I am conducting research for my PhD dissertation on the political economy of Open Source Software (OSS), focusing on how free-riding, responsibility, and incentives impact the sustainability of OSS projects. If you are a developer, contributor, maintainer, or user of OSS, your insights are invaluable!
This survey aims to understand: How and why people contribute (or don’t) to OSS The role of financial and non-financial incentives in OSS participation How free-riding affects project quality, security, and long-term maintenance
The survey takes only about 5-10 minutes and is completely anonymous. Your participation will help shed light on crucial challenges in OSS development and contribute to academic research on improving the sustainability of open-source communities.
Feel free to share this with other OSS developers and communities. Thank you for your time and valuable input!
seems ill-posed. It is a leading question. Anyone who has spent any amount of time involved in OSS has seen projects struggle and stagnate. But to claim that this is due to a lack of contributions from its user base implies that users have a responsibility to contribute to OSS.
Even the developers and maintainers actively contributing to OSS have no responsibility to do so. End-users, then, certainly cannot be burdened with that responsibility, either.
When an OSS project stagnates, it is because of a lack of contributions. But why there is a lack of contributions is not a simple question with a simple answer.
If you haven’t already, I encourage you to read Brett Cannon’s essay Setting Expectations for Open Source Participation. It covers the dynamics of OSS maintenance from the perspective of contributors and users in a way that I think is very relevant to your research.
I was the Art Director of the dead Internet Movie Project for a time. All positions were unpaid. I could not get anyone to do any work. People were just plain busy or maybe lost interest.
p.s. The website I think was imp.org. There is probably no website there anymore except in archive.org somewhere. Try this: Wayback Machine
Wow the earliest archive is 1999. I think I was doing that in 1995.
How many years of total work experience do you have?
In what? My main job as a developer? Using OSS? Or something else?
What is your primary role in the Open Source Software (OSS) ecosystem? (On a scale from 0 to 10, rate your level of identification with each role, where 0 = Not identified, 5 = Neutral, and 10 = Strongly identified.)*
Hi! The first question being a mandatory “what is your sex” question with binary male/female answer will instantly stop many people from answering whose input you might like to have. Additionally, gather private demographic data might make your study subject to data protection laws at least in the EU. If you think that this kind of information os necessary to your study, I would suggest checking with your institution’s legal department and/or appropriate office (such as your IRB review board if you are in the US for instance).
I dunno, that one doesn’t bother me as much as the question a bit further down the page, also mandatory:
Main Area of Education
* OpciĂłn 1
I’ve no idea what that’s supposed to mean, and that’s the only choice. So if that isn’t what I studied, I guess I have to not answer the survey?
How and why people contribute (or don’t) to OSS
https://forms.gle/mxFBLSRvCC1XRzTA7