Publication Date
12-2007
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 is abandoned 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 or abandonment in FLOSS commons. Finally, we discuss the results and validation of a classification of nearly all projects hosted on Sourceforge.net as of August 2006.
Comments
English, R. and Schweik, C.M. 2007. "Identifying Success and Abandonment of Free/Libre and Open Source (FLOSS) Commons: A Preliminary Classification of Sourceforge.net projects." Upgrade: The European Journal for the Informatics Professional. Vol. VIII, Issue no. 6 (December). Available at http://www.upgrade-cepis.com/issues/2007/6/upg8-6English_Schweik_v2.pdf The presentation version of this article is available at http://scholarworks.umass.edu/ncdg/3