Toward a General Theory of Internet-Based Collective-Action in Digital Information Commons: Findings from a Study of Open Source Software Projects

Abstract

"Any conference interested in 'networked peer production,' 'cooperation of distributed knowledge communities,' and 'digital information commons' must focus at least some attention on collaboration in free/libre and open source software (FOSS). After all, open-source computer programmers, perhaps more than any other category of Internet user, have significant experience with collaboration in online, digital information commons. Simply put, FOSS projects are Internet-based common property regimes where the project source code is developed over the Internet. These software are generally distributed with a license that provides users with the freedoms to access, use, read, modify and redistribute the software.

In this paper, we present some of the findings from a 5-year empirical study of FOSS commons, just completed in 2011. In this study we used three different and very large datasets (approximately 107,000, 174,000 and 1400 cases respectively) with information on FOSS projects residing in Sourceforge.net, one of the largest, if not the largest, FOSS repository in the world. We employ various quantitative methods to uncover factors that lead some FOSS projects to ongoing collaborative success, while others become abandoned. After presenting some of our studys results, we articulate the collaborative 'story' of FOSS that emerged. We close the paper by discussing some key findings that begin to point us toward a general theory of Internet-based collective-action FOSS-like forms of digital online commons."