industry; software engineering.

Atratividade de Projetos de Software Livre: Importância Teórica e Estratégias para Administração

Organisations and individuals release source code on the Web to improve their software by attracting peers in the strategic move of “opensourcing” that has created thousands of open source projects (e.g., Eclipse-IBM, Thunderbird-Mozilla and Linux-Torvalds). Nevertheless, most of these projects fail to attract people and never become active. To minimize this problem, we developed a theoretical model around a crucial construct (attractiveness) to open source projects, proposing its causes (project characteristics), indicators (e.g., number of members) and consequences (levels of activeness, efficiency, likelihood of task completion, time for task completion and software quality). We tested this model empirically using 3 samples of over 4600 projects each in a multi-sample SEM analysis. The results confirm the central role that attractiveness plays to guarantee an active and efficient community of software development, shedding new light on whether more developers increase software quality by finding and fixing more bugs and providing upgrades. They also clarify the actual causal structure involving Web page visits, downloads and members, which can be easily mistaken. Moreover, the results can provide useful insights to strategists as we discuss the impacts of license restrictiveness, software development status, type of project and intended audience on attractiveness and its consequences.Thousands of Free and Open Source Software Projects (FSP) were, and continually are, created on the Internet. This scenario increases the number of opportunities to collaborate to the same extent that it promotes competition for users and contributors, who can guide projects to superior levels, unachievable by founders alone. Thus, given that the main goal of FSP founders is to improve their projects by means of collaboration, the importance to understand and manage the capacity of attracting users and contributors to the project is established. To support researchers and founders in this challenge, the concept of attractiveness is introduced in this paper, which develops a theoretical-managerial toolkit about the causes, indicators and consequences of attractiveness, enabling its strategic management.

The influence of sponsors on organizational structure of free software communities

Initially, free software communities are characterized by self-management, however, they were also influenced by public and private organizations that identified potential gains in the use of the geographically distributed production model. In this context, this research aims to answer the following questions: Do sponsors influence the organizational structures of free software communities by promoting differences between sponsored and non-sponsored communities? What strategies are adopted by the sponsor to influence the organizational structure of free software communities? Two constructs are central to the study: organizational structure and sponsorship. For this research, we adopted case study methodology and three free software communities were studied. In the analysis of the results it was evidenced that sponsors influence decision making, definition of community key roles, and a formalization of norms. In turn, non-sponsored communities were characterized by the centralization and informality of the norms. We conclude that differences were identified in the organizational structure of sponsored and non-sponsored free software communities, and this differentiation was influenced by sponsors. In addition, it was possible to describe strategies and mechanisms used by sponsors to influence the community organizational structure.

MOTIVATION TO CREATE FREE AND OPEN SOURCE PROJECTS AND HOW DECISIONS IMPACT SUCCESS (doi:10.5329/RESI.2010.0902004)

As a consequence of the success of free and open source software such as Linux, organizations started to rethink development practices and opensource their applications. To opensource software means to release its source code open to the general public in the Internet. That has become an increasingly common strategy in the industry over the last years (e.g., Netscape-Navigator, IBM-Eclipse, and CAIXA-Curupira). However, what motivates organizations to commit their resources to publicize proprietary software is yet to be fully understood; and it is only after this motivation is comprehended that it will become possible to define, measure, and study success. This paper fulfills this gap in the literature by proposing a theoretical model that satisfies technical (software quality) and organizational (business value) requirements at the same time, defining what would be, thus, return on investment and how to achieve it. Specifically, the model proposes that, in opensourcing software, organizations should attempt (1) to attract users and developers, and (2) to receive contributions from them, mainly because achieving these goals makes it more likely to expand the user base and build an active community that constantly improves the software. To work towards these goals, this paper develops awareness of how (a) software architecture (modularity and interdependence), (b) programming language and integrated development environment, and (c) sponsor’s reputation and degree of commitment can influence a project’s dynamics.