Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 1345–1354

Contents lists available at ScienceDirect

Computers in Human Behavior

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/comphumbeh

Open source software: A community of altruists

Hoda Baytiyeh a,*, Jay Pfaffman b,1
a
College of Education, American University of Beirut, P.O. Box 11-0236, Riad El-Solh, Beirut 1107 2020, Lebanon
b
College of Education, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, 1126 Volunteer Blvd., 443 Claxton Complex, Knoxville, TN 37996-3456, USA

a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t

Article history: To learn about what drives people to devote their time and expertise to creating and supporting free/open
Available online 14 May 2010 source software, a survey with Likert-scaled items measuring different types of motivations was sent to
contributors of several open source projects. Open-ended comments were used to illustrate the Likert-
Keywords: scaled items and open-ended questions allowed respondents to express their reasons for participating
Open source software in these open source communities. Results indicate that the open source contributors (n = 110, 38 paid
Motivations to work on OSS projects and 72 volunteers) are motivated primarily by a sense of altruism as well as
Collaboration
the desire to create and learn. Payment did not significantly impact the reasons for contributing to
Altruism
Factor analysis
OSS projects. The comments and open-ended questions validated the findings and indicated that building
a ‘‘Utopian” community – the desire to help for the greater good worldwide – is one of the most impor-
tant motivators. Also, respondents revealed that they join and persist as members of open source com-
munities because they enjoy the freedom to create and share free software, tools and knowledge with
others inside and outside the community.
Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction for the success of this new innovation model based on a balanced
portfolio of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation (Osterloh, 2004).
Free/open source software (F/OSS) has its roots from near the Contributors offer code, reveal proprietary information, and help
beginning of computing and is typically free while providing users others to solve their technical problems. Involvement in such pro-
with source code that is usually shared via the internet and can be jects implies providing time and effort for free. For instance, the
adjusted for users’ own needs. In the 1960s, while using computers SourceForge.net repository of OSS projects, on its own, hosts
for their work, researchers had to share software code because 86,873 OSS projects with 910,899 registered contributors (Bitzer,
commercial software was not available (Moon & Sproull, 2002). La- Schrettl, & Schröder, 2007). So, why do people volunteer their time
ter, when commercial software became accessible, F/OSS became a and expertise to create free software?
convenient alternative since it allowed users – most of whom were In The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Raymond (1999) distinguished
programmers – to have access to the source code. Thus, users were between two different styles of software development. The first is
able to adapt and improve the program according to their personal the open source software development which is comparable to a
needs. In the 1980s, Stallman (1994) claimed that computer pro- bazaar, where anyone has the right to join and contribute. The
grams should be a public good where he called for Free Software, other style is the commercial software development, which is sim-
and established the Free Software Foundation. It is since then that ilar to a hierarchical cathedral style. Raymond argued that the ba-
the idea of F/OSS has gained more and more attention from devel- zaar style creates a democratic atmosphere where contributors can
opers and users and the advent of free/open source software has discuss the best solutions for the source code efficiently since every
significantly impacted the software ecosystem. developer is a user. Berzoukov (1999) subsequently criticized Ray-
To those accustomed to paying for software, it is surprising to mond’s postulations, by claiming that OSS communities are driven
learn that volunteers produce high quality software that allows by competitive motives of reputation with commercial software
anyone not only to use but also to read, modify, and redistribute companies. Torvalds (1998), who published the source code of
the source code (von Hippel & von Krogh, 2003). It is argued that the Linux Kernel, claimed that one of his main personal motives
trust and trustworthiness can grow in such virtual communities was the – fun to program – and he believed that his co-developers
had the same incentive. Conversely, he declared that the success of
Linux is related to the reputation and status that might provide the
* Corresponding author. Tel.: +961 135 0000x3066; fax: +961 174 4461.
E-mail addresses: hb36@aub.edu.lb, hodabn@gmail.com (H. Baytiyeh), jay@ut-
developers with career opportunities prospects (Torvalds & Dia-
k.edu (J. Pfaffman). mond, 2001). Lakhani and Wolf (2005) found that although finan-
1
Tel.:+1 865 974 0497; fax: +1 865 974 0135. cial incentives are important for contributors, work enjoyment is a

0747-5632/$ - see front matter Ó 2010 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.chb.2010.04.008
1346 H. Baytiyeh, J. Pfaffman / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 1345–1354

