research-article

License Choice and the Changing Structures of Work in Organization Owned Open Source Projects: [Best Paper Nominee]

Authors:

Poonacha K. Medappa,

Shirish C. SrivastavaAuthors Info & Claims

SIGMIS-CPR '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research

Pages 117 - 123

https://doi.org/10.1145/3084381.3084410

Published: 21 June 2017 Publication History

Abstract

Digitally enabled transformations have allowed organizations and individuals to adopt open source as a viable mode of software development. In fact, organizations are increasingly moving away from traditional licenses in favor of open source licenses. However, extant literature reports conflicting findings regarding the impact of different open source licenses on the success of the project. Through this research, we attempt to reconcile the conflicting findings in literature by providing a more nuanced understanding of the mechanisms through which the type of license influences the success of the project. Using propensity score matching and ordinary least squares regression analysis on a sample of 2110 organization owned open source projects, we compare the structures of work across the two main types of licenses and study its relation to the success of the project. The results of our analysis indicate that different motivational mechanisms are at play under different licenses, which in turn has an influence on the optimal structures of work for a particular license. From these results we conclude that the success of the project depends on how well the structures of work are aligned to the motivational requirements created by the license. The findings provide significant insights for open source researchers and organizations as to how they can model the structures of work to facilitate the success of open source projects.

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Cited By

Siebert J(2023)Applications of statistical causal inference in software engineeringInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107198159:COnline publication date: 10-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107198
Thangavelu SJyotishi AKishore RBeimborn DBandi RAubert BCompeau DTarafdar M(2018)Determinants of Open Source Software Project PerformanceProceedings of the 2018 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research10.1145/3209626.3209723(41-42)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3209626.3209723
Joy AThangavelu SJyotishi A(2018)Performance of GitHub Open-Source Software Project: An Empirical Analysis2018 Second International Conference on Advances in Electronics, Computers and Communications (ICAECC)10.1109/ICAECC.2018.8479462(1-6)Online publication date: Feb-2018
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAECC.2018.8479462

Index Terms

License Choice and the Changing Structures of Work in Organization Owned Open Source Projects: [Best Paper Nominee]
1. Applied computing
  1. Law, social and behavioral sciences
    1. Economics
    2. Psychology
2. Information systems
  1. Information systems applications
    1. Collaborative and social computing systems and tools
      1. Open source software

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Published In

cover image ACM Conferences

SIGMIS-CPR '17: Proceedings of the 2017 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research

June 2017

220 pages

ISBN:9781450350372

DOI:10.1145/3084381

Conference Chairs:
Rajendra K. Bandi
Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India
,
Rajiv Kishore
State University of New York at Buffalo, USA
,
Program Chairs:
Daniel Beimborn
Frankfurt School of Finance & Management, Germany
,
Rajeev Sharma
University of Waikato, New Zealand
,
Shirish C. Srivastava
HEC Paris, France

Copyright © 2017 ACM.

Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

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New York, NY, United States

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Published: 21 June 2017

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June 21 - 23, 2017

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Cited By

Siebert J(2023)Applications of statistical causal inference in software engineeringInformation and Software Technology10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107198159:COnline publication date: 10-May-2023
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1016/j.infsof.2023.107198
Thangavelu SJyotishi AKishore RBeimborn DBandi RAubert BCompeau DTarafdar M(2018)Determinants of Open Source Software Project PerformanceProceedings of the 2018 ACM SIGMIS Conference on Computers and People Research10.1145/3209626.3209723(41-42)Online publication date: 18-Jun-2018
https://dl.acm.org/doi/10.1145/3209626.3209723
Joy AThangavelu SJyotishi A(2018)Performance of GitHub Open-Source Software Project: An Empirical Analysis2018 Second International Conference on Advances in Electronics, Computers and Communications (ICAECC)10.1109/ICAECC.2018.8479462(1-6)Online publication date: Feb-2018
https://doi.org/10.1109/ICAECC.2018.8479462

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