Sebastian Spaeth

Community, Joining, and Specialization in Open Source Software Innovation: A Case Study

This paper develops an inductive theory of the open source software (OSS) innovation process by focussing on the creation of Freenet, a project aimed at developing a decentralized and anonymous peer-to-peer electronic file sharing network. We are particularly interested in the strategies and processes by which new people join the existing community of software developers, and how they initially contribute code. Analyzing data from multiple sources on the Freenet software development process, we generate the constructs of “joining script”, “specialization”, “contribution barriers”, and “feature gifts”, and propose relationships among these. Implications for theory and research are discussed.

Carrots and rainbows: motivation and social practice in open source software development

Open source software (OSS) is a social and economic phenomenon that raises fundamental questions about the motivations of contributors to information systems development. Some developers are unpaid volunteers who seek to solve their own technical problems, while others create OSS as part of their employment contract. For the past 10 years, a substantial amount of academic work has theorized about and empirically examined developer motivations. We review this work and suggest considering motivation in terms of the values of the social practice in which developers participate. Based on the social philosophy of Alasdair MacIntyre, we construct a theoretical framework that expands our assumptions about individual motivation to include the idea of a long-term, value-informed quest beyond short-term rewards. This motivation-practice framework depicts how the social practice and its supporting institutions mediate between individual motivation and outcome. The framework contains three theoretical conjectures that seek to explain how collectively elaborated standards of excellence prompt developers to produce high-quality software, change institutions, and sustain OSS development. From the framework, we derive six concrete propositions and suggest a new research agenda on motivation in OSS.

Code Reuse in Open Source Software

Code reuse is a form of knowledge reuse in software development that is fundamental to innovation in many fields. However, to date there has been no systematic investigation of code reuse in open source software projects. This study uses quantitative and qualitative data gathered from a sample of six open source software projects to explore two sets of research questions derived from the literature on software reuse in firms and open source software development. We find that code reuse is extensive across the sample and that open source software developers, much like developers in firms, apply tools that lower their search costs for knowledge and code, assess the quality of software components, and have incentives to reuse code. Open source software developers reuse code because they want to integrate functionality quickly, because they want to write preferred code, because they operate under limited resources in terms of time and skills, and because they can mitigate development costs through code reuse.

The open source software phenomenon: Characteristics that promote research

Since the turn of the century, open source software has triggered a vast volume of research. In this essay, based on a brief review of selected work, we show that research in many different fields and disciplines of the social sciences have shed light on the phenomenon. We argue that five characteristics make the phenomenon particularly attractive to examination from various fields and disciplines using a plethora of research methods: (1) impact: open source software has an extensive impact on the economy and society; (2) theoretical tension: the phenomenon deviates sharply from the predictions and explanations of existing theory in different fields; (3) transparency: open source software has offered researchers an unprecedented access to data; (4) communal reflexivity: the community of open source software developers frequently engage in a dialog on its functioning (it also has its own research community); (5) proximity: the innovation process in open source software resembles knowledge production in science (in many instances, open source software is an output of research processes). These five characteristics also promote a transdisciplinary research dialog. Based on the experience of open source software research, we propose that phenomena-driven transdisciplinary research provides an excellent context to promote greater dialog between disciplines and fields. Moreover, we propose that the recent diffusion of the open source software model of innovation to other areas than software calls for new research and that the field of information systems has an important role to play in this future research agenda.

Empirical tests of Zipf's law mechanism in open source Linux distribution.

Zipfs power law is a ubiquitous empirical regularity found in many systems, thought to result from proportional growth. Here, we establish empirically the usually assumed ingredients of stochastic growth models that have been previously conjectured to be at the origin of Zipfs law. We use exceptionally detailed data on the evolution of open source software projects in Linux distributions, which offer a remarkable example of a growing complex self-organizing adaptive system, exhibiting Zipfs law over four full decades.

Extending Private-Collective Innovation: A Case Study

The private-collective innovation model proposes incentives for individuals and firms to privately invest resources to create public goods innovations. Such innovations are characterized by non-rivalry and non-exclusivity in consumption. Examples include open source software, user-generated media products, drug formulas, and sport equipment designs. There is still limited empirical research on private-collective innovation. We present a case study to (1) provide empirical evidence of a case of private-collective innovation, showing specific benefits, and (2) to extend the private-collective innovation model by analyzing the hidden costs for the company involved. We examine the development of the Nokia Internet Tablet, which builds on both proprietary and open source software development, and that involves both Nokia developers and volunteers who are not employed by the company. Seven benefits for Nokia are identified, as are five hidden costs: difficulty to differentiate, guarding business secrets, reducing community entry barriers, giving up control, and organizational inertia. We examine the actions taken by the management to mitigate these costs throughout the development period.

Knowledge Reuse in Open Source Software: An Exploratory Study of 15 Open Source Projects

To date, there is no investigation of knowledge reuse in open source software projects. This paper focuses on the forms of knowledge reuse and the factors impacting on them. It develops a theory drawn from data of 15 open source software projects and finds that the effort to search, integrate and maintain external knowledge influences the form of knowledge to be reused. Implications for firms and innovation research are discussed.

Sampling in Open Source Software Development: The Case for Using the Debian GNU/Linux Distribution

Research on open source software (OSS) projects often focuses on the SourceForge collaboration platform. We argue that a GNU/Linux distribution, such as Debian, is better suited for the sampling of projects because it avoids biases and contains unique information only available in an integrated environment. Especially research on the reuse of components can build on dependency information inherent in the Debian GNU/Linux packaging system. This paper therefore contributes to the practice of sampling methods in OSS research and provides empirical data on reuse dependencies in Debian

Can Open-Source Hardware Disrupt Manufacturing Industries? The Role of Platforms and Trust in the Rise of 3d Printing

The costs of 3D printing have rapidly fallen and have thus provoked new interest in this technology, which per se does not pose a revolutionary challenge. Prima facie, it seems to present a fitting analogy to the extreme price declines in computing that Christensen described as the “Innovator’s Dilemma”. We argue that it is necessary to look beyond the direct increased possibilities a 3D printer provides and focus on the disruptions in workflows and processes that will follow. Similarly to how the development of common open source software tools and infrastructure enabled start-ups to cheaply build on existing knowledge, the creation of common knowledge pools and tools will shape the way in which many companies will interact and source knowledge on physical artifacts in the future. We argue that its impact and success crucially depends on how the available platforms develop and support the creation of trust in the relevant communities.

Open source software development: communities' impact on public good

This study examines the innovation output of software development that produces public goods. We use resource dependence theory and collective action theory to explain the effects of interconnectedness on open source software (OSS) communities, and on contributions to public goods. We empirically test our proposals using an eight-year panel dataset on OSS projects based on the Eclipse Foundation, and conclude that interconnectedness negatively affects community mobilization and its contributions to public goods.