The shifting sands of motivation: Revisiting what drives contributors in open source
Open Source Software (OSS) has changed drastically over the last decade, with OSS projects now producing a large ecosystem of popular products, involving industry participation, and providing professional career opportunities. But our field's understanding of what motivates people to contribute...
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sg-smu-ink.sis_research-98732024-06-13T09:00:42Z The shifting sands of motivation: Revisiting what drives contributors in open source GEROSA, Marco WIESE, Igor TRINKENREICH, Bianca LINK, Georg ROBLES, Gregorio TREUDE, Christoph STEINMACHER, Igor SARMA, Anita Open Source Software (OSS) has changed drastically over the last decade, with OSS projects now producing a large ecosystem of popular products, involving industry participation, and providing professional career opportunities. But our field's understanding of what motivates people to contribute to OSS is still fundamentally grounded in studies from the early 2000s. With the changed landscape of OSS, it is very likely that motivations to join OSS have also evolved. Through a survey of 242 OSS contributors, we investigate shifts in motivation from three perspectives: (1) the impact of the new OSS landscape, (2) the impact of individuals' personal growth as they become part of OSS communities, and (3) the impact of differences in individuals' demographics. Our results show that some motivations related to social aspects and reputation increased in frequency and that some intrinsic and internalized motivations, such as learning and intellectual stimulation, are still highly relevant. We also found that contributing to OSS often transforms extrinsic motivations to intrinsic, and that while experienced contributors often shift toward altruism, novices often shift toward career, fun, kinship, and learning. OSS projects can leverage our results to revisit current strategies to attract and retain contributors, and researchers and tool builders can better support the design of new studies and tools to engage and support OSS development. 2021-05-01T07:00:00Z text application/pdf https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8870 info:doi/10.1109/ICSE43902.2021.00098 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9873/viewcontent/icse21c.pdf http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems eng Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University Incentive Motivation Open source Software Engineering |
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Incentive Motivation Open source Software Engineering GEROSA, Marco WIESE, Igor TRINKENREICH, Bianca LINK, Georg ROBLES, Gregorio TREUDE, Christoph STEINMACHER, Igor SARMA, Anita The shifting sands of motivation: Revisiting what drives contributors in open source |
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Open Source Software (OSS) has changed drastically over the last decade, with OSS projects now producing a large ecosystem of popular products, involving industry participation, and providing professional career opportunities. But our field's understanding of what motivates people to contribute to OSS is still fundamentally grounded in studies from the early 2000s. With the changed landscape of OSS, it is very likely that motivations to join OSS have also evolved. Through a survey of 242 OSS contributors, we investigate shifts in motivation from three perspectives: (1) the impact of the new OSS landscape, (2) the impact of individuals' personal growth as they become part of OSS communities, and (3) the impact of differences in individuals' demographics. Our results show that some motivations related to social aspects and reputation increased in frequency and that some intrinsic and internalized motivations, such as learning and intellectual stimulation, are still highly relevant. We also found that contributing to OSS often transforms extrinsic motivations to intrinsic, and that while experienced contributors often shift toward altruism, novices often shift toward career, fun, kinship, and learning. OSS projects can leverage our results to revisit current strategies to attract and retain contributors, and researchers and tool builders can better support the design of new studies and tools to engage and support OSS development. |
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GEROSA, Marco WIESE, Igor TRINKENREICH, Bianca LINK, Georg ROBLES, Gregorio TREUDE, Christoph STEINMACHER, Igor SARMA, Anita |
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GEROSA, Marco WIESE, Igor TRINKENREICH, Bianca LINK, Georg ROBLES, Gregorio TREUDE, Christoph STEINMACHER, Igor SARMA, Anita |
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GEROSA, Marco |
title |
The shifting sands of motivation: Revisiting what drives contributors in open source |
title_short |
The shifting sands of motivation: Revisiting what drives contributors in open source |
title_full |
The shifting sands of motivation: Revisiting what drives contributors in open source |
title_fullStr |
The shifting sands of motivation: Revisiting what drives contributors in open source |
title_full_unstemmed |
The shifting sands of motivation: Revisiting what drives contributors in open source |
title_sort |
shifting sands of motivation: revisiting what drives contributors in open source |
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Institutional Knowledge at Singapore Management University |
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2021 |
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https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/sis_research/8870 https://ink.library.smu.edu.sg/context/sis_research/article/9873/viewcontent/icse21c.pdf |
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