Discovering the Processes, Practices, Community Dynamics and Principles for Developing Open Source Software Systems

这是一个项目，旨在进一步开发和完善基于经验的模型和理论，这些模型和理论涉及自由/开放源码软件(FOSS)的开发过程、技术系统配置、工作实践、组织环境及其相互关系。自由/开源软件开发代表了一种不断出现和发展的方法，供志同道合的参与者社区开发旨在自由共享的软件系统，而不是作为商业产品提供。研究目标是发现和传播能够指导新的自由/开源软件开发工作的新知识，以及改进广泛分布的自由/开源软件系统和应用的设计、使用、行为、可靠性和信心。这项研究将采用实地研究方法，通过一项为期三年的纵向研究，调查、比较和对比自由/开源软件在三个社区的项目内部和跨项目的开发、使用和演变。一个社区从事科学研究，特别是生物信息学。另一个社区致力于开发和维持联网的电脑游戏。这个社区主要从事软件开发，而不是研究，但与商业企业有关系。最后一个社区致力于由非营利性教育联盟支持的大规模自由/开源软件应用程序的开发和部署。选择研究这三个社区与许多先前的研究形成了鲜明对比，这些研究侧重于开发和维持互联网/网络基础设施，这是其他地方研究过的时间最长、研究最广泛的项目来源。研究目标之一是将这三个社区的数据和结果与互联网/网络基础设施社区自由和开放源码软件项目以前的研究中发现的数据和结果进行比较和对比。重点将放在：(A)这些社区如何生产软件；(B)它们如何协调不同环境下的软件开发工作；(C)如何最有效地生产和维持自由和开放源码软件由哪些开发过程、工作做法或项目组织构成。许多不同科学/工程学科的研究人员以及商业企业和高等院校的从业人员正在采用自由和开放源码软件方法进行软件开发，以此作为降低成本、提高与其领域相关的基础设施系统或应用程序的质量和多样性的基础。因此，如果研究界、开发企业、商业公司和大学主要寻求遵循关于自由/开源软件有效性的流行处方和证明，我们就不能保证他们的活动将是对他们的时间、技能和相关资源的最有效或最有效的投资。这项研究将为实现这些目标提供坚实的知识基础。

This is a project to further develop and refine empirically grounded models and theory of the development processes, technical system configurations, work practices, organizational contexts, and their interrelationships that give rise to free/open source software (FOSS). FOSS development represents a continually emerging and evolving approach for communities of like-minded participants to develop software systems that are intended to be shared freely, rather than offered as commercial products. The research goal is to discover and disseminate new knowledge that can guide new FOSS development efforts, as well as improve the design, use, behavior, reliability, and confidence in widely distributed FOSS systems and applications. The research will employ field study methods to investigate, compare, and contrast the development, use and evolution of FOSS within and across projects in three communities through a three-year, longitudinal study. One community is engaged in scientific research, specifically in bioinformatics. Another community is engaged in developing and sustaining networked computer games. This community is primarily engaged in software development, not research, but has relationships with commercial enterprises. The last community is engaged in the development and deployment of large-scale FOSS applications supported by non-profit educational consortia. The choice to study these three communities stands in contrast to many prior studies that focus on the developing and sustaining the Internet/Web infrastructure, the longest and most commonly studied source of projects that have been examined elsewhere. One of the research goals is to compare and contrast the data and findings from these three communities with those found in the prior studies of FOSS projects in the Internet/Web infrastructure community. The focus will be on: (a) how such communities produce software; (b) how they coordinate software development work across different settings; (c) what development processes, work practices or project organizations constitute how FOSS is most effectively produced and sustained. Researchers in a number of distinct scientific/engineering disciplines, as well as practitioners in commercial enterprises and institutions of higher learning, are adopting FOSS approaches to software development as a basis for reducing the cost and improving the quality and diversity of infrastructural systems or application programs relevant to their domains. Thus, to the extent that research communities, development enterprises, commercial firms, and universities seek to primarily follow popular prescriptions and testimonials regarding the efficacy of FOSS, we cannot be assured that their activities will be most effective or efficient investment of their time, skill, and related resources. This research will offer a solid basis of knowledge for achieving those goals.