The Social Structure of Open Source Software Development Teams

Author(s)/Creator(s)

Kevin Crowston, Syracuse University, School of Information StudiesFollow
James Howison, Syracuse University, School of Information Studies

Document Type

Article

Date

2003

Keywords

open source software, OSS, teams, teamwork, software development

Disciplines

Library and Information Science

Description/Abstract

Open Source Software development teams provide an interesting and convenient setting for studying distributed work. We begin by answering perhaps the most basic question: what is the social structure of these teams? Based on a social network analysis of interactions represented in 62,110 bug reports from 122 large and active projects, we find that some OSS teams are highly centralized, but contrary to expectation, others are not. Furthermore, we find that the level of centralization is negatively correlated with project size, suggesting that larger projects become more modular. The paper makes a further methodological contribution by identifying appropriate analysis approaches for interaction data. We conclude by sketching directions for future research.

Official Citation

Crowston, Kevin and Howison, James, "The social structure of Open Source Software development teams" (2003). Former Departments, Centers, Institutes and Projects. Paper 14. http://surface.syr.edu/ischool_other/14

Recommended Citation

Crowston, Kevin and Howison, James, "The Social Structure of Open Source Software Development Teams" (2003). School of Information Studies - Faculty Scholarship. 123.
https://surface.syr.edu/istpub/123

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.