key intrinsic motivation for such devotion where creativity to im- CoP interact regularly together to share information, insight, and
prove programming skills and enjoyment were revealed to be the advice. They accumulate knowledge and become informally bound
main factors that stimulate contributors’ work for free. by the value of the shared learning. Communities of practice can be
Other researchers have showed that contributors’ objectives are small or large, long-lived or short-lived, co-located or globally
to reveal their technical capabilities to obtain better job opportuni- distributed, homogeneous or heterogeneous, inside and across
ties for future prospects and the main incentives behind the volun- boundaries, spontaneous or intentional, unrecognized or institu-
teer participation are for extrinsic benefits (Lerner & Tirole, 2000, tionalized. Three essential elements are central to a CoP: the do-
2002). Also, Riehle (2007) claimed that software developers strive main of knowledge, which enables members to recognize the
to become contributors in open source projects to acquire more importance of the community and inspires them to participate;
recognition, independence, and therefore to guarantee better fu- the community, which creates relationships among members
ture as well as better careers. based on mutual respect and the willingness to share ideas and
Lindenberg (2001) has proposed the need of a new conceptual- experience; and the practice, a set of tools, terms, activities, and
ization for the relationship between the extrinsic and intrinsic documents shared by the members. These communities of practice
motivation while separating the intrinsic motivation into two com- are often built on a model of apprenticeship.
ponents: enjoyment and obligation to the community. He assumed To develop a similar model of community into schools, where
that people possess a diversity of objectives while achieving their the apprenticeship is not so obviously applicable, Brown and
activities. A frame is created around the main objective with the Campione (1996) conceived community of learners (CoL), in which
related compatible objectives. After the main objective is achieved, ‘‘the essential underlying principle is that all members [of the
the other goals still remain in the person’s background intentions. learning community] are co-researchers, co-learners, and co-
Therefore, an individual could have an extrinsic incentive (e.g., teachers, who listen to and respect each other” (p. 300). In schools,
monetary rewards) as a main objective along with an intrinsic unlike communities of practice, students are not expected to take
incentive (e.g., self-enjoyment) as a related objective and vice ver- on the role of teacher, and teachers themselves are typically not
sa. Individuals can have the two types of motivations that balance practitioners of their own subject. In the community of learners’
one another for a single activity. Hence, identifying the effect of model, students are assigned particular roles to take on for a par-
extrinsic and intrinsic motivations on task performance is not sys- ticular project or activity.
tematically simple: individuals may enjoy performing any activity Other studies documented some key differences between the
while they are paid (Frey, 1997). In a recent study regarding the communities of practice and communities of learners (Forte &
voluntary engagement in Wikipedia, Schroer and Hertel (2009) Bruckman, 2006). As such, Bryant, Forte, and Bruckman (2005)
found closely related conclusions and stressed that there is a interviewed nine regular contributors to Wikipedia who reported
mixture of self-interest and generativity that drives members’ that as they started contributing more and more, members of the
contributions. community would encourage anonymous contributors to register
for an account and make attributable contributions. Although dif-
ferences were found between novices and experts contributions,
1.1. Communities of F/OSS Wikipedians become interested in improving not only Wikipedia
but also the community itself. Rather than being defensive about
Recent advances in networking technology enable worldwide their words being removed or changed, Wikipedians are grateful
communication that support social interaction, cooperation, and to find that someone care enough about their page to make
collaboration for learning and knowledge building (Friedman, corrections.
2005). Ubiquitous networking has fostered the development and Further investigations into the motivations of Wikipedia con-
support of communities that form quickly in support of a particular tributors (Baytiyeh & Pfaffman, 2009) suggested another type of
cause and then disband (Shirky, 2008). Sometimes, however, join- community: a community of altruists (Table 1). In that study,
ing an online community involves being committed to participa- Wikipedia administrators (n = 115) were surveyed with open-
tion and incorporates formal knowledge integrated with informal ended comments about the reasons for their participation. A com-
practice. This frequently happens in communities that develop mon theme found was the desire to build something that will ben-
and support open source software (Lakhani & von Hippel, 2003). efit others. Unlike CoP, in which members are working in a trade or
There are many roles in F/OSS communities. Beyond the obvious to learn one, or a CoL, in which learning and succeeding in school
programming tasks like coding, testing and debugging, there are are the goals, data suggested that Wikipedians contribute largely
also needs for graphic design, translation, documentation, as well for the benefit of others.
as support and training.
One model that these F/OSS communities may follow is the
community of practice (CoP) model (Lave & Wenger, 1991). Com- 2. Theoretical framework
munities of practice are groups who ‘‘share a concern, a set of prob-
lems, or a passion about a topic, and who deepen their knowledge The primary objective of this study is to investigate motivations
and expertise in this area by interacting on an ongoing basis” for contributing to free/open source software (F/OSS) projects and
(Wenger, McDermott, & Snyder, 2002, p. 4). Group members in to learn more about the community to which contributors belong

Table 1
Motivation for participation in different types of communities.

Motivations for participation

Community of practice Community of learners Community of altruists
Learning Learn strategies/trades Learn specific topics Learn in order to share
Social Become a full-fledged participant Become a learner Attract and develop more full-fledged participants
Flow Balance challenge and skills Sense of control uncommon in many classrooms Enjoyment
Creation Create artifacts for profit or beauty Create projects Create a shared resource for the common good
Extrinsic Profit Evaluation/Grades None?
 H. Baytiyeh, J. Pfaffman / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 1345–1354 1347

