James HowisonPhD Dissertation Defense

iSchool @ Syracuse University4 December 2008

Alone Together:Patterns of Collaboration in

Free and Open SourceSoftware Development

Advisor: Kevin CrowstonCommittee: Bob Heckman, Carsten Østerlund, Don Harter (B-school)Inside Reader: Steve SawyerOutside Reader: Francesco Bolici (Remote)Chair: Sumitro Bannerjee (B-school) CC Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/baggis/

Free (Libre) and Open SourceSoftware Development

• FLOSS development is a canonicalmodel of distributed work– Interesting for itself, but also for adaptation

• Research to date on Motivations ORProduction but not both together

Scope:Community-based FLOSS

• FLOSS is not one phenomenon– A license is not enough– Many hybrids with existing organizational forms

• Interested in the Something Else, thereforestudying the “pure” form:– Distributed, no center or face to face– Unpaid and non-commercial– Sourceforge hosted, set of collaboration

technologies: Email, source code repository, issuetrackers …

Overall Research Questions

1. How is successful FLOSS production organized?

2. How does this organization interact withmotivation, and thereby recruitment and retentionof developers?

3. What are the implications for the adaptation ofthe FLOSS model of organization in otherenvironments?

Structure

• Unfolding arc:– Discovery: Participant Observation

• BibDesk (RQ1 & RQ2)– Replication: Archival Study

• Fire & Gaim (RQ1)– Explanation: Rational choice model

• RQ2 and RQ3, via conditions for model

Today’s Goal:An image of FLOSS production

CC Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/anthea/

Discovery throughParticipant Observation

Task: The Container Column

How it was built

Task: “Web Groups”

https://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_id=DF0FB757-56BA-45D7-A1EA-262EB7A5B3DC@mac.comhttps://sourceforge.net/mailarchive/message.php?msg_name=7394DD78-A02E-11D7-AFC1-0003931E45D0%40mac.com

June 2003 (Email)

I really want to use this, but the conditions have never quite been right - either I waswaiting for … RSS+RDF (now looks like it'll never happen) or … an XML bibliographic fileformat … (could happen now, but I ran out of free time).

Jan 2007 (Email with patch):

It was much easier than I expected it to be because the existing groups code (and searchgroups code) was very easy to extend. Kudos - I wouldn't have tried it if so much hadn'talready been solved well.Thanks!

Discovery Findings

1. Individual work with personalmotivations

2. Layering3. Deferral

CC Credit: http://flickr.com/photos/jvk/

Theory: Interdependency

• Fundamental• Fixed• aprioi

• Emergent• “emergent property

in social systems”• (Actually socio-

technical systems)

March and Simon (1958),Mintzberg (1979),Thompson (1967), Van deVen et al (1976), Maloneand Crowston (1994)

Shea and Guzzo (1989),Wageman (1995), Wagemanand Gordon (2005), Rico andCohen (2006)

CC Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/johnwiechecki/

CC Credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ejpphoto/

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Replication: Fire and Gaim

• Specific RQs:– What proportion of work was individual?– Any evidence of productive deferral?

• Fire and Gaim– Multi-protocol instant messaging clients– Community-based open source– Similar task and collaboration infrastructure to

BibDesk

To the Archives!

The evidence is here, somewhere.

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Method

1. Identify Task Outcomes2. Search for Relevant Documents3. Recognize Actions and Participants4. Code Action by Contribution5. Classify Task

Types of Contribution

• Management Work• Review Work• Production Work

– Core Production Work– Polishing Production Work

• Documentation work• Supporting work

Classification

1. Find Production Type– Solo, or– Polished Solo, or– Co-work.

2. Add other tags+ Reviewed, and+ Supported, and+ Managed.

Classification Results

Illustrative Co-work

Illustrative Individual Work

30 (of 106) tasks consisted of a single Action: Core Production

Evidence for Deferral

An image of FLOSS production

• Work is done in Tasks that are– Individual– Short– Layered– Spontaneously supported

• Complex work is often deferred– Until it is easier

Other types of work build on this base

Answering overallDissertation RQs

• RQ1: organization of FLOSS– The image presented today

• RQ2: interaction with motivation– Co-evolved socio-technical fit between motivation,

organization and collaboration technologies– Rational Choice Model explores expectancy-

valance motivational model– Co-work multiplies risks

Adaptation (RQ3)

• Empirical studies and Model help build aframework used to assess difficulties ofadaptation. eg:– Layerable, with ‘stackable’ incentives– Ultra-Low Instantiation and Distribution Costs

• Using the same technologies and licenses notsufficient!

Contributions I

• Information Systems– Empirically grounded socio-technical theory of IS

development and distributed teams, IT artifactsplay important roles.

• Organizational Science– Identification and description of a novel

organizational form– Empirical evidence of low-interdependency

complex work– Deferral may have wider applicability

Contributions II

• Methodology– Concepts and Method for reconstructing work from archives

• Teaching– Set of annotated narrative cases of FLOSS work, useful for

teaching those working with communities

• Open Source practicioners– Give “Community managers” a lens to understand their own

communities– Those starting projects: a (partial) guide to existing

experience

Thanks especially to:

• The BibDesk developers and users and the rest of the Freeand Open Source communities

• Kevin, my advisor• My committee (Bob, Carsten and Don)• My 2 writing groups (Anu and Indira & Saira and Isabelle)• The FLOSS research team (Kevin, Bob, Hala, Chengetai,

Andrea, Yeliz, Kangning, Qing, Mike, Lina, Steve and Eileen)• All the iSchool colleagues, junior and senior, who’ve

challenged and inspired me.• Jennifer, Maureen, Ellen and Bridget!• Becks and Joe• Becky (so, so cool), Kal and Drogo• Judes & Bobs, Kate & Andy (never far away, really :)

And, of course, the NSF (03-41475, 04–14468, 05-27457 and 07–08437)

fin