Contributions of Commercial Developers in Open-Source Software – A Study of the Linux Kernel
Fabian Fleischmann, Sven Apel, Carolin Haeussler, Patrick Figge, Thomas Bock · Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023
Since commercial companies are increasingly using and contributing to open-source software projects, understanding the role of commercial companies in these projects becomes critical. Despite some research showing increasing participation of commercial companies in open source software projects, the contribution behavior of commercial developers and the impact of this behavior on open source communities is still largely unknown. By studying the Linux Kernel, we document that commercial participation outweighs volunteer participation substantially and that commercial and volunteer development efforts are intertwined due to co-development of most Linux Kernel functionalities by both groups. We identify nine patterns of interaction between commercial and volunteer developers that show how volunteer developers respond to increases and decreases in commercial participation. We find that the occurrence of the different interaction patterns is highly dependent on the general development activity during the pattern occurrence, as well as on the activity of popular companies. In a detailed analysis of one pattern, we show that the inflow of highly experienced commercial developers can lead to a crowding out of highly experienced volunteer developers within the Linux Kernel.