The social structure of free and open source software development (originally published in Volume 10, Number 2, February 2005)

Metaphors, such as the Cathedral and Bazaar, used to describe the organization of FLOSS projects typically place them in sharp contrast to proprietary development by emphasizing FLOSS’s distinctive social and communications structures. But what do we really know about the communication patterns of FLOSS projects? How generalizable are the projects that have been studied? Is there consistency across FLOSS projects? Questioning the assumption of distinctiveness is important because practitioner–advocates from within the FLOSS community rely on features of social structure to describe and account for some of the advantages of FLOSS production. To address this question, we examined 120 project teams from SourceForge, representing a wide range of FLOSS project types, for their communications centralization as revealed in the interactions in the bug tracking system. We found that FLOSS development teams vary widely in their communications centralization, from projects completely centered on one developer to projects that are highly decentralized and exhibit a distributed pattern of conversation between developers and active users. We suggest, therefore, that it is wrong to assume that FLOSS projects are distinguished by a particular social structure merely because they are FLOSS. Our findings suggest that FLOSS projects might have to work hard to achieve the expected development advantages which have been assumed to flow from "going open." In addition, the variation in communications structure across projects means that communications centralization is useful for comparisons between FLOSS teams. We found that larger FLOSS teams tend to have more decentralized communication patterns, a finding that suggests interesting avenues for further research examining, for example, the relationship between communications structure and code modularity.

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Rating Determinants Factored in E-Commerce Decision-Making

International Journal of Applied Management and Technology ◽

10.5590/ijamt.2015.14.1.01 ◽

2015 ◽

Vol 14 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Juheng Zhang ◽

M. Riaz Khan ◽

Dachuan Shih

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Open Source Software ◽

Web Sites ◽

The United States ◽

User Generated Content ◽

Media Content ◽

Price Levels ◽

Wide Range ◽

Hotel Booking ◽

The Relationship

The user-generated content (UGC) Web sites are gaining popularity for a wide range of media content, such as news, blogs, forums, and open-source software. Instead of relying on information on company Web sites, users benefit by reading reviews written on UGC Web sites by consumers. Online evaluations are usually informative and reduce the information asymmetry. This study examines the problem where UGC can be expedient for online hotel booking. It investigates the relationship between the ratings obtained from the TripAdvisor.com reviewers and the hotel price levels in the United States, outside the United States, and top 20 hotels and others, respectively. Findings suggest that medium-priced hotels provide a comparable value with their high-priced counterparts. Further, the ratings for U.S. hotels are lower than others across all price levels.

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When the Rainbows Bring the Crawfish

Gastronomica The Journal of Food and Culture ◽

10.1525/gfc.2021.21.2.90 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (2) ◽

pp. 90-101

Author(s):

V. Constanza Ocampo-Raeder

Keyword(s):

Human Nature ◽

Social Life ◽

Biological Diversity ◽

River Valley ◽

Cultural Meanings ◽

Liminal Space ◽

The Social ◽

Wide Range ◽

The Relationship

In this article I present the social life of camarones, a Peruvian river crustacean used in some of the region’s favorite dishes, and the liminal space they occupy in the geography, minds, and ecosystem of Peru and its people. I situate the relationship between these crawfish and the folks who capture them, known as camaroneros, within insights of environmental anthropologists and food scholars who also explore the connections between cultural and biological diversity and the entangled socio-ecological histories that inform the manner in which nature is mediated and understood by local societies. In this article, however, I expand this understanding to reveal unexpected spaces of engagement, especially those that emerge while eating, which tend to be overlooked by bounded notions of culture and nature and limit the ways we can imagine human-nature relationships. Via the story of camarones and camaroneros of one river valley of Peru, I argue that eating is a socio-ecological act that is imbued with profound cultural meanings involving a wide range of participants—not just farmers or producers—each with their own ecological identities yet still implicitly linked to one another through the process of producing, preparing, and consuming food.

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Social Network Structures in Open Source Software Development Teams

Human Computer Interaction ◽

10.4018/978-1-87828-991-9.ch043 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 645-658

Author(s):

Yuan Long ◽

Keng Siau

Keyword(s):

Social Network ◽

Open Source ◽

Open Source Software ◽

Interaction Pattern ◽

Network Structures ◽

Monthly Data ◽

Development Teams ◽

Longitudinal View ◽

Software Development Teams ◽

Bug Tracking

Drawing on social network theories and previous studies, this research examines the dynamics of social network structures in open source software (OSS) teams. Three projects were selected from SourceForge.net in terms of their similarities as well as their differences. Monthly data were extracted from the bug tracking systems in order to achieve a longitudinal view of the interaction pattern of each project. Social network analysis was used to generate the indices of social structure. The finding suggests that the interaction pattern of OSS projects evolves from a single hub at the beginning to a core/periphery model as the projects move forward.

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Bug Fixing Practices within Free/Libre Open Source Software Development Teams

Software Applications ◽

10.4018/978-1-60566-060-8.ch063 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 1079-1110 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Kevin Crowston ◽

Barbara Scozzi

Keyword(s):

Software Development ◽

Open Source ◽

Open Source Software ◽

Tracking System ◽

Distributed Teams ◽

Distributed Software ◽

Bug Fixing ◽

Development Teams ◽

Bulletin Boards ◽

Software Development Teams

Free/Libre open source software (FLOSS, e.g., Linux or Apache) is primarily developed by distributed teams. Developers contribute from around the world and coordinate their activity almost exclusively by means of email and bulletin boards, yet some how profit from the advantages and evade the challenges of distributed software development. In this article we investigate the structure and the coordination practices adopted by development teams during the bug-fixing process, which is considered one of main areas of FLOSS project success. In particular, based on a codification of the messages recorded in the bug tracking system of four projects, we identify the accomplished tasks, the adopted coordination mechanisms, and the role undertaken by both the FLOSS development team and the FLOSS community. We conclude with suggestions for further research.

