Affiliated participation in open source communities
- Published
- Accepted
- Subject Areas
- Software Engineering
- Keywords
- Open Source Software, Open Source Communities, Commercial Participation in Open Source, Affiliated Participation in Open Source
- Copyright
- © 2019 Alami et al.
- Licence
- This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, reproduction and adaptation in any medium and for any purpose provided that it is properly attributed. For attribution, the original author(s), title, publication source (PeerJ Preprints) and either DOI or URL of the article must be cited.
- Cite this article
- 2019. Affiliated participation in open source communities. PeerJ Preprints 7:e27827v1 https://doi.org/10.7287/peerj.preprints.27827v1
Abstract
Background: The adoption of Free/Libre and Open Source Software (FOSS) by institutions is significantly increasing, and so is the affiliated participation (the participation of industry engineers in open source communities as part of their jobs). Aims: This study is an investigation into affiliated participation in FOSS communities. So far, little is known about the affiliated participation and the forces that influence it, even though the FOSS innovation model is increasingly becoming a serious contender for the private investment model in many sectors. Method: We present a qualitative inquiry into affiliated participation in the Robot Operating System (ROS) and Linux Kernel communities, using twenty-one in-depth interviews and participatory observation data from twenty-nine community events. Results: Our results show that affiliated participation in these communities is constrained by several barriers: objections of senior management, protection of the company’s image, protection of intellectual property, undefined processes and policies, the high cost of participation, and unfamiliarity with the FOSS system. Conclusions: These barriers should be addressed in any organization considering using FOSS as a significant acquisition, distribution, and development strategy.
Author Comment
Accepted at The 13th ACM/IEEE International Symposium on Empirical Software Engineering and Measurement (ESEM)