to. This model may provide new insights on motivations to par- (2008) emphasized on altruistic motives when exploring the rea-
ticipate in communities in and out of classrooms. With all the sons for contribution to OSS. In lieu of tangible rewards, givers
above suggestions from different applied studies to the F/OSS, receive psychological benefits such as the satisfaction of helping
the researchers’ explanations about voluntary contribution fall or living up to some commitment (Ross-Ackerman, 1998). Being
into one or more of the following motivational related theories: altruistic provides rewards such as boosting one’s ego, enjoy-
learning, creativity, social, extrinsic, flow, and altruism. These the- ment, and community identification. Altruism is a natural part
ories served as a foundation for guiding this study and described of human nature and is exhibited in some manner by everyone
below. (Ozinga, 1999). In such a gifted setting, given the abundance of
resources, social status is not determined by what one has but
2.1. Motivation to learn by what one gives away, such is the case in the OSS community
(Raymond, 1999).
One potential motivator for the open source community mem-
bership is the desire to learn. Dewey (1915) argued that humans
3. Methods
possess an innate desire to learn. Since adults are able to identify
their needs (Knowles, 1980; Wentzel, 1994), they may engage in
3.1. Instrumentation
learning situations to meet a specific goal (Wlodkowski, 1989).
One type of learning that may occur in the contribution process
The instrument was based on questionnaires employed in pre-
to F/OSS is to discover the strategies and methods involved in
vious studies (Baytiyeh & Pfaffman, 2009; Hars & Ou, 2002; Pfaff-
the process of participation.
man & Schwartz, 2003; Wu, Gerlach, & Young, 2007) related to
motivational factors in online communities. Along with questions
2.2. Motivation to create
related to demographic characteristics, the survey included open-
ended questions investigating the reasons behind joining the OSS
Another motivational factor is creating and sharing an artifact.
community, and if they remain members for the same rationale.
Constructionism, or ‘‘learning by making”, is based on this
Participants were asked if they are paid to contribute, if they are
deep-based desire of creation and innovation (Harel & Papert,
members in multiple OSS projects, the role they have inside the
1991). Open source software developers create and refine software
community as well as to rate their personal satisfaction for their
tools for others to use. The creation itself might provide satisfac-
membership in the online community. Other questions were re-
tion: from the initial stages to the completion of the project in or-
lated to the rewarding aspects of their membership as well as
der to witness the end of the course of action.
the importance of their participation.
Also, the instrument included 36 statements where participants
2.3. Social motivators
were asked to rate how important each statement is for their con-
tribution in the open source applications on a scale of 7 (1 = very
Another motivator for contributing to an OSS project may be to
poor, 7 = very strong). The items fit into six main motivational fac-
be part of a community. Individuals may be motivated partly to be-
tors: learning, social, extrinsic, creation, flow, and altruism (see Ta-
long to a community, one of the fundamental human needs (Deci,
ble 2). Examples were suggested for each statement and
Vallerand, Pelletier, & Ryan, 1991; Maslow, 1987; Ryan & Deci,
comments’ boxes were provided to allow participants to include
2000). Another social factor is sharing knowledge where the main
their own comment to help us know what the item means to them,
purpose is the benefit of the whole community by helping others
these open-ended comments were used to better illustrate the
(Lindenberg, 2001).
quantitative findings.
2.4. Extrinsic motivators
3.2. Procedure
There may be extrinsic motivators to contribute to F/OSS pro-
jects. The most obvious one is that people develop F/OSS tools to In November 2008, a first call for participation was sent online
meet their own needs or accomplish work. Von Hippel (1988) to eight different groups of contributors to OSS projects: Moodle
found that participants have strong incentives to create solutions developers, Moodle translators, Moodle forum, OpenOffice.org
to their particular needs. Also, Lerner and Triole (2000) identified developers, OpenOffice.org education, Koha developers, LimeSur-
two types of payoff for contributions, an immediate payoff (e.g., vey developers, and Mozilla developers. When means for personal
ability to use the product) and a delayed payoff (e.g., potential fu- contact was available (e.g., the Moodle developers’ site has ‘‘talk
ture rewards in terms of recognition and reputation). Likewise, pages” that allow leaving personal messages for its 149 active par-
one’s social stature within the F/OSS community can be related ticipants) potential participants were contacted directly.
to the performance in the group’s activity. Moodle’s online development community listed 149 develop-
ers, 159 translators, and 20 members in the forum – a discussion
2.5. Flow motivators board where members can post and reply to messages. For other
projects, a list of participants was not publicly available. As a
Another motivator may be the desire to be in a state of flow proxy, we counted the number of unique contributors to the mail-
(Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003). Aspects of flow like loosing ing list over a month’s time; we found 70 active developers in
track of time when people are completely engaged in an activity or OpenOffice.org, 5 in OpenOffice.org Education, 51 in Koha, 22 in
having ones’ ability and level of challenge in balance. Being com- Limesurvey, and 27 in Mozilla.
mitted to F/OSS may be challenging and therefore a flow state The call for participation was sent again 4 weeks later and the
might be attained by contributors. final sample was 110 participants who completed the question-
naire; data from partially completed surveys were discarded. The
2.6. Altruism motivators 110 participants were distributed as followed: Moodle developers
(38), Moodle translators (19), Moodle Forum (7), OpenOffice devel-
One more motivator indicated in a previous study of Wikipe- opers (18), OpenOffice Education (3), Koha developers (12), Lime-
dia is altruism (Baytiyeh & Pfaffman, 2009). Also, Oreg and Nov survey developers (9), and Mozilla developers (4).
1348 H. Baytiyeh, J. Pfaffman / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 1345–1354

Table 2
Mean and standard deviation of the 36 items.

