A Longitudinal Study of the Impact of Open Source Software Project Characteristics on Positive Outcomes

Abstract

This article formulates and tests a set of hypotheses about the success of open source software projects with respect to market penetration and human resource attraction. The authors collected data from 1025 open source software projects in a longitudinal study. The cross-sectional results show that the extent of a project’s operating systems, the range of translated languages, programming languages, and project age positively impact OSS projects’ positive outcomes with respect to market penetration and human resource attraction.

Keywords:

• human resource attraction
• longitudinal study
• market penetration
• open source software

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers and the editor for their insightful comments and suggestions.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Amir Hossein Ghapanchi

Amir Hossein Ghapanchi is a tenured academic in the School of Information and Communication Technology, Griffith University in Australia. Previously, Dr. Ghapanchi lectured at University of Technology Sydney and University of New South Wales (UNSW). Amir obtained his PhD in Information Systems from UNSW. He has published over 40 journal articles in information systems and management journals such as Information and Organization, Communications of the Association for Information Systems, Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology, Electronic Markets, Journal of Organizational Computing and Electronic Commerce, Journal of Medical Internet Research, Journal of Computer and System Sciences, and International Journal of Project Management, among others.

Madjid Tavana

Madjid Tavana is Professor and Distinguished Chair of Business Analytics at La Salle University, where he serves as Chairman of the Business Systems and Analytic Department. He is Distinguished Research Fellow at Kennedy Space Center, Johnson Space Center, Naval Research Laboratory at Stennis Space Center, and Air Force Research Laboratory. He was recently honored with the prestigious Space Act Award by NASA. He holds a MBA, PMIS, and PhD in Management Information Systems and received his Post-Doctoral Diploma in Strategic Information Systems from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is the Editor-in-Chief of Decision Analytics, International Journal of Applied Decision Sciences, International Journal of Management and Decision Making, International Journal of Knowledge Engineering and Data Mining, International Journal of Strategic Decision Sciences, and International Journal of Enterprise Information Systems. He has published 10 books and over 180 research papers in scholarly academic journals.