Published papers

Crowston, Kevin, James Howison, & Andrea Wiggins (2008). eSocial Science for Free/Libre Open Source Software Researchers. Paper presented at 4th International Conference on eSocial Science, Manchester, UK, 18-20 June, 2008.

This abstract presents a case study of the potential application of eScience tools and practices for the social science research community studying Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development practices. We first describe the practice of research on FLOSS to motivate the need for eScience. After outlining suitable public data sources, we describe our initial efforts to introduce eScience tools for FLOSS research, potential obstacles and how the use of such tools might affect the practice of research in this field.

Howison, J. (2008). Cross-repository data linking with rdf and owl. towards common ontologies for representing floss data. In Proc. of WoPDaSD (Workshop on Public Data at International Conference on Open Source Software).

This paper provides an approach to the problem of integrating data from multiple research repositories for FLOSS data. It introduces semantic web technologies (RDF, OWL, OWL-DL reasoners and SPARQL) to argue that these are useful for building shared research infrastructure. The paper illustrates its point by describing parts of an ontology developed for the integration and analysis of project communications drawn from FLOSSmole, the Notre Dame archive and direct collection of data. RDF vocabularies provide a way to agree on things we agree about as well as a way to be clearer about ways in which we disagree.

Wiggins, A., Howison, J. and Crowston, K. (2008). Social dynamics of FLOSS team communication across channels. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Open Source Software (IFIP 2.13), Milan, Italy, 7-10 September.

This paper extends prior investigation into the social dynamics of free and open source (FLOSS) teams by examining the methodological questions arising from research using social network analysis on open source projects. We evaluate the validity of data sampling by examining dynamics of communication centralization, which vary across multiple communication channels. We also introduce a method for intensity-based smoothing in dynamic social network analysis.

Howison, James, Andrea Wiggins and Kevin Crowston. (2008). eResearch workflows for studying free and open source software development. In Proceedings of the Fourth International Conference on Open Source Software (IFIP 2.13), Milan, Italy, 7-10 September.

This paper proposes a demonstration of eResearch workflow tools as a model for the research community studying free and open source software and its development. For purposes of background and justification, the paper first introduces eResearch as increasingly practiced in fields such as astrophysics and biology, then contrasts the practice of research on free and open source software. After outlining the suitable public data sources the paper introduces a class of tools known as scientific workflow frameworks, specifically focusing on one---Taverna---and introducing its features. To further explain the tool a complete workflow used for original research on FLOSS is described and the agenda for the live demonstration is outlined.

Scialdone, Michael, Na Li, James Howison, Robert Heckman, and Kevin Crowston. (2008). Group Maintenance in Technology-Supported Distributed Teams (Full Version). Paper presented at 2008 Academy of Management Annual Meeting: The Questions We Ask. Anaheim, CA: August 8-13, 2008.

The purpose of this paper is to assess whether virtual teams that exhibit high levels of group maintenance behavior, pro-social, discretionary, and relation-building behavior between members that maintains reciprocal trust and cooperation, are more successful. We answer this question through a content analysis of email archives from two Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) teams. The two teams provide a useful contrast for our study because one continues operating today, while the other has ceased development. Our results show that, contrary to expectations, the groups show very low levels of organizational citizenship behaviors and high levels of positive politeness actions, those that build group cohesion. We build this argument through a time-series regression with appropriate success measures for the self-organizing and voluntary FLOSS context.

Crowston, Kevin & Fagnot, Isabelle (2008). The motivational arc of massive virtual collaboration. In Proceedings of the IFIP WG 9.5 Working Conference on Virtuality and Society: Massive Virtual Communities, Lüneberg, Germany, 1–2 July 2008.

Massive virtual collaborations (MVC) involve large numbers of mostly unpaid contributors collectively creating new content. Wikipedia is the most dramatic example of MVC; smaller-scale examples include blogs and discussion groups and free/libre open source software (FLOSS) projects. In this paper, we propose a model of motivations for contribution to MVC that integrates various theoretical perspectives to extend prior work. Specifically, we distinguish three different levels of contribution to projects (initial, sustained and meta) and capture the dynamic and recursive effects of contributions on emergent individual and project states.

