Article

Identifying Success and Tragedy of FLOSS Commons: A Preliminary Classification of Sourceforge.net Projects

Authors:

Robert English,

Charles M. SchweikAuthors Info & Claims

FLOSS '07: Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Emerging Trends in FLOSS Research and Development

Page 11

https://doi.org/10.1109/FLOSS.2007.9

Published: 20 May 2007 Publication History

Abstract

Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FLOSS) projects are a form of commons where individuals work collectively to produce software that is a public, rather than a private, good. The famous phrase "Tragedy of the Commons" describes a situation where a natural resource commons, such as a pasture, or a water supply, gets depleted because of overuse. The tragedy in FLOSS commons is distinctly different -- it occurs when collective action ceases before a software product is produced or reaches its full potential. This paper builds on previous work about defining success in FLOSS projects by taking a collective action perspective. We first report the results of interviews with FLOSS developers regarding our ideas about success and failure in FLOSS projects. Building on those interviews and previous work, we then describe our criteria for defining success/tragedy in FLOSS commons. Finally, we discuss the results of a preliminary classification of nearly all projects hosted on Sourceforge.net as of August 2006.

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Identifying Success and Tragedy of FLOSS Commons: A Preliminary Classification of Sourceforge.net Projects

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FLOSS '07: Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Emerging Trends in FLOSS Research and Development

May 2007

61 pages

ISBN:0769529615

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IEEE Computer Society

United States

Publication History

Published: 20 May 2007

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Wen JYuan DMa LChen H(2024)Code Ownership in Open-Source AI Software SecurityProceedings of the 2nd International Workshop on Responsible AI Engineering10.1145/3643691.3648586(28-35)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3643691.3648586
Frluckaj HQiu HVasilescu BDabbish LGraziotin DNolte A(2024)From the Inside Out: Organizational Impact on Open-Source Communities and Women's RepresentationProceedings of the 2024 IEEE/ACM 17th International Conference on Cooperative and Human Aspects of Software Engineering10.1145/3641822.3641875(36-50)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2024
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3641822.3641875
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(2016)Open source project successThe Journal of Strategic Information Systems10.1016/j.jsis.2016.02.00625:3(159-176)Online publication date: 1-Oct-2016
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Foushee BKrein JWu JBuck RKnutson CPratt LMacLean Ada Silva FJuristo NTravassos G(2013)Reflexivity, Raymond, and the success of open source software developmentProceedings of the 17th International Conference on Evaluation and Assessment in Software Engineering10.1145/2460999.2461036(246-251)Online publication date: 14-Apr-2013
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Radtke NJanssen MWainer GShaffer CMcGraw RChinni M(2009)Consumption and production of digital public goods modeling the impact of different success metricsProceedings of the 2009 Spring Simulation Multiconference10.5555/1639809.1639836(1-7)Online publication date: 22-Mar-2009
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Beecher KCapiluppi ABoldyreff C(2009)Identifying exogenous drivers and evolutionary stages in FLOSS projectsJournal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2008.10.02682:5(739-750)Online publication date: 1-May-2009
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