Internet Success: A Study of Open-Source Software Commons (Hardcover)

The use of open-source software (OSS)--readable software source code that can be copied, modified, and distributed freely--has expanded dramatically in recent years. The number of OSS projects hosted on SourceForge.net (the largest hosting Web site for OSS), for example, grew from just over 100,000 in 2006 to more than 250,000 at the beginning of 2011. But why are some projects successful--that is, able to produce usable software and sustain ongoing development over time--while others are abandoned? In this book, the product of the first large-scale empirical study to look at social, technical, and institutional aspects of OSS, Charles Schweik and Robert English examine factors that lead to success in OSS projects and work toward a better understanding of Internet-based collaboration. Drawing on literature from many disciplines and using a theoretical framework developed for the study of environmental commons, Schweik and English examine stages of OSS development, presenting multivariate statistical models of success and abandonment. Schweik and English argue that analyzing the conditions of OSS successes may also inform Internet collaborations in fields beyond software engineering, particularly those that aim to solve complex technical, social, and political problems.

近年來，開放原始碼軟體（OSS）的使用已經大幅擴展。開放原始碼軟體是指可以自由複製、修改和分發的可讀取軟體原始碼。例如，SourceForge.net（最大的OSS託管網站）上的OSS項目數量從2006年的僅有10萬多個增長到2011年初的超過25萬個。但是，為什麼有些項目能夠成功，即能夠生產可用的軟體並持續進行開發，而其他項目則被放棄呢？在這本書中，Charles Schweik和Robert English進行了第一個大規模實證研究，探討了OSS的社會、技術和制度方面的因素，並努力更好地理解基於互聯網的協作。Schweik和English根據多學科文獻，並使用為研究環境共享資源而開發的理論框架，研究了OSS發展的各個階段，提出了成功和放棄的多變量統計模型。Schweik和English認為，分析OSS成功的條件也可以對軟體工程以外的領域的互聯網協作提供啟示，特別是那些旨在解決複雜的技術、社會和政治問題的領域。