Scozzi, B., Crowston, K., Eseryel, U. Y., & Li, Q. (2008). Shared mental models among open source software developers, Hawai'i International Conference on System Science. Big Island, Hawai'i.

Shared understandings are important for software development as they guide to effective individual contributions to, and coordination of, the software development process. In this paper, we present the results of a preliminary analysis on shared mental models within Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams. Based on structuration theory and by adopting cognitive mapping and process analysis, we represented and com-pared the mental models of some developers of the Lucene Java project. Our analysis suggests that there is a high-level of sharing among core developers but the shar-ing is not complete, with some differences related to ten-ure in the project.

Heckman, R., Crowston, K., & Misiolek, N. (2007). A structurational perspective on leadership in virtual teams. In K. Crowston & S. Seiber (Eds.), Proceedings of the IFIP Working Group 8.2/9.5 Working Conference on Virtuality and Virtualization. Portland, OR: Springer.

Building on behavioural leadership theory and structuration theory, we present a two-order theory of leadership. It describes four classes of first-order leadership behaviours (task coordination, substantive task contribution, group maintenance and boundary spanning) and defines second-order leadership as behaviour that influences changes in the structure that guides group action. We argue that second-order leadership is enabled by first-order leadership and is therefore action embedded and grounded in processes that define the social identity of the group. We propose that effective virtual teams will exhibit a paradoxical combination of shared, distributed first-order leadership complemented by strong, concentrated, and centralized second-order leadership. We conclude by suggesting future research that might be conducted to test and further elaborate our theory.

Crowston, K., Wei, K., Li, Q., Eseryel, U. Y., & Howison, J. (2007). Self-organization of teams in free/libre open source software development. Information and Software Technology Journal, 49, 564-575.

This paper provides empirical evidence about how free/libre open source software development teams self-organize their work, specifically, how tasks are assigned to project team members. Following a case study methodology, we examined developer interaction data from three active and successful FLOSS projects using qualitative research methods, specifically inductive content analysis, to identify the task-assignment mechanisms used by the participants. We found that ‘self-assignment’ was the most common mechanism across three FLOSS projects. This mechanism is consistent with expectations for distributed and largely volunteer teams. We conclude by discussing whether these emergent practices can be usefully transferred to mainstream practice and indicating directions for future research.

Heckman, R., Crowston, K., Li, Q., Allen, E., Eseryel, U. Y., Howison, J., and Wei, K. (2006). Emergent decision-making practices in technology-supported self-organizing distributed teams. In International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2006).

We seek to identify work practices that make technology-supported self-organizing distributed (or virtual) teams (TSSODT for short) effective in producing outputs satisfactory to their sponsors, meeting the needs of their members and continuing to function. A particularly important practice for team effectiveness is decision making: are the right decisions made at the right time to get the work done in a way that satisfies team sponsors, keeps contributors happy and engaged, and enables continued team success? In this research-in-progress paper, we report on an inductive qualitative analysis of 120 decision episodes taken by 2 Free/libre Open Source Software development teams. Our analysis revealed differences in decision-making practices that seem to be related to differences in overall team effectiveness.

Howison, J., Conklin, M., and Crowston, K. (2006). Flossmole: A collaborative repository for floss research data and analysis. International Journal of Information Technology and Web Engineering, 1(3):17–26.

This paper introduces and expands on previous work on a collaborative project, called FLOSSmole (formerly OSSmole), designed to gather, share and store comparable data and analyses of free and open source software development for academic research. The project draws on the ongoing collection and analysis efforts of many research groups, reducing duplication, and promoting compatibility both across sources of FLOSS data and across research groups and analyses. The paper outlines current difficulties with the current typical quantitative FLOSS research process and uses these to develop requirements and presents the design of the system.

Crowston, K. and Howison, J. (2006). Assessing the health of open source communities. IEEE Computer, 39(5):89–91.

An invited column that discusses what a healthy FLOSS community looks like, and how one ought to go about assessing it (particularly in the context of software specification).

