Open Source Software Development Model Main Paper:Why Hackers do what they do (Data Management Infrastructures Seminar)

Dhara Shah

The University of Bern

Dhara.shah@students.unibe.ch

Abstract— This paper is based on the Main Paper “Why Hackers Do What They Do”

by Karim R. Lakhani and Robert G. Wolf1. Also following papers are taken into

account during the course of understanding:

Understanding knowledge sharing activities in free/open source software

projects: An empirical study by Suleiman k. Sowe, Ioannis Stamelos, Lefteris

Angelis.

A Case Study of the Open Source Software Development: The Apache Server

by Audris Mockus, Roy T. Fielding and James Herbsleb

Crowdsourcing Systems on the World Wide Web By Ahnai Doan, Raghu

Ramakrishnan and Alon Y. Halevy

What makes free/libre open source software (floss) projects successful? An

Agent based model of floss projects by Nicholas p. radtke, Marco A. Janssen

and James S. Collofello.

Based on all the papers mentioned above, main paper and a small survey

consisting of 20 students from the Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai I

present my views about Open Source Software Development.

Keywords: Open Source software projects; Knowledge Sharing; Knowledge providers;

Self-Organizing Communities.

I. INTRODUCTION

This paper is written to explain the motivations behind the developers in Free/Open Source

Software (F/OSS). The explanations are derived from the papers mentioned in the abstract

section and a small friendly survey conducted by me. Details about survey: The Survey was

a friendly questionnaire answered by 20 Computer Science Students of Indian Institute of

Technology Mumbai. All the 20 students are extremely good in studies with average 7.0

GPA overall and had been participating in various Open Source Software development

project.

As part of the seminar I read the Main paper and supporting papers and what found was the

paper was written mainly from the perspective of 1st World Developers involved in

Free/Open Source Software Development. Hence out of curiosity I conducted this survey by

personally contacting all the 20 students.

Now I shed some light on the selection of students and the questions asked to them.

All the 20 Students are from Computer Science Department of IIT, Mumbai. IIT Mumbai is

world renowned engineering college and admission to this University is extremely

competing. All the 20 students are Undergraduates. 3 of the students are entrepreneurs

running a free/open source software development company and teaching software

development.

Now the Survey questions each of the student had been part of open source software

development. Following were the questions asked to them:

1. Why were you part of an Open Source Software development team? What were your

motivations?

2. Were you paid in any form by the Software Development Company?

3. Do you expect to use this experience to yield some benefit?

4. Do you wish to continue to contribute in Open Source Software Development?

5. Who introduce u to open source software development? Or who motivated you?

6. Why u choose the project that u working on? Criteria for showing the project

7. How is your experience so far? Do you motivate others to be part of it?

The Above Questions were asked by the taking inspiration from the main paper. In the

remaining part of the paper following flow of idea shall be presented

1. Who are the developers?

2. Understanding Motivations of the F/OSS Developers

3. Intrinsic Motivations

4. Extrinsic Motivations

5. Critique about main paper

6. Summary of Survey

7. Conclusion of the paper

As the Survey conducted by me was extremely small compared to the survey

presented in the main it cannot be used to verify the findings of the main paper.

Nor can the survey conducted by me can be generalized to the developers in F/OSS

from 3rd

world countries. But the Survey conducted by me gave me clear idea and

understanding about the developers involved in F/OSS developers. And the Survey

can be considered as a sample of understanding of the F/OSS developers.

II. WHO ARE THE DEVELOPERS

According to my understanding from the papers, developers in open source software

development are mostly the developers with following traits:

Developers looking for challenging project other than their normal job work or

studies.

Or Developers who are students and trying to learn the subject by practically doing

projects.

Or Self-taught learners who want to learn by themselves programming language.

Or Students who want to enter job market by taking open source software

development as their experience in resume.

Or Employees of the company whose peers value employees working in open source

software development

Hence it can be concluded that whatever the reasons are they are not mostly linked to

common reason that developers are employees of the open source software

development company, also mostly the gain is not direct monetary gain but indirect

advantages.

III. UNDERSTANDING MOTIVATIONS OF THE F/OSS DEVELOPERS

By knowing who the developers are, their motivations also become quite clear. Still we can

categorize the motivations is largely 2 parts as follows:

Intrinsic Motivations

Extrinsic Motivations

The Above mentioned categories will be explained in detail in later section. For now I would

like present interesting finding from my paper which suggests who introduces the developers

to the open source software development. This question wasn’t answered to me by any of the

papers I read. From the Survey I found following initiation reasons:

One of the students started developing open source software development as he found

the project extremely good and he thought he can make a difference with the project.

He was introduced to the by his professor who was also part of the project. Hence

introduction to open source development can be by Academic personnel.

Few of the Students replied they were introduced to the open source development by

the fellow students who were having an open source software development start-up

company on campus. Hence introduction to open source development can be by

fellow students.

