The Impact of Project License and Operating System on the Effectiveness of the Defect-Fixing Process in Open Source Software Projects

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Author(s)
Ghapanchi, Amir Hossein
Aurum, Aybuke
Griffith University Author(s)
Year published
2011
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Show full item recordAbstract
Open source software (OSS) products have been widely adopted by commercial as well as government organisations. However, despite their increased adoption, many OSS projects still fail in responding to users' quality needs such as resolving software defects. Hence, this paper investigates the responsiveness of OSS projects to users' needs in terms of resolving software defects. To do so, we develop and test a model of antecedents to the effectiveness of the defect-fixing process for OSS projects. Data gathered for this study from 1481 OSS projects confirms that OSS projects that apply a less restrictive licence ...
View more >Open source software (OSS) products have been widely adopted by commercial as well as government organisations. However, despite their increased adoption, many OSS projects still fail in responding to users' quality needs such as resolving software defects. Hence, this paper investigates the responsiveness of OSS projects to users' needs in terms of resolving software defects. To do so, we develop and test a model of antecedents to the effectiveness of the defect-fixing process for OSS projects. Data gathered for this study from 1481 OSS projects confirms that OSS projects that apply a less restrictive licence are less dependent on their team to operate their defect-fixing process. It is also demonstrated that OSS projects developed to run on a broader range of operating systems are more likely to have an effective defect-fixing. The study provides practitioners with insightful recommendations on project characteristics and defect-fixing effectiveness.
View less >
View more >Open source software (OSS) products have been widely adopted by commercial as well as government organisations. However, despite their increased adoption, many OSS projects still fail in responding to users' quality needs such as resolving software defects. Hence, this paper investigates the responsiveness of OSS projects to users' needs in terms of resolving software defects. To do so, we develop and test a model of antecedents to the effectiveness of the defect-fixing process for OSS projects. Data gathered for this study from 1481 OSS projects confirms that OSS projects that apply a less restrictive licence are less dependent on their team to operate their defect-fixing process. It is also demonstrated that OSS projects developed to run on a broader range of operating systems are more likely to have an effective defect-fixing. The study provides practitioners with insightful recommendations on project characteristics and defect-fixing effectiveness.
View less >
Journal Title
International Journal of Business Information Systems
Volume
8
Issue
4
Copyright Statement
© 2011 Inderscience Publishers. This is the author-manuscript version of this paper. Reproduced in accordance with the copyright policy of the publisher. Please refer to the journal website for access to the definitive, published version.
Subject
Information Systems Management
Information Systems
Business and Management