Master on Free Software
The social structure of free software communities
Course: Dynamics of libre software communities
Israel Herraiz<[email protected]>
A Coruña, December 1st 2007
Master on Free Software
Summary
● Do you want to become a free software developer?
● How would you start?● How would you approach an existing
project?● Is there any typical social structure in free
software projects?
Master on Free Software
FLOSS projects
● Projects are like any other human organization
● People assume different roles● If you want to migrate from a role to
another, what do you have to do?● Do all the projects present a typical
structure?
Master on Free Software
Roles in FLOSS projects
● Users– Occasional users– Power users
● Bug reporters● Bug fixers● Developers● Core developers
Master on Free Software
Onion model
Master on Free Software
Onion model migration
Master on Free Software
Sequence
● User● Start to participate in the community● Report bugs● Fix bugs● Get a SCM account
Master on Free Software
Challenge
● Find one of the main contributors in your project
● Find that developer in the mailing list● Track her participation in the mailing lists● Track her participation in the SCM● Track her relative importance and
absolute total contributions● Who is your developer?
Master on Free Software
Challenge
● Track the number of people participating in the user lists
● Track the number of people participating in the developer lists
● Track the number of people commiting changes
● All of these over time● What is the ration among these
parameters over time?
Master on Free Software
Challenge
● Track the total amount of messages in the user and developers lists
● Track the total amount of changes● All of these over time● What are the ratios among these
parameters?● What about messages per person and
commits per person? How do they evolve?
Master on Free Software
References
● The social structure of Free and Open source software development
● The processes of joining in global distributed software projects
● Both papers included in the Moodle
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