Today, many important software projects adopt the open source development model, but are the volunteer developers who participate in these projects motivated by altruism?
Researchers from Harvard and the University of Vienna published a paper in PNAS analyzing the developers of R, a popular open source statistical computing and data analysis environment.
The researchers collected questionnaires from nearly 1000 R contributors, asking about the internal and external motivations that drive them to participate in R development:
- Internal motivations include fun and responsibility
- External motivations include their work contributing to academic progress
R is widely used in academic fields. Analysis of the data using regression analysis found that developers with both internal and external motivations contribute more.
In terms of the work characteristics of the projects they participate in, researchers found that developers whose work involves social elements are more likely to continue contributing. Developers who work independently will participate less and less in future development.
The data also found that open source projects tend to promote higher levels of social dependency among participants, especially those who rely on each other to keep work progressing.
Reprinted with permission: Developer Relations »