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Bug Fixing Practices within Free/Libre Open Source Software Development Teams

Database Technologies ◽

10.4018/978-1-60566-058-5.ch046 ◽

2009 ◽

pp. 797-828

Author(s):

Kevin Crowston ◽

Barbara Scozzi

Keyword(s):

Software Development ◽

Open Source ◽

Open Source Software ◽

Tracking System ◽

Distributed Teams ◽

Distributed Software ◽

Bug Fixing ◽

Development Teams ◽

Bulletin Boards ◽

Software Development Teams

Free/Libre open source software (FLOSS, e.g., Linux or Apache) is primarily developed by distributed teams. Developers contribute from around the world and coordinate their activity almost exclusively by means of email and bulletin boards, yet some how profit from the advantages and evade the challenges of distributed software development. In this article we investigate the structure and the coordination practices adopted by development teams during the bug-fixing process, which is considered one of main areas of FLOSS project success. In particular, based on a codification of the messages recorded in the bug tracking system of four projects, we identify the accomplished tasks, the adopted coordination mechanisms, and the role undertaken by both the FLOSS development team and the FLOSS community. We conclude with suggestions for further research.

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Die relasie tussen grondbesit en die sosiale struktuur van Palestina in die Herodiaanse tyd

HTS Teologiese Studies / Theological Studies ◽

10.4102/hts.v59i2.654 ◽

2003 ◽

Vol 59 (2) ◽

Author(s):

G.J. Volschenk

Keyword(s):

Social Structure ◽

Scientific Model ◽

The Social ◽

Land Tenancy ◽

Social Scientific ◽

The Relationship

The relationship between land tenancy and social struc-ture of Palestine in the Herodian eraThe article describes the relationship between land tenancy and social structure of Palestine. Secondly it describes the conflicting percep-tions of land tenancy within the social structure of Palestine. The conflicting perceptions of land tenancy led to conflict between the elite and the peasants. This conflict was intensified by the hierarchical social structure of Palestine. The article concludes that the use of the social scientific model of the social structure of Palestine prevents anachronism and reductionism in the interpretation of biblical evidence regarding land tenancy.

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Office automation: a conceptual approach

Journal of Information Science ◽

10.1177/016555158200500502 ◽

1982 ◽

Vol 5 (5) ◽

pp. 169-172 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Alex Bavelas ◽

James MacGregor ◽

Frank Safayeni

Keyword(s):

Information Processing ◽

Social Structure ◽

Office Automation ◽

Information Processing Model ◽

Conceptual Approach ◽

The Social ◽

The Relationship

The problem of office automation is considered within the context of an information processing model of an office. The model considers the relationship between the input variety. output variety, and the transformational variety available to an office which changes the input variety to a desired level of output variety. The transformational activity is considered in terms of a network of task dependencies, and a corresponding social structure. The relationship between the network of task dependencies and the social structure is discussed and emphasis is placed on research that considers the prohlem in an in tegrated manner.

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A Method of Statistical Process Control for Successful Open Source Software Projects and Its Application to Determining the Development Period

International Journal of Reliability Quality and Safety Engineering ◽

10.1142/s0218539316500182 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 23 (05) ◽

pp. 1650018 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Shigeru Yamada ◽

Masakazu Yamaguchi

Keyword(s):

Process Control ◽

Open Source ◽

Statistical Process Control ◽

Open Source Software ◽

Execution Time ◽

Tracking System ◽

Time Model ◽

Statistical Process ◽

Software Release ◽

Bug Tracking

A software development paradigm for open source software (OSS) project has been rapidly spread in recent years. On the other hand, an effective method of quality management has not been established due to the unique development characteristics such as no testing phase. In this paper, we assume that the number of fault-detections observed on the bug tracking system tends to infinity, and discuss a method of statistical process control (SPC) for OSS projects by applying the logarithmic Poisson execution time model as a software reliability growth model (SRGM) based on a nonhomogeneous Poisson process (NHPP). Then, we propose a control chart method based on the logarithmic Poisson execution time model for judging the statical stability state, and estimating the additional development time for attaining the objective software failure intensity, i.e., the target value of the instantaneous fault-detection rate per unit time. We also discuss an optimal software release problem for determining the optimum time when to stop OSS development and to transfer it to user operation. Further, numerical illustrations for SPC are shown by applying the actual fault-count data observed on the bug tracking system.

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Dolmen dan Struktur Sosial Masyarakat Tuhaha, Maluku Tengah

AMERTA ◽

10.24832/amt.v25i1.24-38 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 25 (1) ◽

pp. 24-38

Author(s):

Marlon N.R. Ririmasse

Keyword(s):

Material Culture ◽

Social Structure ◽

Social Stratification ◽

Social Aspects ◽

The Social ◽

The Relationship

Abstract. Dolmen and the Social Structure of the Tuhaha Comunity in Central Malucca. This article further discusses the social aspects of dolmen function by analyzing the relationship between dolmen and social stratification in the ancient Tuhaha society. At the same time, this article also analyze how the social structure concept being transform into the form of dolmen as a material culture complete with all its symbolic attributes. Abstrak. Tulisan ini mencoba melihat aspek-aspek sosial dari fungsi dolmen dengan mengkaji hubungan antara dolmen dan stratifikasi sosial pada masyarakat desa Tuhaha Maluku Tengah. Saat yang sama mencoba untuk melihat bagaimana struktur sosial yang bersifat konseptual, diwujudkan dalam bentuk dolmen sebagai data materi dengan segenap atribut simboliknya.

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