Li, Q., Crowston, K., Heckman, R., and Howison, J.(2006) Language and Power in Self-organizing Distributed Teams. AOM 2006

In this paper, a comparative case study is conducted to explore the way power is expressed and exercised through language use in distributed or virtual teams. Our research questions are “how is power expressed in online interactions in self-organizing distributed teams, in a context without formal authority or hierarchy?” and “What effects do expressions of power have on team outcomes?” To fully understand the role of power in self-organizing teams, we apply an input-process-output model on two open source projects-one successful and the other less successful. Two set of codes (source of power and power mechanism) are drawn from the data, and different power patterns interestingly show up between them. The findings lead us to speculate that strong, centralized leadership, the assertive exercise of power, and direct language may contribute to effectiveness in FLOSS teams. And the relevant conclusions and suggestions are provided for further research.

Annabi, H., Crowston, K. & Heckman, R. (2006). From Individual Contribution to Group Learning: The Early Years of Apache Web Server. In Proceedings of the IFIP 2nd International Conference on Open Source Software, Lake Como, Italy.

Open Source Software (OSS) groups experience many benefits and challenges with respect to the core group’s effectiveness. In order to capitalize on the benefits and minimize the challenges, OSS groups must learn not only on the individual level, but also on the group level. OSS groups learn by integrating individual contributions into the group’s product and processes. This paper reports on the characteristics of the learning process in OSS groups. The study utilized an embedded single case study design that observed and analyzed group learning processes in the Apache Web server OSS project. The study used learning opportunity episodes (LOE) as the embedded unit of analysis and developed and utilized three content analytic schemes to describe the characteristics of the learning process and the factors affecting this process.

Crowston, K. & Scozzi, B. (2006). The role of mental models in FLOSS development work practices. In Proceedings of the IFIP 2nd International Conference on Open Source Software, Lake Como, Italy.

Shared understandings are important for software development as they guide to effective individual contributions to, and coordination of, the software development process. In this paper, we present the theoretical background and research design for a proposed study on shared mental models within Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams. In particular, we plan to perform case studies on several projects and to use cognitive maps analysis to represent and compare the mental models of the involved members so as to gauge the degree of common knowledge and the development of a collective mind as well as to better understand the reasons that underlie team members actions and the way common mental models, if any, arise.

Howison, J., Inoue, K., and Crowston, K. (2006). Social dynamics of free and open source team communications. In Proceedings of the IFIP 2nd International Conference on Open Source Software, Lake Como, Italy.

This paper furthers inquiry into the social structure of free and open source software (FLOSS) teams by undertaking social network analysis across time. Contrary to expectations, we confirmed earlier findings of a wide distribution of centralizations even when examining the networks over time. The paper also provides empir- ical evidence that while change at the center of FLOSS pro jects is relatively uncommon, participation across the pro ject communities is highly skewed, with many participants appearing for only one pe- riod. Surprisingly, large pro ject teams are not more likely to undergo change at their centers.

Data and scripts for Howison, J., Inoue, K., and Crowston, K. (2006). Social dynamics of free and open source team communications. In Proceedings of the IFIP 2nd International Conference on Open Source Software, Lake Como, Italy.

 

Crowston, K., Wei, K., Li, Q., & Howison, J. (2006). Core and periphery in Free/Libre and Open Source software team communications. Paper presented at the Hawai'i International Conference on System System (HICSS-39), Kaua'i, Hawai'i.

The concept of the core group of developers is important and often discussed in empirical studies of FLOSS projects. This paper examines the question, “how does one empirically distinguish the core?” Being able to identify the core members of a FLOSS development project is important because many of the processes necessary for successful projects likely involve core members differently than peripheral members, so analyses that mix the two groups will likely yield invalid results. We compare 3 analysis approaches to identify the core: the named list of developers, a Bradford’s law analysis that takes as the core the most frequent contributors and a social network analysis of the interaction pattern that identifies the core in a core-and-periphery structure. We apply these measures to the interactions around bug fixing for 116 SourceForge projects. The 3 techniques identify different individuals as core members; examination of which individuals are identified leads to suggestions for refining the measures. All 3 measures though suggest that the core of FLOSS projects is a small fraction of the total number of contributors.

Crowston, K. (In press). In V. Grover & M. L. Markus (Eds.), Business Process Transformation. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.

