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Impact of license choice on Open Source Software development activity

Author

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  • Jorge Colazo
  • Yulin Fang

Abstract

The Open Source Software (OSS) development model has emerged as an important competing paradigm to proprietary alternatives; however, insufficient research exists to understand the influence of some OSS project characteristics on the level of activity of the development process. A basic such characteristic is the selection of the project's software license. Drawing upon social movement theory, our study examined the relationship between OSS licenses and project activity. Some OSS licenses include a “copyleft” clause, which requires that if derivative products are to be released, it must be done under the license the original product had. We hypothesize that copylefted licenses, as opposed to noncopylefted licenses, are associated with higher developer membership and coding activity, faster development speed, and longer developer permanence in the project. To test the hypotheses, we used archival data sources of working OSS projects spanning several years of development time. We discuss practical and theoretical implications of the results as well as future research ideas.

Suggested Citation

  • Jorge Colazo & Yulin Fang, 2009. "Impact of license choice on Open Source Software development activity," Journal of the American Society for Information Science and Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 60(5), pages 997-1011, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jamist:v:60:y:2009:i:5:p:997-1011
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.21039
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    Citations

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    Cited by:

    1. Massimiliano Gambardella, 2011. "The Scope of Open Licenses in Cultural Contents Production and Distribution," EconomiX Working Papers 2011-26, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    2. Xuan Yang & Xiao Li & Daning Hu & Harry Jiannan Wang, 2021. "Differential impacts of social influence on initial and sustained participation in open source software projects," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 72(9), pages 1133-1147, September.
    3. Paolo Crosetto & Alexia Gaudeul & Gerhard Riener, 2012. "Partnerships, Imperfect Monitoring and Outside Options: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-052, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    4. Paolo Crosetto & Alexia Gaudeul & Gerhard Riener, 2012. "Partnerships, Imperfect Monitoring and Outside Options: Theory and Experimental Evidence," Jena Economics Research Papers 2012-052, Friedrich-Schiller-University Jena.
    5. Rashid, Mehvish & Clarke, Paul M. & O’Connor, Rory V., 2019. "A systematic examination of knowledge loss in open source software projects," International Journal of Information Management, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 104-123.
    6. Massimiliano Gambardella, 2011. "The Scope of Open Licenses in Cultural Contents Production and Distribution," Working Papers hal-04140977, HAL.
    7. Terrence August & Hyoduk Shin & Tunay I. Tunca, 2018. "Generating Value Through Open Source: Software Service Market Regulation and Licensing Policy," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 29(1), pages 186-205, March.
    8. Islam, Mazhar & Miller, Jacob & Park, Haemin Dennis, 2017. "But what will it cost me? How do private costs of participation affect open source software projects?," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 46(6), pages 1062-1070.
    9. Atal Vidya & Shankar Kameshwari, 2015. "Developers’ Incentives and Open-Source Software Licensing: GPL vs BSD," The B.E. Journal of Economic Analysis & Policy, De Gruyter, vol. 15(3), pages 1381-1416, July.
    10. Jorge Colazo, 2016. "A Cognitive Load View And Empirical Test Of Collaboration Network Structure Versus Learning Rates In New Software Development," International Journal of Innovation Management (ijim), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 20(01), pages 1-28, January.

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