Assessing the Impact of Project Founder Reputation and Project Structure on Motivation to Participate in Open Source Software Projects
Kaushik Ghosh, Jennifer L. Ziegelmayer, Anthony P. Ammeter · Journal of the Association for Information Systems · 2006
Previous literature on Open Source Software (OSS) indicates that participation in Open Source projects is not random; for example, “Band-wagon” dynamics, altruism, and technical need in the workplace have been shown to impact individual decisions to participate in OSS projects (Hars and Ou, 2002; Madey, Freeh and Tynan, 2004). Various characteristics of the developer and the project may encourage developers to choose certain projects over others, given the same internal motivating factors. This study investigates the role of the importance of future career benefits to the developer and the developer’s OSS ideology in determining the level of participation in OSS projects. We also investigate the moderating role of two factors, project founder reputation and project structure, on developer participation. We propose that a founder’s reputation for developing a meritocratic culture and espoused OSS ideology as well as a project’s level of decentralization and layered development structure impact developer participation.