To support business process transformation, we must first be able to represent business processes in a way that allows us to compare and contrast them or to design new ones. In this paper, I use coordination theory to analyze the bug fixing processes in the proprietary operating systems development group of a large mini-computer manufacturer and for the free/libre open source software Free/Libre Open Source Software Linux operating system kernel. Three approaches to identifying dependencies and coordination mechanisms are presented. Mechanisms analyzed include those for task assignment, resource sharing and managing dependencies between modules of source code. The proprietary development organization assigned problem reports to engineers based on the module that appeared to be in error, since engineers only worked on particular modules. Alternative task assignment mechanisms include assignment to engineers based on workload or voluntary assignment, as in Linux. In the proprietary process, modules of source code were not shared, but rather “owned” by one engineer, thus reducing the need for coordination. In Linux, where multiple developers can work on the same modules, alternative resource sharing mechanisms have been developed to manage source code. Finally, the proprietary developers managed dependencies between modules informally, relying on their personal knowledge of which other engineers used their code. The Linux process allows developers to change code in multiple modules, but emphasizes modularity to reduce the need to do so.

Crowston, K., Wei, K., Li, Q., Eseryel, U. Y., & Howison, J. (2005). Coordination of free/libre open source software development. Paper presented at the International Conference on Information Systems, Las Vegas.

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 of the proprietary project in the coordination mechanisms used to manage task-task dependencies. However, we found clear differences in the coordination mechanisms used to manage task-actor dependencies. While published descriptions of proprietary software development involved an elaborate system to locate the developer who owned the relevant piece of code, we found that “self-assignment” was the most common mechanism across three FLOSS projects. This coordination mechanism is consistent with expectations for distributed and largely volunteer teams. We conclude by discussing whether these emergent practices can be usefully transferred to mainstream practice and indicating directions for future research. Here's the link to the data as well as the various versions of the coding schema used for this paper: http://floss.syr.edu/internal/codingstuff

Crowston, K., Howison, J., & Annabi, H. (2006). Information systems success in Free and Open Source Software development: Theory and measures. Software Process--Improvement and Practice, 11(2), 123–148.

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.

Data for SPIP Success Paper

The flossmole database, the calculated success measures and the coding scheme used for the SPIP Success paper.

Conklin, M. S., Howison, J., and Crowston, K. (2005). Collaboration using OSSmole: a repository of FLOSS data and analyses. In Proc. of Mining Software Repositories (MSR) Workshop at ICSE, May 17 2005, St Louis, Missouri.

This paper introduces a collaborative project OSSmole designed to collect, share, and store comparable data and analyses of free, libre and open source software (FLOSS) development for research purposes. The project is designed to be a clearinghouse for data from the ongoing collection and analysis efforts of many disparate research groups. A collaborative data repository will reduce duplication and promote compatibility both across sources of FLOSS data and across research groups and analyses. The primary objective of OSSmole is to mine FLOSS source code repositories and provide the resulting data and summary analyses as open source products. However, the OSSmole data model additionally supports donated raw and summary data from a variety of open source researchers and other software repositories. The paper first outlines current difficulties with the typical quantitative FLOSS research process and uses these to develop requirements for such a collaborative data repository. Finally, the design of the OSSmole system is presented, as well as examples of current research and analyses using OSSmole.

Crowston, K., & Howison, J. (2006). Hierarchy and centralization in Free and Open Source Software team communications. Knowledge, Technology & Policy, 18(4), 65–85.

Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams provide an interesting and convenient setting for studying distributed work. We begin by answering perhaps the most basic question: what is the social structure of these teams? Based on a social network analysis of interactions represented in 62,110 bug reports from 122 large and active projects, we find that some OSS teams are highly centralized, but contrary to expectation, others are not. Projects are mostly quite hierarchical on four measures of hierarchy, consistent with past research but contrary to the popular image of these projects. Furthermore, we find that the level of centralization is negatively correlated with project size, suggesting that larger projects become more modular. The paper makes a further methodological contribution by identifying appropriate analysis approaches for interaction data. We conclude by sketching directions for future research.

Raw data for KT&P paper

A table of calculated network scores for the projects included in the KT&P paper. The meaning and calculation of the measures is explained in the paper.

