Week 8_Setia et al. 2012_ Xue Guo

How Peripheral Developers Contribute to Open-Source Software Development

This paper is motivated by the different contributions of Open-Source Software (OSS) Development made by core developers and peripheral developers. Authors of this article explore the role of peripheral developers in OSS product quality and diffusion and how these effects vary across the product life cycle of OSS projects.

Peripheral developers’ motivations and contributions are different from core developers of an OSS project. First, peripheral developers are motivated to contribute the product quality for their own consumption or demonstrate their adherence to the certain community. Second, software adopters rely on the information from their community, and peripheral developers can act as knowledge sources to help the spread information about OSS product. Thus, the paper argues that compared with core developer, peripheral developers have more contributions to the OSS product quality and diffusion. And these effects are more salient in the product mature stage than in the early stages.

Empirically, the paper collects 1966 monthly observations over 147 products. Because of the nested nature of the research design, the paper uses hierarchical linear modeling (HLM). Model1 assesses the variability in diffusion and quality in each level. Model 2 identifies the direct impact of the predictors. And Model 3 tests the cross-level effects at the periodic and product levels. The empirical results showed that peripheral developers’ contribution to product quality assessment is more salient than core developers. And, the peripheral developers’ participation significantly influences product diffusion. Finally, their influences on product quality and diffusion are various across the product life-cycle stages.

Moreover, the paper examined the paradox of peripheral developers’ contribution and found that project size and coordination may moderate the effects of peripheral developers on product quality enhancement. In all, this paper revealed the different roles of developers and differentiated the contributions made by core developers and peripheral developers for OSS projects.