Statement Example Mean Deviation

Learning Read about my areas of interest One reason I like contributing to the Linux kernel is that it allows me to keep learning new 4.81 1.82
things about Ethernet hardware
Know about dates, places, people, things I like knowing details about the Linux kernel like which file each networking function is 3.43 1.83
defined in and who maintains each network driver
Learn about tools Working on Linux has allowed me to learn different tools for managing source code 5.01 1.69
management
Learn strategies and methods in this Working with Linux helps me learn how to write code that others can understand and 4.93 1.66
project modify
Know the little-known facts and stories I enjoy knowing the infrastructure of Linux and the history of the various forks that the 3.41 1.85
around online communities networking code has gone through to get to the current version
For my personal growth Contributing to the Linux kernel allows me to grow as a programmer and member of the 5.47 1.58
team that develops it
Extrinsic Increase academic or professional Part of why I contribute to the kernel is that it provides evidence of my programming skills 4.78 1.82
success for potential future employers
Extrinsic2:Be better than others I like it when my Linux patches are accepted instead of those of other programmers 2.76 1.71
Extrinsic3:Enter competitions with I try to get my patches submitted quickly and try to see that I have more lines of code in the 2.15 1.47
others official kernel than others
Extrinsic4:Do something that few others I like contributing to Linux because not many people know how to write device drivers 3.75 1.96
know how to do
Extrinsic5:Gain social stature I like contributing to Linux because it increases my respect in the kernel development 3.38 1.71
community
Extrinsic6:I need this part of the I contribute to Linux when my clients need particular bugs fixed 4.90 2.00
application
Social Social1:Be liked People like me better because I contribute to the Linux project 2.78 1.78
Social2:Share what I know I like working on Linux because it gives me a chance to share my programming techniques 5.27 1.52
with others
Social3:Belong to a group Part of why I contribute to the kernel is that I like to be a part of a group of kernel 3.90 1.81
developers
Social4:Help others appreciate or I like to help the new contributors to the kernel learning how to make their code fit in with 4.52 1.88
participate the standards and conventions we use
Social5:Use this project to stimulate When people learn that I am a kernel developer, they are often interested in talking about it 3.00 1.83
conversation
Social6:Commitment to the project One of the things that sustains my work on the kernel is my commitment to seeing it 4.46 1.91
community continue to improve
Creation See fruits of labor Seeing a formerly buggy driver that I have debugged pass stress tests is very satisfying 5.07 1.52
Adjust or personalize methods One of the things I like about Linux is that I can configure it to fit my specific needs 4.19 1.96
Express myself Contributing to Linux gives me an opportunity to express my ideas by improving an 3.80 1.89
existing component in the project
Find or create something new or rare I take great satisfaction in contributing to drivers for cutting edge hardware 4.74 1.93
Nurture or sustain to completion or I work on coding for a new driver until it is completely bug-free 4.34 1.71
maturity
See my work/achievements I like knowing that others are benefitting from code that I wrote 4.96 1.73
Flow Feel time change It is sometimes surprising to realize that I’ve spent 8 h working on a problem when it seems 2.95 1.76
like I just started
Feel a sense of control I like working on Linux because I am who decides what I will work on next 3.45 1.96
Overcome new challenges At first I looked to find small bugs, but now I’m working at writing code for new devices 4.40 1.84
from scratch
Do something as an end in itself Though coding does result in a tangible product, for me the act of writing code itself is what 3.48 1.83
I value
Have clear goals and feedback I like programming because I can always find a new bug to work on and I can tell when it’s 3.71 1.87
fixed
Fun/enjoyment When I’m bored it’s fun to look at the bug reports and start writing code to fix it 4.65 1.90
Altruism Working for the greater good I contribute to the kernel so that everyone can enjoy a more stable operating system 5.51 1.62
Personal belief in open source software I work on the kernel to support the open source software movement 5.84 1.52
Provide something valuable to others I work on the the Linux kernel to help make computing more affordable all over the world 5.74 1.39
Improve the quality of free software I contribute to Linux so that everyone has free access to high quality software 5.55 1.56
Leave a legacy Working on Linux allows me to leave the world in a better place 4.03 1.94
Help others I like to assist others by answering questions to the newsgroups 5.35 1.50

4. Factors to participate in F/OSS Of the 110 respondents, 61% had been involved in F/OSS pro-
jects for at least 3 years; some (43%) also contributed to OSS pro-
4.1. Who contributes to F/OSS? jects that were not targeted in this study such as Apache, Debian,
Drupal, Gentoo, Joomla, Seamonkey, Thunderbird, Ubuntu, and
The respondents were mostly male (92%), 63% were 18– Linux. Most (70%) reported that contributing to the project is
35 years old, and the majority (83%) had at least Bachelors degrees ‘‘rewarding” or ‘‘very rewarding.” Their occupations included soft-
(see Table 3). These results are consistent with previous studies of ware developers (37%), teachers/professors (23%), consultants
F/OSS developers in terms of gender, age, and education level (Hars (17%), project managers (15%) and a few students (6%). Approxi-
& Ou, 2002; Hertel, Niedner, & Herrmann, 2003; Krishnamurthy, mately, 1/3 of the respondents contributed to F/OSS as part of their
2002; Lakhani & Wolf, 2005). employment; the rest were strictly volunteers. One set of questions
 H. Baytiyeh, J. Pfaffman / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 1345–1354 1349