Howison, J., Conklin, M. S. & Crowston, K. (2005). OSSmole: A collaborative repository for FLOSS research data and analyses. Paper presented at the First International OSS conference, Genova, Italy, 11-15 July.

This paper introduces a collaborative project, “OSSmole”, designed to gather, share and store comparable data and analyses of free and open source software development for academic research. The project draws on the ongoing collection and analysis efforts of many research groups, reducing duplication, and promoting compatibility both across sources of FLOSS data and across research groups and analyses. The paper outlines current difficulties with the current typical quantitative FLOSS research process and uses these to develop requirements and presents the design of the system.

Crowston, K., Heckman, R., Annabi, H. & Masango, C. (2005). A structurational perspective on leadership in Free/Libre Open Source Software teams. Presentation at the First International Conference on Open Source Systems, Genova, Italy, 11–15 July.

In this conceptual paper, we present a structuration-based theory of leadership behaviours in self-organizing virtual distributed teams such as Free/Libre Open Source Software development teams. Such teams are often composed of members of relatively equal status or who are so disparate in background that formal organizational status seems irrelevant, reducing the usual leadership cues provided by organizational status and title. Building on a functional view of leadership and structuration theory, we suggest that leaders are individuals who develop team structures that then guide the actions of team members. Specifically, we examine structures of signification in the form of shared mental models, structures of domination in the form of role structures and structures of legitimation in form of rules and norms. The main contribution of our paper is the integration of various social theories to describe emergent leadership behaviours in distributed teams. We develop a set of propositions and illustrate with examples taken from Free/Libre Open Source Software development teams. We conclude by suggesting future research that might be conducted to test and further elaborate our theory.

Crowston, K., Howison, J., Masango, C. & Eseryel, U. Y. (2005). Face-to-face interactions in self-organizing distributed teams. Presentation at the OCIS Division, Academy of Management Conference, Honolulu, HI, 7-10 August.

We explore the role of face-to-face meetings in the life of distributed teams using data from Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) development teams. Such distributed teams are part of many organizations’ new vision of management in the 21st century. Practitioner research has suggested the need for face-to-face meetings when a team is formed, but few studies have considered the role of face-to-face meetings during a team’s life. Based on a qualitative inductive analysis of data from interviews and observations at FLOSS conferences, we identify a variety of settings in which FLOSS developers meet face-to-face, activities performed in these settings and benefits obtained. Contrary to prior research, we find that FLOSS developers generally do not meet until the project is well under way. We also find that an additional benefit of face-to-face meetings is time away from a regular job. We conclude by noting limitations in our data collection due to a focus on core developers in large projects and with directions for further research.

Crowston, K. & Howison, J. (2005). The social structure of Free and Open Source software development. First Monday, February.

The practices of free and open source software (FLOSS) development are of great interest, both to academics interested in distributed teams and the free and open source communities themselves. For academics social structures are a useful starting point for understanding how teams successfully perform their tasks because structures emerge from, and in turn, shape practice. For practitioner-advocates from within the FLOSS community, such as Eric Raymond, features of social structure are important because they are relied upon to describe and account for the advantages of FLOSS production. But is there, in fact, consistency in the social structure of FLOSS projects? Can we really speak of a FLOSS social structure, and if so what is it? To address this question we examined 122 project teams from Sourceforge, representing a wide range of FLOSS project types, for their communications centralization as revealed in their bug tracking system. We found that FLOSS development teams vary widely in their centralization, from completely centered on one developer to projects which are highly decentralized and exhibit a distributed pattern of conversation between developers and active users. We suggest, therefore, that it may be wrong to assume that FLOSS projects are distinguished by a particular social structure. This variation across projects does, however, mean that communications centralization is useful for comparisons between FLOSS teams. We found that larger FLOSS teams tend to have more decentralized communication patterns, a finding that suggests interesting avenues for further research.

The social structure of Free and Open source software development

Details for: Kevin Crowston and James Howison (2005) "The social structure of Free and Open Source software development" in First Monday, volume 10, number 2 (February 2005). This folder contains links to the full data and analysis scripts for the paper.

Crowston, K., Annabi, H., Howison, J. and Masango, C. (2005). Effective work practices for FLOSS development: A model and propositions. In Thirty-Eighth Hawai’i International Conference on System Science (HICSS–38). Kona, HI, USA, January.

