Paper Info
Title
A Methodological Framework for Socio-Cognitive Analyses of Collaborative Design of Open Source Software
Abstract
Open Source Software (OSS) development challenges traditional software engineering practices. In particular, OSS projects are managed by a large number of volunteers, working freely on the tasks they choose to undertake. OSS projects also rarely rely on explicit system-level design, or on project plans or schedules. Moreover, OSS developers work in arbitrary locations and collaborate almost exclusively over the Internet, using simple tools such as email and software code tracking databases (e.g. CVS).All the characteristics above make OSS development akin to weaving a tapestry of heterogeneous components. The OSS design process relies on various types of actors: people with prescribed roles, but also elements coming from a variety of information spaces (such as email and software code). The objective of our research is to understand the specific hybrid weaving accomplished by the actors of this distributed, collective design process. This, in turn, challenges traditional methodologies used to understand distributed software engineering: OSS development is simply too "fibrous" to lend itself well to analysis under a single methodological lens.In this paper, we describe the methodological framework we articulated to analyze collaborative design in the Open Source world. Our framework focuses on the links between the heterogeneous components of a project's hybrid network. We combine ethnography, text mining, and socio-technical network analysis and visualization to understand OSS development in its totality. This way, we are able to simultaneously consider the social, technical, and cognitive aspects of OSS development. We describe our methodology in detail, and discuss its implications for future research on distributed collective practices.
Year
DOI
Venue
2006
10.1007/s10606-006-9020-5
Computer Supported Cooperative Work
Keywords
DocType
Volume
empirical studies,methodology,software development,open source
Journal
abs/cs/0703009
Issue
ISSN
Citations 
2-3
Computer Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW), the Journal of Collaborative Computing 15, 2-3 (2006) 229-250
33
PageRank 
References 
Authors
1.91
23
6
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Warren Sack122553.88
Françoise Détienne245959.93
Nicolas Ducheneaut32284162.30
Jean-Marie Burkhardt456652.04
Dilan Mahendran5331.91
Flore Barcellini611711.68