Understanding Open Source Software Development

UNDERSTANDING OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT

Joseph Feller & Brian Fitzgerald

"

This book is not the last word; last words are about dead things, and

Open Source development is quite lustily alive. But it is an important

step along the way, answering some questions and raising others that

will continue to be live and fruitful research topics.

Welcome to the conversation..."

Propelled by headline products such as Linux and Apache, the development and manufacture of Open Source Software (OSS) has become a multi-billion dollar industry in recent years. Unsurprisingly, much has been written about this phenomenon, but the central issues involved are too often obscured by myth, misunderstanding, and partisan opinion. In Understanding Open Source Software Development, Joseph Feller and Brian Fitzgerald have assembled the first complete and objective synthesis of the available literature, offering a unique one-stop reference for developers, researchers, managers and anyone else needing to grasp the key issues about OSS.

The book addresses the fundamental questions of "what, why, when, where and how" the Open Source process has been able to produce category -killing software without the support of a traditional software engineering environment and without the support of a traditional software company's marketing machine. In doing so, the authors provide:

• An understanding of the Open Source Definition and the major Open Source Licences;
• A context for OSS in the history of software development;
• An analytical framework for describing and understanding the OSS phenomenon;
• A roadmap of the key organizations and projects involved in OSS;
• An exploration of what motivates the adoption of OSS products, processes and business models;
• A critical discussion of the strengths, weaknesses and paradoxes of OSS development.

Understanding Open Source Software Development is complemented by the Open Source Resources portal at http://opensource.ucc.ie, featuring regularly maintained links to OSS companies, organizations, projects, publications, news , opinion, research and events.

Joseph Feller and Brian Fitzgerald have been extremely active in promoting the rigorous academic investigation of Open Source Software. They have guest-edited special issues of the Information Systems Journal and IEE Proceedings-Software on the topic, and were the lead organizers and proceedings editors of The 1st Workshop on Open Source Software Engineering held at ICSE 2001.

Joseph Feller is a Lecturer with the Business Information Systems Group, University College Cork, Ireland. His research on Open Source Software is published in several prominent conference proceedings and he is the author of Customer Friendly: Design Guidelines for eCommerce. He also edits the monthly professional journal, Inside XML Solutions.

Brian Fitzgerald is Senior Researcher with the Executive Systems Research Centre, University College Cork. He is an Associate Editor for the Information Systems Journal and Data Base, and author or co-author of four books and more than 50 papers. He has presented research at a number of international conferences, and, prior to entering academia, spent more than fifteen years in industry.

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Praise For Understanding Open Source Software Development

"This book is well written, clear in its exposition, well illustrated with quotations from people in the OSS 'movement' and from other industry leaders and will serve as a useful text on this mode of software development." - Information Research, January 2002 Read the Complete Review

Preface

This book marks the end of the beginning in our understanding of Open Source development. Until it appeared, all the attempts at a really comprehensive description of the phenomenon had come from Open Source hackers like myself, theorists operating from within the culture we were describing.

We had the advantage of knowing our ground, but the disadvantage of knowing it perhaps too well. There are undoubtedly good questions we would never have thought to ask. That's why I've hoped from the beginning that an analytical literature about open source, independent of the Open Source community itself, would evolve.

While other outside analysts and academics have tackled specific subtopics, Joe Feller and Brian Fitzgerald have given us the first book-length attempt that I am aware of to marshal approaches from multiple disciplines (software engineering theory, sociology, business analysis) into a portrait of the whole.

This book is not the last word; last words are about dead things, and Open Source development is quite lustily alive, But it is an important step along the way, answering some questions and raising others that will continue to be live and fruitful research topics.

Welcome to the conversation!

Eric S. Raymond

http://www.tuxedo.org/?esr/

Table of Contents

Introduction
a. Why Study Open Source Software?
i. The Software Crisis
ii. Market Penetration/Industrial Buy-In
iii. Compelling Theoretical Issues
b. How to Use the Book
i. Intended Audiences (Course-based, Research-based, Professional)
ii. Online Supplements (OPEN reSOURCEs, Contacting the Authors)
iii. Structure of the Book
Section One: Background
1. Overview of Open Source Software
2. The History of Open Source and Free Software
3. The Landscape of Open Source Software
4. Deriving an Analytical Framework
5. Characterising Open Source Software
6. The Open Source Software Development Process
7. Open Source Software Development Tools
8. Technological Motivations for Open Source Software
9. Economic Motivations for Open Source Software
10. Psycho-Social Motivations for Open Source Software
11. When (and Why) Open Source Fails
12. Challenges and Opportunities: The Future of Open Source Software
Appendix: Recommendations for Researchers
Bibliography
Index