Table 3 Although the Scree test may work well with strong factors, it
Participants’ demographics and their activity in F/OSS projects. suffers from subjectivity and ambiguity (Hayton, Allen, & Scarpello,
Frequency Percentage 2004; O’Connor, 2000). Therefore, Horn’s (1965) Parallel Analysis
Gender Male 101 91.8 (PA) strategy was used for deciding the appropriate number of fac-
Female 9 8.2 tors to retain (Hayton et al., 2004; O’Connor, 2000; Zwick & Velicer,
Age 18–25 14 12.7 1986). PA involves the construction of a number of correlation
26–35 55 50 matrices of random variables based on the same sample size and
36–45 24 21.8 number of variables in the real data set.
46–55 11 10 The average eigenvalues from the random correlation matrices
56–64 2 1.8
64+ 4 3.6
are then compared to the eigenvalues from the real data correla-
tion matrix. Only factors corresponding to actual eigenvalues that
Education level High school 4 3.6
Technical degree 14 12.7
are greater than the parallel average random eigenvalues should
Bachelors 43 39.1 be retained and the others should be discarded (Glorfeld, 1995;
Masters 38 34.5 Horn, 1965; Zwick & Velicer, 1986). PA supports retaining the five
Ph. D. 11 10 factors whose actual eigenvalues are greater than the randomly
Occupation Developer 41 37.3 generated eigenvalues (see Table 4).
Consultant 19 17.3 After ensuring that only five factors should be retained, a confir-
Student 6 5.5
matory FA with the principal component extraction method was
Teacher/Professor 25 22.7
Project Manager 17 15.5 re-applied to the 36 items to extract five factors and the correspon-
Retired 2 1.8 dent items that fall under each factor. Typically, researchers take a
Number of years of contribution <1 6 5.5 loading of an absolute value of more than .3 to be important. How-
to the project 1–3 61 55.5 ever, the significance of a factor loading depends on the sample
4–6 37 33.6 size. Following Stevens’ table of critical values, with a sample size
>6 6 5.5 of 110 participants, the loading should be greater than .5 (Field,
Number of hours/week working 1–2 30 27.3 2005; Stevens, 2002). Consequently, the rotated varimax extrac-
on the project 3–5 26 23.6 tion of five factors generated 28 items and accounted for 56.4%
6–10 16 14.5
11–20 15 13.6
of the total variance (see Table 5). The remaining 8 of the 36 items
>20 23 20.9 were lower that .5 and did not load under any factor. The empty
How rewarding is to contribute I don’t know 5 4.5
cells in the table mean that the factor loadings of the items were
to the project Unrewarding 5 4.5 less than .5. When an item is loaded under two factors, the highest
Not very rewarding 3 2.7 loading was accounted.
Sort of rewarding 20 18.2 Five new variables were computed based on the mean of the
Rewarding 40 36.4
items falling under each factor. Cronbach’s alpha was calculated
Very rewarding 37 33.6
for each one of the obtained factors showing the altruism motiva-
Paid to participate in the project Yes 38 34.5
tor with (.851), the learning motivator with (.844), the flow moti-
No 72 65.5
vator with (.875), the extrinsic motivator with (.785), and the
Contributing to other OSS Yes 47 42.72
creation motivator with (.706).
No 63 57.28
A one-way repeated measures ANOVA indicated significant dif-
ferences among the five factor scores, (F(4, 436) = 99.02, p < .001).
Table 6 shows altruism as the most powerful motivator for partic-
was about how respondents spend time on various activities that ipation followed by the creation factor and the learning factor. The
comprised their work on the project. Writing and debugging code flow and extrinsic factors appear to have the lowest importance for
was the primary activity; more than half (60%) spend an average of participation in F/OSS. The Post hoc tests using Bonferroni indi-
4 h/week on code editing. Approximately 75% of respondents cated that all differences are significant (p < .05) except for creation
spend nearly as much time (3 h/week) providing support for users and learning which are nearly equal.
through newsgroups, mailing-lists, or message boards. Other activ-
ities included translation, proofreading documentation, quality
assurance, usability testing, designing new modules/features, 5. Discussion of the factor analysis findings
updating the website, project management, and fund raising.
A potential problem with survey data is the danger that respon-
4.2. Why do people contribute to F/OSS? dents will not understand the questions as intended. The survey in-
cluded examples for each statement (see Table 2) with specific
The survey included 36 statements that reflect potential moti- boxes asking participants to provide their own example or com-
vational factors. Descriptive statistics were calculated to obtain ment to help us know what the item means to them. To confirm
the measures of central tendency as well as the measures of vari-
ability of each of the identified items (see Table 2). Table 4
To see which items are connected, an exploratory factor analy- Real data, random data, and the 95th percentile of the random data.
sis (FA) was employed in order to determine which of the 36 items
Real data eigenvalue Mean PA eigenvalue 95th percentile eigenvalue
formed related subsets (Kim & Mueller, 1978; Rummel, 1970;
Tabachnick & Fidell, 2007; Thurstone, 1945). The Exploratory FA 11.730 1.721 1.806
3.020 1.629 1.695
yielded to eight factors with eigenvalues greater than 1.00. 2.150 1.561 1.620
Another commonly used method for determining the number of 1.770 1.504 1.552
factors to retain is Cattell’s (1966) scree test. After inspection of the 1.653 1.422 1.495
Scree-plot, the eigenvalues appears to form discontinuities at the 1.401 1.420 1.446
1.260 1.36 1.398
5th component (Cattell & Jaspers, 1967), which suggests extracting
1.075 1.318 1.356
no more than five factors.
1350 H. Baytiyeh, J. Pfaffman / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 1345–1354

Table 5
Extraction method: principal component analysis. Rotation method: varimax with kaiser normalization.

Statements Altruism Learning Flow Extrinsic Creation

Altruism3: Provide something valuable to others .797
Altruism1: Working for the greater good .792
Altruism6: Help others .723
Altruism2: Personal belief in open source software .710
Altruism4: Improve the quality of free software .665
Social4: Help others appreciate or participate .512
Learn1: Read about my areas of interest .763
Learn3: Learn about tools .755
Learn4: Learn strategies and methods in this project .686
Learn6: Personal growth .663
Learn2: Know about dates, places, people, things .639
Learn5: Know the little-known facts and stories around online communities .555
Social2: Share what I know .504
Flow4: Do something as an end in itself .786
Flow1: Feel time change .700
Flow5: Have clear goals and feedback .667
Flow3: Overcome new challenges .649
Flow2: Feel a sense of control .628
Creation4: Find or create something new or rare .525
Extrinsic5: Gain social stature .802
Social1: Be liked .793
Extrinsic2: Be better than others .553
Extrinsic3: Enter competitions with others .543
Extrinsic4: Do something that few others know how to do .508
Creation1: See fruits of labor .685
Extrinsic6: I need this part of the application .680
Creation2: Adjust or personalize methods .552
Creation5: Nurture or sustain to completion or maturity .527

Table 6 other pattern found was ‘‘making O/SS a better product.” Consis-
Estimated Marginal Means of Motivation on a scale of ‘‘7”. tent with Stallman’s (1999) vision of OSS as a social movement,
Motivation Mean Std. error 95% confidence interval one contributor reported:
Lower bound Upper bound Lower bound Upper bound I believe in the premise that education and learning should not
Altruism 5.417 .115 5.190 5.644 be restricted simply due to their financial inability to access
Creation 4.625 .123 4.380 4.870 quality learning information and requisite software necessary
Learning 4.615 .116 4.384 4.845 for gaining the lifelong skills needed for progressing in today’s
Flow 3.786 .140 3.509 4.063
society. open source software can play a valuable role in provid-
Extrinsic 2.965 .121 2.725 3.206
ing learners the skills they need to achieve this.

