The Developer
The Developer
In the early twenty-first century, economists were baffled by the volunteer nature of open-source software (OSS) and why OSS developers would give their intellectual property away. This chapter focuses on OSS developers, describes who they are and where they live, and examines the reasons for their involvement in OSS projects. It also considers the factors that motivate developers and likely influence the success or abandonment of OSS projects. Moreover, the chapter uses the Institutional Analysis and Development framework to evaluate an individual developer’s decision making, to connect to previous theory and field research on commons, to conceptually organize much of the large and growing theoretical and field studies on OSS, and to elucidate the governance and institutional design of OSS projects. Finally, it looks at the motivations of software developers to participate in OSS projects, from enjoyment and learning to skill building, signaling and/or ego gratification, hacker ethic, and reciprocity, as well as the costs incurred in getting involved, such as emotional distress and opportunity cost of time.
Keywords: open-source software, Institutional Analysist, software developers, learning, skill building, signaling, hacker ethic, reciprocity, emotional distress
MIT Press Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs, and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us.
