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Syracuse University

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

Free/Libre Open Source Software

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Full-Text Articles in Library and Information Science

Effective Work Practices For Floss Development: A Model And Propositions, Kevin Crowston, Hala Annabi, James Howison, Chengetai Masango Jan 2005

Effective Work Practices For Floss Development: A Model And Propositions, Kevin Crowston, Hala Annabi, James Howison, Chengetai Masango

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

We review the literature on Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development and on software development, distributed work and teams more generally to develop a theoretical model to explain the performance of FLOSS teams. The proposed model is based on Hackman’s [1] model of effectiveness of work teams, with coordination theory [2] and collective mind [3] to extend Hackman’s model by elaborating team practices relevant to effectiveness in software development. We propose a set of propositions to guide further research.


Coordination Of Free/Libre Open Source Software Development, Kevin Crowston, Kangning Wei, Qing Li, U Yeliz Eseryel, James Howison Jan 2005

Coordination Of Free/Libre Open Source Software Development, Kevin Crowston, Kangning Wei, Qing Li, U Yeliz Eseryel, James Howison

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

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 …


Effective Work Practices For Software Engineering: Free/Libre Open Source Software Development, Kevin Crowston, Hala Annabi, James Howison, Chengetai Masango Jan 2004

Effective Work Practices For Software Engineering: Free/Libre Open Source Software Development, Kevin Crowston, Hala Annabi, James Howison, Chengetai Masango

School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship

We review the literature on Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development and on software development, distributed work and teams more generally to develop a theoretical model to explain the performance of FLOSS teams. The proposed model is based on Hackman's [34] model of effectiveness of work teams, with coordination theory [52] and collective mind [79] to extend Hackman's model by elaborating team practices relevant to effectiveness in software development. We propose a set of propositions to guide further research.