Related papers: Aristotle vs. Ringelmann: On Superlinear Productio…
Aristotle vs. Ringelmann was a discussion between two distinct research teams from the ETH Z\"urich who argued whether the productivity of Open Source software projects scales sublinear or superlinear with regard to its team size. This…
In a variety of open source software projects, we document a superlinear growth of production ($R \sim c^\beta$) as a function of the number of active developers $c$, with $\beta \simeq 4/3$ with large dispersions. For a typical project in…
Because open source software relies on individuals who select their own tasks, it is often underproduced -- a term used by software engineering researchers to describe when a piece of software's relative quality is lower than its relative…
The explosive development of "free" or "open source" information goods contravenes the conventional wisdom that markets and commercial organizations are necessary to efficiently supply products. This paper proposes a theoretical explanation…
Many software developers rely on open source software for developing their applications and writing their source codes. Measuring an independent project's overall productivity is still an open problem for many technology companies. In this…
The open source development model has become a paradigm shift from traditional in-house/closed-source software development model, with many successes. Traditionally, open source projects were characterized essentially by their individual…
The paper explains why open source software is an instance of a potentially broader phenomenon. Specifically, I suggest that nonproprietary peer-production of information and cultural materials will likely be a ubiquitous phenomenon in a…
Free and open source software (FOSS) is considered by many, along with Wikipedia, the proof of an ongoing paradigm shift from hierarchically-managed and market-driven production of knowledge to heterarchical, collaborative and commons-based…
Many software projects are no longer done in-house by a single organization. Instead, we are in a new age where software is developed by a networked community of individuals and organizations, which base their relations to each other on…
Collaborative activities among knowledge workers such as software developers underlie the development of modern society, but the in-depth understanding of their behavioral patterns in open online communities is very challenging. The…
The social community in open source software developers has a complex network structure. The network structure represents the relations between the project and the engineer in the software developer's community. A project forms some teams…
The principles of open collaboration for innovation (and production), once distinctive to open source software, are now found in many other ventures. Some of these ventures are internet-based: Wikipedia, online forums and communities.…
Much of what we do is accomplished by working collaboratively with others, and a large portion of our lives are spent working and talking; the patterns embodied in the alternation of working and talking can provide much useful insight into…
Synergy (from the Greek word synergos), broadly defined, refers to combined or co-operative effects produced by two or more elements (parts or individuals). The definition is often associated with the holistic conviction quote that "the…
As the volume and complexity of distributed online work increases, the collaboration among people who have never worked together in the past is becoming increasingly necessary. Recent research has proposed algorithms to maximize the…
The success of open source projects crucially depends on the voluntary contributions of a sufficiently large community of users. Apart from the mere size of the community, interesting questions arise when looking at the evolution of…
Wikipedia and open source software projects have been cited as canonical examples of collectively intelligent organizations. Both organizations rely on large crowds of contributors to create knowledge goods. The crowds that emerge in both…
Human and artificial organizations may be described as networks of interacting parts. Those parts exchange data and control information and, as a result of these interactions, organizations produce emergent behaviors and purposes -- traits…
How does the number of collaborators affect individual productivity? Results of prior research have been conflicting, with some studies reporting an increase in individual productivity as the number of collaborators grows, while other…
The highest level of mathematics has traditionally been seen as a solitary endeavour, to produce a proof for review and acceptance by research peers. Mathematics is now at a remarkable inflexion point, with new technology radically…