A Preliminary Theory for Open Source Ecosystem Micro-economics

Nicolas Jullien, Klaas-Jan Stol () and James Herbsleb
Additional contact information
Klaas-Jan Stol: UL - University of Limerick
James Herbsleb: Computer Science Department - Carnegie Mellon University - PITT - University of Pittsburgh - Pennsylvania Commonwealth System of Higher Education (PCSHE)

Post-Print from HAL

Abstract: While there has been substantial empirical work identifying factors that influence the contribution to, and use of open source software, we have as yet little theory that identifies the key constructs and relationships that would allow us to explain and predict how open source ecosystems function. What is needed is a clearly articulated and empirically validated theory of open source ecosystems. Such a theory should: • Explain why, how, and when key resources---primarily the work of developers---are attracted to or depart from a project or an ecosystem. • Explain why, how, and when projects and ecosystems move through a life cycle, from initiation, growth, maturity, and decline and death. • Explain how decisions about use are made, and how the cumulatively influence the socio-technical position of a project within an ecosystem, and the relations of ecosystems to each other. The remainder of this chapter provides a sketch of such a theory in the form of a set of propositions, which may form the foundation for future empirical work

Keywords: Open / free software; ecosystem (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019-07-16
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ppm
Note: View the original document on HAL open archive server: https://hal.science/hal-02127185v1
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Published in Brian Fitzgerald; Audris Mockus; Minghui Zhou. Towards Engineering Free/Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS) Ecosystems for Impact and Sustainability, Springer, 2019, Communications of NII Shonan Meetings, 978-981-13-7098-4

Downloads: (external link)
https://hal.science/hal-02127185v1/document (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:hal:journl:hal-02127185

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Post-Print from HAL
Bibliographic data for series maintained by CCSD ().