Creating User-Led Open-Source Consortia

正在使用不同的组织形式开发开放源码软件。有些项目没有正式的组织支持，有些项目由非营利组织(基金会、财团)管理。在由公司主导的财团中，用户主导的开源财团是一个相对较新的现象。在这样的联盟中，提议的开源软件的用户(组织)联合起来开发他们运营业务所需的软件。通常，这些用户组织不是来自IT行业：例如美国大学(Kuali Foundation)、汽车制造商(GENIVI Foundation)或德国能源分配网络运营商(OpenKONSEQUENZ)。我们观察到新的用户主导的联合体迅速增长，但人们对如何最好地组织这种联合体以取得成功知之甚少。我们建议研究如何成功地创建用户主导的开源联盟。我们建议进行传统的理论构建和评估。具体地说，我们打算使用定性调查研究方法来构建初步的理论。除了研究论文中的理论陈述，我们将把我们的理论作为一本手册，将我们从基金会和财团那里学到的东西表达为创建此类财团的最佳实践(仍然是假设的)。然后，我们将使用方法和数据三角测量来评估我们的理论。我们已经建立了一个全面的已知用户基础数据库，可以从中进行抽样。我们将进行案例研究和行动研究。拟议的案例研究将根据现有情况对历史和当前案例进行研究，在拟议的行动研究中，我们将积极指导各组织。研究的结果将是一个关于如何创建用户主导的开源联盟的理论，该联盟已经在几次迭代中使用多种研究方法进行了评估，因此，我们预计它是高度确定的。

Open-source software is being developed using different organizational forms. Some projects have no formal organizational backing and some projects are managed by non-profit organizations (foundations, consortia). Of those consortia that are led by companies, user-led open source consortia stand out as a relatively recent phenomenon. In such a consortium, the users (organizations) of a proposed open-source software join forces to develop the software they need to operate their business. Often, these user organizations are not from the IT industry: Examples are U.S. universities (Kuali Foundation), car manufacturers (GENIVI Foundation), or the German energy distribution network operators (openKONSEQUENZ e.G.). We have observed rapid growth in new user-led consortia, yet little is known about how to best organize such consortia for success. We propose to investigate how to successfully create user-led open source consortia. We propose to perform traditional theory building and evaluation. Specifically, we intend to build an initial theory using the qualitative survey research method. Going beyond theory presentation in research papers, we will cast our theory as a handbook which expresses what we learned from foundations and consortia as (still hypothesized) best practices for creating such consortia. We will then evaluate our theory using method and data triangulation. We have already built a comprehensive database of known user foundations from which to sample. We will perform both case study research and action research. The proposed case study research will be on historic and current cases, depending on availability, and in the proposed action research we will be actively guiding the organizations. The result of the research will be a theory of how to create user-led open source consortia that has been evaluated using multiple research methods over several iterations and which we, therefore, expect to be of high certainty.