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 model of effectiveness of work teams, with coordination theory and collective mind 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.

Howison, J. & Crowston, K. (2004). The perils and pitfalls of mining SourceForge. In Proceedings of Mining Software Repositories Workshop, International Conference on Software Enginnering (ICSE 2004), Edinburgh, Scotland, May 25.

SourceForge provides abundant accessible data from Open Source Software development projects, making it an attractive data source for software engineering research. However it is not without theoretical peril and practical pitfalls. In this paper, we outline practical lessons gained from our spidering, parsing and analysis of SourceForge data. SourceForge can be practically difficult: projects are defunct, data from earlier systems has been dumped in and crucial data is hosted outside SourceForge, dirtying the retrieved data. These practical issues play directly into analysis: decisions made in screening projects can reduce the range of variables, skewing data and biasing correlations. SourceForge is theoretically perilous: because it provides easily accessible data items for each project, tempting researchers to fit their theories to these limited data. Worse, few are plausible dependent variables. Studies are thus likely to test the same hypotheses even if they start from different theoretical bases. To avoid these problems, analyses of SourceForge projects should go beyond project level variables and carefully consider which variables are used for screening projects and which for testing hypotheses.

Crowston, K., Annabi, H., Howison, J. and Masango, C. (2004). Towards A Portfolio of FLOSS Project Success Measures. In Collaboration, Conflict and Control: The 4th Workshop on Open Source Software Engineering, International Conference on Software Enginnering (ICSE 2004), Edinburgh, Scotland, May 25.

Project success is one of the most widely used dependent variables in information systems research. However, conventional measures of project success are difficult to apply to Free/Libre Open Source Software projects. In this paper, we present an analysis of four measures of success applied to SourceForge projects: number of members of the extended development community, project activity, bug fixing time and number of downloads. We argue that these four measures provide different insights into the collaboration and control mechanisms of the projects.

Crowston, K. & Scozzi, B. (2004). Coordination Practices for Bug Fixing within FLOSS Development Teams. In Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Computer Supported Activity Coordination (CSAC 2004) Porto (Portugal), April 13.

Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) is primarily developed by distributed teams. Developers contribute from around the world and coordinate their activity almost exclusively by means of email and bulletin boards. FLOSS development teams some how profit from the advantages and evade the challenges of distributed software development. Despite the relevance of the FLOSS both for research and practice, few studies have investigated the work practices adopted by these development teams. In this paper we investigate the structure and the coordination practices adopted by development teams during the bug-fixing process, which is considered one of main areas of FLOSS project success. In particular, based on a codification of the messages recorded in the bug tracking system of four projects, we identify the accomplished tasks, the adopted coordination mechanisms, and the role undertaken by both the FLOSS development team and the FLOSS community. We conclude with suggestions for further research.

Crowston, K., Annabi, H., & Howison, J. (2003). Defining Open Source Software Project Success. Proceedings of ICIS 2003, Seattle, WA, 14-17 December

Information systems success is one of the most widely used dependent variables in information systems research. In this paper, we identify a range of measures that can be used to assess the success of open source software (OSS) projects. We identify measures based on a review of the literature, a consideration of the OSS development process and an analysis of the opinions of OSS developers. For each measure, we provide examples of how they might be used in a study of OSS development.

Crowston, K. and Scozzi, B. (2002). Open source software projects as virtual organizations: Competency rallying for software development. IEE Proceedings Software, 149(1), 3-17.

The contribution of this paper is the identification and testing of factors important for the success of Open Source Software (OSS) projects. We present an analysis of OSS communities as virtual organizations and apply Katzy and Crowston's competency rallying (CR) theory to the case of OSS development projects. CR theory suggests that project participants must develop necessary competencies, identify and understand market opportunities, marshal competencies to meet the opportunity and manage a short-term cooperative process. Using data collected from 7477 OSS projects hosted by the SourceForge system (http://sourceforge.net/), we formulate and test a set of specific hypotheses derived from CR theory. The empirical data analysis supports the majority of these hypotheses, suggesting that CR theory provides a useful lens for studying OSS projects.