One of the student starting development with his father who was also involved in open

source development and they intend to start-up company with the product which

would be open source. Hence introduction done by personnel contact.

Few students replied that they had reviews from their peers that students involved in

open source development were placed (getting job) in high technically acclaimed

companies. Hence the introduction was by peers with agenda in mind.

IV. INTRINSIC MOTIVATIONS

In this section I would like to describe the motivations that developers have which are not

for any kind of gain.

Mostly as Intrinsic motivation it is for fun. In the papers it was mentioned that they found

developers who work on open source projects during their office hours. Also those

developers found open source software more interesting.

I found from my survey few students did open source development as they get more

responsibility and challenge working on it. As the part of Open Software development cycle,

one of the developers assume responsibility for the release and arranges for release

independently this gives developers a sense of importance.

One more interesting observation from the papers is that every person has a level of

difficulty or complexity which the individual perceive as challenge. If the individual’s flow

of work matches with the level of difficulty given by open source software development he

is more enthusiastic about his work. One of the reasons of Apache Server’s successful

development is perceived that the developers got the perfect project at the right time.

Though it looks very uncertain argument my talks with the students confirmed the argument.

They said that they worked on weekends, holidays and late nights on open source software

just for the fun of programming and because they were having a beautiful experience in

which they found themselves unable to isolate from project even during free time.

V. EXTRINSIC MOTIVATIONS

Various extrinsic motivations were found which have described below:

1. To improve faulty programming skills

2. Learn latest Software development techniques and implement the programming

knowledge to practical implementation.

3. To impress upon the superiors in the company by contributing in open source

development.

4. To able to show to companies about the one’s programming skills. This very helpful

for individuals starting in the industry.

5. To develop their initial ideas which could turn up into Startup Company?

In the paper it was mentioned that socio economic background plays major role in

individual’s motivations to contribute to the open source development.

In my survey I found that few students when asked would you continue contributing in open

source development or not replied that they are contributing to get job in this recession

market and once they get if the company requires them not to work on those open source

software development they wouldn’t. Where areas in paper it was mentioned that developers

during their office hours worked on the open source development just for the sake of fun and

not that they were required to it. So here one can see that open source software development

cannot be done faster in 3rd

world countries as their economic stability is at stake.

Extrinsic motivations can be classified as immediate benefit yielding motivation and delayed

benefits. In immediate yielding motivations related to learning and improving once skills

comes in. And in delayed benefits one being monitored by the superior or trying to get job

with open source software development experience comes in.

VI. CRITIQUE ABOUT MAIN PAPER

One most important point about the main paper is that title of the paper is misleading. As the

term “Hacker” is usually attached to negative development. But in the main paper it’s meant

as developers who are not following the traditional way of Software Development. Quite

later in the paper it’s explained that “hacker” for them is considered as a badge of honor in

F/OSS Community.

Otherwise the paper is very well written and explained. And the survey gave a very nice idea

to me to talk to budding developers and know if they are involved in such kind of open

source software development.

VII. SUMMARY OF THE SURVEY

Survey was the most exciting part of the paper. It helped me immensely under the

implications of the paper read. As the topic is very much discussed and being an open source

software development is no more work of genius.

The most interesting part was all the students were part of the Apache server development

team and as I read the case study was of Apache Server they answers where very much

helpful.

Exciting part of being open source software development for the students was the

responsibilities they can take which in a traditional organization they might be not given till

they have 10 years of experience. Also they have immense flexibility there is no pressure

about release there is no management issues to be handled which intrigued the students

most.

VIII. CONCLUSION OF THE PAPER

Overall the paper is very stimulating and helps understand the working of open source

software development. One can use these findings to motivate developers in traditional

organization. Understanding the complexity of a successful open source software and be

extremely helpful to future projects. And companies can decide depending on the

complexity of project to take up traditional approach or open software development project.

As open software development project gives geographical freedom also to the company.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

My sincere thanks to Prof. Philippe for conducting the seminar which gave me opportunity

to read such good papers. Also thanks to all the students of H batch (2005) of Computer

Science Department of Indian Institute of Technology, Mumbai.

REFERENCES

1. “Why Hackers Do What They Do” by Karim R. Lakhani and Robert G. Wolf

2. Understanding knowledge sharing activities in free/open source software projects: An

empirical study by Suleiman k. Sowe, Ioannis Stamelos, Lefteris Angelis.

3. A Case Study of the Open Source Software Development: The Apache Server by

Audris Mockus, Roy T. Fielding and James Herbsleb

4. Crowdsourcing Systems on the World Wide Web By Ahnai Doan, Raghu

Ramakrishnan and Alon Y. Halevy

5. What makes free/libre open source software (floss) projects successful? An Agent

based model of floss projects by Nicholas p. radtke, Marco A. Janssen and James S.

Collofello.