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The Promise of Research on Open Source Software

Published: 01 July 2006 Publication History

Abstract

Breaking with many established assumptions about how innovation ought to work, open source software projects offer eye-opening examples of novel innovation practices for students and practitioners in many fields. In this article we briefly review existing research on the open source phenomenon and discuss the utility of open source software research findings for many other fields. We categorize the research into three areas: motivations of open source software contributors; governance, organization, and the process of innovation in open source software projects; and competitive dynamics enforced by open source software. We introduce the articles in this special issue of Management Science on open source software, and show how each contributes insights to one or more of these areas.

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Published In

cover image Management Science
Management Science  Volume 52, Issue 7
July 2006
153 pages
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License. You are free to download this work and share with others commercially or noncommercially, but cannot change in any way, and you must attribute this work as “Management Science. https://doi.org/10.1287/mnsc.1060.0560, used under a Creative Commons Attribution License: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/.”

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INFORMS

Linthicum, MD, United States

Publication History

Published: 01 July 2006

Author Tags

  1. innovation
  2. user-innovation
  3. open source software
  4. organization
  5. motivation
  6. competition

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  • (2023)Engagement Models in Education-Oriented H/FOSS ProjectsProceedings of the 54th ACM Technical Symposium on Computer Science Education V. 110.1145/3545945.3569835(409-415)Online publication date: 2-Mar-2023
  • (2023)“We do not appreciate being experimented on”Journal of Systems and Software10.1016/j.jss.2023.111774204:COnline publication date: 1-Oct-2023
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