Participants contribute to F/OSS because they desire to help

the findings of these motivational indicators and to provide better others by giving something back to the community and help those
understanding of the Likert-scaled statements grouped under the less fortunate. Some typical comments were ‘‘it’s not much of a
five categories derived from the FA, a constant comparative analy- community if nobody helps each other”, and ‘‘I know lots of stu-
sis of the comments was conducted for each of the 36 items (aver- dents who need good software but cannot afford the commercial
age 20 comments per item). After examination of the comments products, so if I can help produce something useful to them, it is
provided for all the items, only seven comments were identified worthwhile.”
as not related to the allied factors and were ignored. The five cat-
5.2. Creation
egories are expanded below reflecting the participants’ perceptions
of each factor.
The second highest-rated motivation was valuing the creation
of a publicly sharable artifact. The act of creation itself might pro-
5.1. Altruism vide satisfaction to nurture or sustain to completion or maturity,
from the initial stages to the completion of the project in order
Contributors to F/OSS participate partly out of a sense of altru- to witness the end of the course of action. Some participants noted
ism (Hoffman, 1981; Mauss, 1959; Ross-Ackerman, 1998). To pro- that they ‘‘love to support someone and hear that solutions are
vide something valuable to others was rated mostly highly. Some working”, and ‘‘it feels good to see my code accepted by the pro-
comments were ‘‘the fact that anybody can benefit from my efforts, ject.” Also, contributors liked to create something new they need
not just a proprietary vendor’s customers, is very important”, and as a part of the application and to adjust or personalize, ‘‘I like
‘‘I feel that I am benefiting mankind when I can share knowledge knowing I have made a difference in the application that I need”,
with others.” and ‘‘I like being that first one to make this part of the application.”
Also, contributors value the greater good restating comments
like ‘‘I suppose that open source software contributes to a better 5.3. Learning
world”, ‘‘good tools are a benefit to the whole of humanity.” Some
developers participate in F/OSS as a personal belief in the open The desire to learn was similarly strong as the desire to create.
source software and to improve the quality of free software. An- An indication of the desire to learn is that participants rated
 H. Baytiyeh, J. Pfaffman / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 1345–1354 1351

reading highly, one explained ‘‘reading the documentation care- 6. Does getting paid change ones’ desires?
fully helps me to learn more about the capabilities of the software”,
and ‘‘learning is key, learning about the product and about the There is considerable evidence that providing extrinsic rewards
people.” for pleasurable activities can reduce interest in these activities
Other types of learning that come about by contributing to F/ once the possibility of reward is removed (Deci, Koestner, & Ryan,
OSS projects are learning about tools and learning strategies and 2001). This analysis looks at whether respondents who participate
methods involved in the process of participation. A typical com- in F/OSS projects as part of their jobs have different satisfactions
ment ‘‘I’ve learned huge amounts about software development as from those who contribute purely out of their own volition.
a result of this project, and involvement in the development of Thirty-eight participants (35%) were paid to participate in the tar-
new versions keeps me up to date with current development tools geted F/OSS projects. Respondents came to be paid contributors to
and techniques.” OSS projects in several ways. Many of these paid F/OSS contribu-
Learning by sharing ideas is another common pattern in the tors started working on the projects for free and as a result of their
comments. People contribute to share what they know as evi- recognition inside the community, they were offered a job with a
denced by comments like ‘‘Sharing what I know with others is very company that depends on open source tool, or found work as a
important to me because I learn more”, and ‘‘I enjoy realizing there consultant to support or customize an application. Other paid par-
are so many people willing to share their time and expertise.” ticipants were students who were working on a project as part of
an assistantship.
To check for differences in motivation between those paid to
5.4. Flow
work on OSS projects (n = 38) and those who are strictly volunteers
(n = 72), independent-samples t-tests were conducted for each of
The flow-driven motivation comes after the learning factor sig-
the five motivation factors – Altruism, Creation, Learning, Flow,
nificance. Flow can arise when the challenge of the task matches
and Extrinsic. No significant differences were found between the
the contributors’ skills (Nakamura & Csikszentmihalyi, 2003). Con-
paid and the unpaid participants in any of the five motivators
tributors to F/OSS considered doing something as an end in itself
(see Table 7). The Altruism factor revealed no significance with
and having clear goals and feedback as reasons for their participa-
(t(108) = 1.597, p > .05), the creation factor (t(108) = 1.479,
tion in F/OSS, providing comments like ‘‘developing software from
p > .05), the learning factor (t(108) = .314, p > .05), the flow factor
analysis to implementation is an application of human problem
(t(108) = 1.033, p > .05), and the extrinsic factor (t(108) = .175,
solving, which itself is akin to breathing.” Overcoming new chal-
p > .05).
lenges was another factor of flow that participants expressed
‘‘without a challenge it wouldn’t be any fun.” Also, the feeling of
time change appears to be a part of fun and enjoyment, as some
7. Why do F/OSS members continue to contribute?
participants expressed that ‘‘it’s fun because I don’t feel the time-
if it was not fun, I would not participate.”
Contributors form communities that write programming code,
translate text for use in other spoken languages, and write docu-
5.5. Extrinsic mentation. In Lave and Wenger’s (1991) communities of practice,
learning is embedded in the activity, context, and culture of a com-
Table 7 shows that the extrinsic factor was not rated as signif- munity. Their work showed that participants become more profi-
icant with the related aspects indicating social stature, being better cient through their practice and that social interaction is a
than others, or possessing powerful qualifications inside the com- critical component of learning. Ten open-ended questions (listed
munity as not very important to F/OSS contributors. Comments in in Table 8) solicited respondents’ perceptions about their member-
this factor were like ‘‘I usually don’t care who’s patch gets accepted ship and roles in these communities. These questions were in-
as long the work gets done, I get more satisfaction from helping cluded to provide insight into these F/OSS community practices.
others learn”, and ‘‘even if you write better code, it doesn’t make The open-ended responses were analyzed inductively using the
‘you’ better than somebody else. This attitude is detrimental to a constant comparative method (Bodgan & Biklen, 2007) to verify the
community of contributors.” Contributors reported that these analysis of the motivations indicators. The data were coded for the
items are unethical to supporting a productive community, ‘‘[com- key points and patterns related to questions about the motivations
petition] is not really a good attitude for a collaborative codebase”, for contributing to open source software. The keys were organized
and ‘‘Team work is more important and I place project success over into categories addressing the goals of contributing code, becoming
personal distinction.” members of online communities, and maintaining their member-

Table 7
Independent sample test comparing the unpaid and the paid participants for the five factors.

