Felipe Ortega

On the Inequality of Contributions to Wikipedia

Wikipedia is one of the most successful examples of massive collaborative content development. However, many of the mechanisms and procedures that it uses are still unknown in detail. For instance, how equal (or unequal) are the contributions to it has been discussed in the last years, with no conclusive results. In this paper, we study exactly that aspect by using Lorenz curves and Gini coefficients, very well known instruments to economists. We analyze the trends in the inequality of distributions for the ten biggest language editions of Wikipedia, and their evolution over time. As a result, we have found large differences in the number of contributions by different authors (something also observed in free, open source software development), and a trend to stable patterns of inequality in the long run.

Using Software Archaeology to Measure Knowledge Loss in Software Projects Due to Developer Turnover

Developer turnover can result in a major problem when developing software. When senior developers abandon a software project, they leave a knowledge gap that has to be managed. In addition, new (junior) developers require some time in order to achieve the desired level of productivity. In this paper, we present a methodology to measure the effect of knowledge loss due to developer turnover in software projects. For a given software project, we measure the quantity of code that has been authored by developers that do not belong to the current development team, which we define as orphaned code. Besides, we study how orphaned code is managed by the project. Our methodology is based on the concept of software archaeology, a derivation of software evolution. As case studies we have selected four FLOSS (free, libre, open source software) projects, from purely driven by volunteers to company-supported. The application of our methodology to these case studies will give insight into the turnover that these projects suffer and how they have managed it and shows that this methodology is worth being augmented in future research.

On the Analysis of Contributions from Privileged Users in Virtual Open Communities

Collaborative projects built around virtual communities on the Internet have gained momentum over the last decade. Nevertheless, their rapid growth rate rises some questions: which is the most effective approach to manage and organize their content creation process? Can these communities scale, controlling their projects as their size continues to grow over time? To answer these questions, we undertake a quantitative analysis of privileged users in FLOSS development projects and in Wikipedia. From our results, we conclude that the inequality level of user contributions in both types of initiatives is remarkably distinct, even though both communities present almost identical patterns regarding the number of distinct contributors per file (in FLOSS projects) or per article (in Wikipedia). As a result, totally open projects like Wikipedia can effectively deal with faster growing rates, while FLOSS projects may be affected by bottlenecks on committers who play critical roles.

The rise and fall of an online project: is bureaucracy killing efficiency in open knowledge production?

We evaluate the efficiency of an online knowledge production project and identify factors that affect efficiency. To assess efficiency, we used the Data Envelopment Analysis (DEA) modelling methodology. We apply DEA to data from more than 30 Wikipedia language projects over three years. We show that the main Wikipedia projects were indeed less efficient that smaller ones, an effect that can be attributed in part to decreasing returns to scale.

Libre Software in Spanish Public Administrations

Libre software started to be used in Public Administrations in Spain during the 1990s, in some isolated but interesting experiences.During the early 2000s, and specially in some regional governments, libre software started to be considered as an integral part of ITrelated policies. In 2007, it was evident that many experiences related to libre software were running in Public Administrations with different levels of success. However, no study had looked into the details of these experiences, and no comprehensive analysis had been performed to better understand the different factors that affect them.