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Eight Observations and 24 Research Questions About Open Source Projects: Illuminating New Realities

Published: 01 November 2018 Publication History

Abstract

The rapid acceleration of corporate engagement with open source projects is drawing out new ways for CSCW researchers to consider the dynamics of these projects. Research must now consider the complex ecosystems within which open source projects are situated, including issues of for-profit motivations, brokering foundations, and corporate collaboration. Localized project considerations cannot reveal broader workings of an open source ecosystem, yet much empirical work is constrained to a local context. In response, we present eight observations from our eight-year engaged field study about the changing nature of open source projects. We ground these observations through 24 research questions that serve as primers to spark research ideas in this new reality of open source projects. This paper contributes to CSCW in social and crowd computing by delivering a rich and fresh look at corporately-engaged open source projects with a call for renewed focus and research into newly emergent areas of interest.

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                cover image Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction
                Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer Interaction  Volume 2, Issue CSCW
                November 2018
                4104 pages
                EISSN:2573-0142
                DOI:10.1145/3290265
                Issue’s Table of Contents
                This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution International 4.0 License.

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                Association for Computing Machinery

                New York, NY, United States

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                Published: 01 November 2018
                Published in PACMHCI Volume 2, Issue CSCW

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                1. corporate-communal engagement
                2. open source
                3. tales from the field

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