WORK DESIGN FOR VOLUNTEERS: THE CASE OF OPEN SOURCE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT.
Caryn A. Conley · Academy of Management Proceedings · 2009
The article presents management science research on open source software development, considering if computer software design has an effect on its subsequent development through the open source method. It is hypothesized that highly modulated software will create more opportunities for individual contributions, and that hence should result in a greater number of code contributions, with those being of lesser amounts, than development of less modular software. It is found that while there is some correlation between modularity and the number of contributors, the role of core contributors to a project remains largely unaffected.