Developers, Quality Control and Download Volume in Open Source Software (OSS) Projects

2017 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 43-66
Author(s):  
Geoffrey Hill ◽  
Pratim Datta ◽  
Candice Vander Weerdt
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Inflection Point ◽  
Returns To Scale ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Curvilinear Relationship ◽  
Segmented Regression ◽  
The Commons

The open-source software (OSS) movement is often analogized as a commons, where products are developed by and consumed in an open community. However, does a larger commons automatically beget success or does the phenomenon fall prey to the tragedy of the commons? This research forwards and empirically investigates the curvilinear relationship between developers and OSS project quality and a project's download volume. Using segmented regression on over 12,000 SourceForge OSS projects, findings suggest an inflection point in the number of contributing developers on download volume – suggesting increasing and diminishing returns to scale from adding developers to OSS projects. Findings support the economic principle of the tragedy of the commons, a concept where an over-allocated (large number) of developers, even in an open-source environment, can lead to resource mismanagement and reduce the benefit of a public good, i.e. the OSS project.

scholarly journals Sharing is not erring: Pseudo-reciprocity in collective search

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Imen Bouhlel ◽  
Charley M. Wu ◽  
Nobuyuki Hanaki ◽  
Robert L. Goldstone
Keyword(s):  
Information Sharing ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Dynamic Environments ◽  
Competitive Environments ◽  
Shared Information ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Robust Evidence ◽  
Self Organizing

AbstractInformation sharing in competitive environments may seem counterintuitive, yet it is widely observed in humans and other animals. For instance, the open-source software movement has led to new and valuable technologies being released publicly to facilitate broader collaboration and further innovation. What drives this behavior and under which conditions can it be beneficial for an individual? Using simulations in both static and dynamic environments, we show that sharing information can lead to individual benefits through the mechanisms of pseudo-reciprocity, whereby shared information leads to by-product benefits for an individual without the need for explicit reciprocation. Crucially, imitation with a certain level of innovation is required to avoid a tragedy of the commons, while the mechanism of a local visibility radius allows for the coordination of self-organizing collectives of agents. When these two mechanisms are present, we find robust evidence for the benefits of sharing—even when others do not reciprocate.

scholarly journals MCR: Open-Source Software to Automate Compilation of Health Study Report-Back

2021 ◽  
Vol 18 (11) ◽  
pp. 6104
Author(s):  
Erin Polka ◽  
Ellen Childs ◽  
Alexa Friedman ◽  
Kathryn S. Tomsho ◽  
Birgit Claus Henn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Research Team ◽  
Self Determination ◽  
Health Study ◽  
Equitable Access ◽  
Team Members ◽  
Study Participants ◽  
The Impact

Sharing individualized results with health study participants, a practice we and others refer to as “report-back,” ensures participant access to exposure and health information and may promote health equity. However, the practice of report-back and the content shared is often limited by the time-intensive process of personalizing reports. Software tools that automate creation of individualized reports have been built for specific studies, but are largely not open-source or broadly modifiable. We created an open-source and generalizable tool, called the Macro for the Compilation of Report-backs (MCR), to automate compilation of health study reports. We piloted MCR in two environmental exposure studies in Massachusetts, USA, and interviewed research team members (n = 7) about the impact of MCR on the report-back process. Researchers using MCR created more detailed reports than during manual report-back, including more individualized numerical, text, and graphical results. Using MCR, researchers saved time producing draft and final reports. Researchers also reported feeling more creative in the design process and more confident in report-back quality control. While MCR does not expedite the entire report-back process, we hope that this open-source tool reduces the barriers to personalizing health study reports, promotes more equitable access to individualized data, and advances self-determination among participants.

scholarly journals Trust and Community in Open Source Software Production

2004 ◽  
Vol 26 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Margit Osterloh ◽  
Sandra Rota
Keyword(s):  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Extrinsic Motivation ◽  
Source Model ◽  
Private Ownership ◽  
Complex Interplay ◽  
Software Production ◽  
Innovation Model ◽  
The Commons ◽  
Low Costs

AbstractOpen source software production is a successful new innovation model which disproves that only private ownership of intellectual property rights fosters innovations. It is analyzed here under which conditions the open source model may be successful in general. We show that a complex interplay of situational, motivational, and institutional factors have to be taken into account to understand how to manage the ‘tragedy of the commons’ as well as the ‘tragedy of the anticommons’. It is argued that the success of this new innovation model is greatly facilitated by a well balanced portfolio of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, low costs for contributors and governance mechanisms that do not crowd out intrinsic motivation.

scholarly journals Shame and honour drive cooperation

2011 ◽  
Vol 7 (6) ◽  
pp. 899-901 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jennifer Jacquet ◽  
Christoph Hauert ◽  
Arne Traulsen ◽  
Manfred Milinski
Keyword(s):  
Public Goods ◽  
Public Good ◽  
Tragedy Of The Commons ◽  
Experimental Paradigm ◽  
The Public ◽  
Common Resources ◽  
Public Goods Experiments ◽  
The Commons

Can the threat of being shamed or the prospect of being honoured lead to greater cooperation? We test this hypothesis with anonymous six-player public goods experiments, an experimental paradigm used to investigate problems related to overusing common resources. We instructed the players that the two individuals who were least generous after 10 rounds would be exposed to the group. As the natural antithesis, we also test the effects of honour by revealing the identities of the two players who were most generous. The non-monetary, reputational effects induced by shame and honour each led to approximately 50 per cent higher donations to the public good when compared with the control, demonstrating that both shame and honour can drive cooperation and can help alleviate the tragedy of the commons.

scholarly journals Open source software for visualization and quality control of continuous hydrologic and water quality sensor data

2015 ◽  
Vol 70 ◽  
pp. 32-44 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jeffery S. Horsburgh ◽  
Stephanie L. Reeder ◽  
Amber Spackman Jones ◽  
Jacob Meline
Keyword(s):  
Water Quality ◽  
Quality Control ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Sensor Data

scholarly journals The Safeguard of Audio Collections: A Computer Science Based Approach to Quality Control—The Case of the Sound Archive of the Arena di Verona

2013 ◽  
Vol 2013 ◽  
pp. 1-14 ◽  
Author(s):  
Federica Bressan ◽  
Antonio Rodà ◽  
Sergio Canazza ◽  
Federico Fontana ◽  
Roberta Bertani
Keyword(s):  
Quality Control ◽  
Knowledge Transfer ◽  
Computer Science ◽  
Open Source ◽  
Open Source Software ◽  
Materials Science ◽  
Working Environment ◽  
Chemical Analyses ◽  
Software Platform ◽  
Video Documents

In the field of multimedia, very little attention is given to the activities involved in the preservation of audio documents. At the same time, more and more archives storing audio and video documents face the problem of obsolescing and degrading media, which could largely benefit from the instruments and the methodologies of research in multimedia. This paper presents the methodology and the results of the Italian project REVIVAL, aimed at the development of a hardware/software platform to support the active preservation of the audio collection of the Fondazione Arena di Verona, one of the finest in Europe for the operatic genre, with a special attention on protocols and tools for quality control. On the scientific side, the most significant objectives achieved by the project are (i) the setup of a working environment inside the archive, (ii) the knowledge transfer to the archival personnel, (iii) the realization of chemical analyses on magnetic tapes in collaboration with experts in the fields of materials science and chemistry, and (iv) the development of original open-source software tools. On the cultural side, the recovery, the safeguard, and the access to unique copies of unpublished live recordings of artists the calibre of Domingo and Pavarotti are of great musicological and economical value.

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