Motivation Type of contribution N Mean Std. deviation Std. error mean Independent sample test
T Mean Difference
Altruism Unpaid 72 5.55 1.165 .137 1.597 .382
Paid 38 5.17 1.244 .202
Creation Unpaid 72 4.49 1.335 .157 1.479 .382
Paid 38 4.88 1.194 .194
Learning Unpaid 72 4.64 1.143 .135 .314 .077
Paid 38 4.57 1.367 .222
Flow Unpaid 72 3.89 1.506 .178 1.033 .303
Paid 38 3.59 1.382 .224
Extrinsic Unpaid 72 2.95 1.375 .162 .175 .045
Paid 38 2.99 1.066 .173
1352 H. Baytiyeh, J. Pfaffman / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 1345–1354

Table 8 The initial role of participants in these communities was often

Open-ended questions included in the survey. to solve a particular problem with software, but joining and work-
Open-ended questions ing in the community was why they persisted. Members also de-
1 What caused you to start contributing to this project? sire to have a positive impact on the lives of others as
2 Do you keep participating for the same reason? If not, please explain exemplified by this Moodle contributor:
3 Are you paid to participate in this project? If so, please explain (e.g., by
whom, how big a part of your job this project is) I hope to see the world change for the better for children in
4 In what ways is working on this project rewarding? developing countries – see teachers overcoming their barriers
5 Of the things that motivate you to contribute to this project, which one is is rewarding, see teachers overcome barriers for their students,
the most important for you? see students able to learn no matter their circumstances, see
6 Please describe what you do for this project
7 Please describe how you first contributed to this project
students becoming engaged with their learning by helping their
8 Are you in a specific role that is widely recognized by other contributors teachers to become open to new technologies – very rewarding.
to this project? How did that happen?
9 What do you do to encourage others to participate in this project?
10 What are some issues and concerns that you have about this project?
7.2. Embracing liberty

ship. Authors conducted inter-rater reliability checks on the Another reason for participating in F/OSS projects and remain-
answers provided from the open-ended questions. Answers were ing in the community was the freedom. They expressed two senses
rated independently using keys, and an agreement was defined of freedom that they valued. The first was the freedom to contrib-
as both raters’ recording that the same answer was under the same ute their efforts however and whenever they choose. Raymond
key. Coders reached a satisfactory Kappa of .80 inter-rater (1999) documented the importance of creative communities free
reliability. of the power relationships of the workplace that can inhibit open
Themes that emerged include: ‘‘building a Utopian commu- communication and creativity. This type of freedom was also val-
nity”, ‘‘embracing liberty”, and ‘‘sharing intelligence.” These ued by these respondents who exercise their freedom by contribut-
themes are expanded below using illustrative quotes and examples ing to the modules they choose and on their own availability,
from the participants’ comments. ‘‘you’ll have no pressure on you, so you do only what you want
and where you want, you don’t have any schedule. Achieving
something and you get some sort of reward.” The second, more
7.1. Building a Utopian community altruistic, sense of freedom was that F/OSS can help to free others
from the tyranny of proprietary software and the companies that
Computer mediated communication can obscure race, ethnic- profit from it. For example, ‘‘I’m doing this work for free . . . other
ity, and social class (Friedman, 2005). The OSS communities that people can have it free”, and ‘‘open source is one of the world pro-
we studied seem to welcome any member, and offer considerable ject to provide free software for everyone, I feel better to contribute
mobility among roles and positions, since no one distributes the to all people instead of a few who have big wallets.”
tasks. This community is inclusive worldwide. As such, the The communities that these respondents described are consis-
respondents’ email addresses in Moodle community – which tent with previous findings. Open source communities are multi-
was the most represented in this study – reflected the distribution faceted; the network is not just the Internet, but contributors
and the cultural diversity (e.g. members were from Spain, Austra- form a distributed, loosely coupled, peer-to-peer network (Ray-
lia, Jordan, UK, Canada, USA, and other countries as well.) The mond, 1999). This structure provides support from experts around
open nature of OSS communities resemble are consistent with the world. Participants value being a member of a free community
Welton’s (2005) definition of a ‘Utopian’ community with the rec- with no boundaries; they love F/OSS because it is open.
ognition that human beings have the capacity of self-determina- Contributors’ connection to the community is also demon-
tion and self-expression. The concept of ‘Utopia’ generally circles strated in their choice of pronouns. They answer not only for them-
around ideas of the good society or the perfect society. Many the- selves but also as representatives of a community, ‘‘We want to
orists treat Utopia as the motivation for change (e.g., Mannheim, become independent from big software companies that provide
1936) or the obstacle to it (e.g., Marx & Engels, 1968). We use a bad services for a lot of money”, ‘‘we like the thought that others
broad definition, where ‘Utopia’ is understood as the expression will benefit from our development work – especially those who
of the desire for a better way of living, a place and time where otherwise couldn’t afford a system, e.g. charities, libraries in poorer
equality and freedom converge to liberate human creativity (Lev- countries.”
itas, 2004).
When asked about how members took on particular roles, the 7.3. Sharing intelligence
most frequent answer was that participants join the community
to help. Others choose to work in areas that best exploited their Respondents also valued that developing F/OSS allows their
expertise. For example, some translate materials to their native intelligence to have impacts beyond the immediate environment.
language, others maintain the project website, improve accessibil- In contrast to developing proprietary software in a context that re-
ity, or test usability. One participant stated ‘‘I don’t have a specific quires non-disclosure, OSS allows one’s code and the procedures
role; I am just a team member helping where I can help.” Another that are used to have a broader benefit to society. Many partici-
participant established a particular function ‘‘I created that role. I pants valued the fact of sharing with the community. The shared
volunteered to start a sub-community site.” nature of learning and experience is another reason to be a mem-
Another motivator is the commitment to give back to the com- ber of an open source community. Respondents reported ‘‘now I
munity (Hoffman, 1981). When asked why they continue to partic- keep participating because I like helping people with some prob-
ipate, respondents consistently indicated that they valued lems related to the software I wrote and determine how best to
community support, or ‘‘the community spirit.” A typical comment share that code with the community”, and ‘‘I continue to partici-
was ‘‘I used it, needed help, went to the community to get the help. pate because I enjoy sharing with the community and helping
Once I understood more, I contributed back by helping new users other teachers make effective use of technology for educational
coming on board.” purposes.”
 H. Baytiyeh, J. Pfaffman / Computers in Human Behavior 26 (2010) 1345–1354 1353

Another kind of sharing is collaboration. These comments show

how participants found making friends (Maslow, 1987) and coop-
erating with dedicated people worldwide gratifying ‘‘Getting to
work with extremely talented people is important, I learned more
while working and in cooperation with other community mem-
bers”, and ‘‘being in touch with ‘GREAT’ people both personally
and professionally is rewarding.”

8. Limitations and recommendations

One of the limitations of this study is that the number of Fig. 1. Motivations to contribute in F/OSS community.

respondents was self-selected, and a larger sample would have of-

fered more support for the findings. The respondents were only a
contribute to the OSS projects. Moreover, the open-ended ques-
subset of possible F/OSS communities from relatively large pro-
tions showed that participants maintain their membership in the
jects, so they might not be representative of the general F/OSS pop-
OSS communities to participate in a ‘Utopian’ community, freeing
ulation. In contrast to the large and well-known projects we
the world from proprietary software, and sharing learning and
investigated, many F/OSS projects are small with few participants
experience with other members.
(Crowston & Howison, 2004; Krishnamurthy, 2002, 2005) so the
Taken together, the Likert-scaled items and the open-ended
motivations of community might be different for them. Also, the
questions indicate that these groups are driven largely by altruism
open-ended questions, though useful for answering the initial
and a sense of devotion to build a Utopian community within the F/
questions of this study, were not detailed enough to provide a
OSS movement (Fig. 1). They work for ‘‘the greater good” and fre-
complete understanding of individual contributors’ motivations
quently indicated that they value the potential for their efforts to
and the nature of these communities.
benefit people everywhere. The similarity in the motivations be-
To better understand the degree to which these communities
tween those who developed F/OSS as part of their jobs and those
are indeed cross-cultural and open to all, more data are needed
who were strictly volunteers is further evidence that contributing
about participants. These communities seem open based on the
to these projects is due to a desire to give rather than to gain some
respondents’ comments. However, the majority of the participants
immediate reward.
were male and college-educated. It would be helpful to know more
Some may be surprised to learn that these participants were dri-
about how and whether gender, language, education, and social
ven mostly by altruistic values where they are giving code, informa-
stature may affect membership in ways for our data to identify.
tion, and expertise away, while also helping outsiders and new
A longitudinal study of similar participants’ identity develop-
arrivals to come on board or to solve F/OSS technical problems.
ment inside the community would provide a deeper understanding
These values though may be indicative of a new generation’s values.
of F/OSS projects and how participants’ roles progress over time to
Participants expressed a strong desire to help people worldwide.
see how and whether these communities of altruists are different
Many wanted to ensure that education is available to everyone,
from other types of communities of learners.
regardless of financial ability, and to help provide the software nec-
It would also be interesting to examine the perceptions of some
essary for people to gain the lifelong skills needed to succeed.
participants who were members in these F/OSS communities but
We suggest that these OSS communities represent a community
have stopped participating to understand whether the community
of altruists. Communities of altruists resemble to the communities
somehow failed to support their continued participation or
of practice (Wenger et al., 2002) and shape the three key elements:
whether external factors caused them to leave the community.
the domain, the need for free and open software for everyone
Surveys or interviews with ex-members provides insight about
everywhere; the community, where members have the willingness
weaknesses and shortcomings these communities might have
to share experience and learning; and practice, which is mani-
and consequently helps researchers understand to what extent
fested by the set of tools, ideas, and language that members use
the F/OSS community can be called a ‘Utopian’ community.
to communicate.
From this study we have only hints of how communities of altru-
9. Conclusion ists operate. We hypothesize that in software development, they
may be more likely to exist around large-scale projects like those
For Aristotle, human beings’ lives become whole through included here rather than small projects that include fewer than
expanding and exercising their mental capacity. People enter the 20 active participants. Although those we studied are connected pri-
public sphere where they can live, talk together, and recognize their marily via email and mailing-lists, members also share knowledge in
commonality with others. Members in the community develop and the programs they develop and the inner workings of the code that
exercise practical knowledge through deliberation within the con- generate the software. Members often come to the group to solve
text of particular problems and accomplishments (Welton, 2005). a specific problem, but remain involved because they come to value
F/OSS communities are a model of a community free from cor- each other as peers and learning partners. Finally, we would like to
porate boundaries and open to a worldwide community. Without learn more about the development process of communities of altru-
intrinsically motivated contributors, cooperation in such commu- ists. Though these communities appear to grow spontaneously, they
nities cannot be maintained since they are the members who pro- may require leadership at multiple levels to help build community
tect the community against exploitation by purely extrinsically and foster effective knowledge building.
motivated participants seeking for a self-interest opportunity. Con-
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